The Illusion of Neutrality: The secular state cannot be neutral in matters of religion

We have all heard what has come to be a liberal dictum, that the State must remain neutral as regards religion or irreligion. One can show fairly easily that the men who wrote our constitution had no such neutrality in mind, given the laws that they and their fellows subsequently passed, their habits of public prayer at meetings, and their common understanding that freedom without virtue, and virtue without piety, were chimeras. To show that that understanding persisted, all one need do is open every textbook for school children published for almost two hundred years; or recall that Catholic immigrants established their own schools not so that their pupils might read the Bible, but so that they might choose which translation they were to read.

Still, there are two more fundamental reasons for rejecting the dictum. One is that it is not possible. The other is that it is not conceivable, even if it were possible. It is a contradiction in terms.

On the impossibility: consider the effects of a permission that radically alters the nature of the context in which the action is permitted. We might call this the Nude Beach Principle. Suppose that Surftown has one beautiful beach, where young and old, boys and girls, single people and whole families, have been used to relax, go swimming, and have picnics. Now suppose that a small group of nudists petitions the town council to allow for nude bathing. Their argument is simple—actually, it is no more than a fig leaf for the mere expression of desire. They say, “We want to do this, and we, tolerant as we are, do not wish to impose our standards on anyone else. No one will be required to bathe in the raw. Live and let live, that's

That is exactly true. And I think the First Amendment should be enforced as written: "Congress shall make no law ..."

In the beginning, states did have laws. I know Rhode Island did. I believe that a federation of 50 states could offer a lot of religious freedom. You need an abortion? Go to MA: it's officially atheist. You don't want to run into Muslims? Go to Texas: Muslims are not allowed.

It's a matter of granularity. The Founders set up a system that could allow many choices and a great deal of freedom. Over time, the tyrants decided that one-size-fits-all was a better idea, and the one-size became: freedom from religion.

And look where we are.

This is a thought provoking piece. Thank you for posting it.

The secular state is a fairly new invention, and its ability to function over the long term or even medium term is very much in doubt. As long as the culture that under-girds it holds up (meaning that it’s actually secular only in an official sense) it can chug along. Once that is gone, in favor of something like “diversity”, there is no way it can help but become tyrannical. The United States was a Christian country, despite any interpretation of anything in the Constitution. That required some conformity that was mostly not enforced by the government, but by society. To the extent the government did participate, it was as an extension of the culture. As that culture is degraded and eroded, we are in uncharted territory. The Left seized the media and the schools for that very reason, and have made huge inroads in the churches.

But would you really want a system like that? Christianity isn’t the only religion in the US. What would happen to religious people in MA? Could your Jewish city council ban the consumption of pork or shellfish in city limits? If you want pork, give up your home and job and move. 3 towns over.
Think about how you would balk at laws written to satisfy someone else’s religion. No pork, no shellfish, no blood transfusions, not being to celebrate Christmas, or dress up your kids for Halloween, ect. That’s how the rest of us would feel about laws that you’d want passed because of your religion.Any act you do in your normal life is against someone’s religion. You are free to do it because, as a non-adherent to that religion, you aren’t bound to its laws. I prefer this system where you are free to live your life the way you want, and I am free to do the same. Nothing I do in my life hurts you or the practice of your faith. Not everyone shares your faith. We shouldn’t be made to live the way you want.

There are some essential principles of our society, that is supposed to be a republican-democracy. One of the most important, but not often thought of, is that, in their wisdom, our founding fathers knew from previous experience that written words are subverted before the ink is dry.

So they set up the organization of our government with many balances of people in groups with competing interests, in the idea that they would help “to keep each other honest” in following the written law. Not a perfect system, but not bad. And certainly better than any known alternative.

But though this exists in all societies, this highlighted the obvious: that government pays attention to the needs and wants of the majority, and the larger minority factions among the public.

Yet they only do so with “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” attitude. A majority or a larger minority may be powerful, but unless they assert their rights, their rights are ignored.

And all of that is background to a discussion of religion in America.

From its founding, the US government has continued to grow in power. But not power in a vacuum. That is, for it to have *more* power, the states and the citizenry must have *less* power.

This means that only when the states and the citizenry, and yes, religion, asserts their rights, will the US government back off, at least sometimes. But if they *do not* assert their rights, they lose them. And the pressure is constant.

At the founding of the republic, births of children were registered in churches. But today, government registers all births, at the state and federal level, and religion is cut out of the deal. Churches no longer register births for the most part.

So religion allowed government to take that sacrament away from them.

At the founding of the republic, marriages were also registered in churches. But government has now taken that away from religion, declaring that only government approved marriages are official. And religion let them.

At the founding of the republic, deaths were registered by churches. Now even death is absorbed by ever growing government, and certainly the paperwork of death.

And religion has let them do this as well.

Government continues to take over the functions of religion, but only does so because religion does not stand up and resist, but meekly renders its authority unto Caesar.

In China, the government appoints all religious leaders in the Christian faith. For anyone else to preach is a serious crime.

Is that contemplated in the US? Yes it is. The IRS is now trying to control the speech from the pulpit, at first only to forbid political speech. (And in Canada, to prohibit speech against homosexuality). But eventually, the government will demand the authority to control sermons and religious doctrines, under the basic principle, “Because we can!”

And, if religion continues to be a willing slave, the government will oblige. It will only stop, and not stop, but to retake their authority, if religions stand up and show some backbone.

It makes you wonder if they have them.

You misunderstood me. Badly.

I oppose a national government making one set of religious laws for everyone.
I do not seek 50 state governments, each seeking restrictive religious laws for the people within their state.
I'm open to the idea that each state could decide to:

Within a representative system, it seems unlikely that any state will declare pork illegal, or pass a law against blood transfusions.

My point is basically, that if any state made a stupid choice and edged in that direction, residents ought to have 49 other states that they could move to and live their life as they choose.

Under our current system, the federal government makes stupid decisions about abortion or homosexual marriage, and 320 million people are stuck with it and have no recourse.

I'm arguing for a diverse system in which you get 50 chances to avoid the problem we have today. I'm arguing for what the Founding Fathers actually gave us, and which we threw away a long, long time ago.

Our representative Republic was designed to pit opposing forces against one another to constantly guard against excessive power. The states were intended to be the natural foil against the federal leviathan. The states’ people were given the power to constrain the power of the states. Religion held moral authority over the people.

While the power structure seems hierarchical, the actual effect was the inverse. The ultimate power lay with the churches, but any influence over society as a whole had to pass through all the other spheres to control the government. As shown by history, no religion has been able to significantly influence federal law until the rise of atheism.

Once the states became agents of, rather than participants in, the federal government, the entire structure collapsed.

States now compete for federal favor, and individuals now compete for state or local control and the church trawls for social acceptance because she abdicated her moral authority in exchange for tax exemptions. Individuals struggle for whatever hedonistic pleasure they can gather and know nothing of their history or the ideals that guaranteed their liberty.

Atheism has aligned itself (naturally) with those who have subverted our republic and turned the guardians into agents. It is content to force submission under an authoritarian behemoth, and attracts those hungry for power.

While many atheists will decry this as a personal attack, it is nothing of the sort. It is a matter of where authority belongs in the structure of our government. Moral authority belongs at the base of the structure and has direct authority over individuals. Whereas no religion, or lack of religion, has any right to use legislative power to control or influence federal powers. When this principle is not heeded, you get the Inquisition or the Communist purges.

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