Posted on 08/27/2006 7:01:21 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws."
The Florida Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.
Harris made the comments - which she clarified Saturday - in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues.
Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."
"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.
Her comments drew criticism, including some from fellow Republicans who called them offensive and not representative of the party.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who is Jewish, told the Orlando Sentinel that she was "disgusted" by the comments.
Harris' campaign released a statement Saturday saying she had been "speaking to a Christian audience, addressing a common misperception that people of faith should not be actively involved in government."
The comments reflected "her deep grounding in Judeo-Christian values," the statement said, adding that Harris had previously supported pro-Israel legislation and legislation recognizing the Holocaust.
Harris' opponents in the GOP primary also gave interviews to the Florida Baptist Witness but made more general statements on their faith.
Harris, 49, faced widespread criticism for her role overseeing the 2000 presidential recount as Florida's secretary of state.
State GOP leaders - including Gov. Jeb Bush - don't think she can win against Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in November. Fundraising has lagged, frustrated campaign workers have defected in droves and the issues have been overshadowed by news of her dealings with a corrupt defense contractor who gave her $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions.
So what are you then, one of those "Natural Law" kooks? Geez, we are one step away from Scientologists. Gag me.
There's nothing in Scripture about trial by jury, fixed, limited terms of office, no religious test for office, a three-branched government, a bicameral Legislature, impeachment, and so on. These come from British practice, some of which can be traced to the Germanic tribes, and also from Roman and Greek practice.
I'm doubt the validity of the Weber thesis. Republican government can exist where Protestantism is almost nonexistent. Israel, Japan, and India all immediately come to mind.
However, I do agree with with paleoconservatism on this: we should not change our habits and traditions and needlessly, and when change is needed, it should be done gradually. Radicals and social engineers unhappy with modern society forget that Prudence is a virtue and often get results they didn't intend. They only care about intentions anyway.
While anybody who says you can't legislate morality is a pure idiot and should be banned from voting since they don't have the IQ of a pile of poop, the best way to change society is by CONVERSION, not government.
I agree with Harris that the current view of church and state is not what the founders intended. Anybody who bothers to read the Annals of Congress....in which the debates on the first amendment are recorded....will see people were concerned the Amendment could be read to be for a strict separation. Madison spoke up to assure them that that was not the amendment's intent, and the assembly was satisfied and adopted it.
But, while I agree with her there, she was a bit over the top otherwise.
We were not intended to be a theocracy, but a balanced government primarily secular in nature but with some religious influence.
Perhaps, but they grew up inside of Christian culture. Their Deism was a form of rationalized Christianity and they took many things for granted which do not have sense outside of Christian context.
Remove the Christian foundation and the whole Deistic / Liberal [in classic meaning] / Secularist project will collapse.
You'd like to think so, sinkie. As usual, you're wrong.
FreedomFighter78 has already pointed out the fact that the Constitution covers these people. I think the problem arose when I was discussing Natural Rights and he asked the question of constitutional rights (post #108). At times, the notions of Natural Rights and constitutional rights can be interchangeable, however, this was NOT one of those times.
I sloppily interchanged the two terms, but I was discussing the concept of how an atheist would write a Declaration of Independence or Constitution. Where would their Natural Rights come from? That in itself is the interesting question. FreedomFighter78 feels that the Founders would have been able to carry it off; I disagree.
Perhaps you could shed some light on where an atheist's Natural Rights would come from, or are you just here to sneer and score "points", as is your wont?
Christian government works fine as long as it is done voluntarily and without an extreme legalism (obviously it would have stricter laws etc. though than we have today). I would love to live in a little town or something in which everybody covenants together as a Christian society provided this was the case.
What happened with Massachusetts is that people lost that vision, which led to stricter laws in an attempt by the leadership to hold on to their dream (and once sin crept into it, their power). At that point, more people turned away, and the situation was out of control. It was no longer a society that should have been Christian in terms of laws etc. since they were not covenanted together for the purpose.
Yet, they tried to keep a facade of such for centuries after 1700. That probably made their problem worse.
One, atheist or not, can always take the Kantian route and claim that rights are properties of rational beings, a course that I do not endorse.
My outlook on these things is more aretaic and conservative. We're on a ship at sea that can't be reconstructed from scratch, and many of our institutions contain the latent wisdom slowly accumulated from a process centuries long. We mess with it at our peril.
Israel took its political patterns from European politics, especially social democrats and nationalism. Japan was a monarchy until US occupation, India is a confederacy of nations with political organization imported from England who revolted under Gandhi.
There is a tendency for the secondary powers to imitate the center. USA is a republic so the secondary powers imitate it, but often it is very superficial. When the leader changes, the imitation is gone.
After the imperial Rome became Christian monarchy, the secondary powers in Western Europe imitated it in the form of medieval monarchies. Once Constantinople fell, the centrifugal forces prevailed in Europe.
This is from the Annals of Congress and is where Madison himself explains the Amendment.
Not exactly very limiting on religious activity by the government...only prohibits a forced religion according to Madison:
"He apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.”
Nothing in this explanation supports a contention that the federal government could not pass bills supporting religion in general, even perhaps generally the Christian religion.
It was a state church or forced worship that was the problem.
It is mean to ask atheist such questions. Equally mean is to ask self-avowed materialist what matter is.
Really?
You said that "The Declaration of Independence is of no legal value", which of course is true in relationship to our present legal system, but it is the very foundation of the Constitution.
Your statement about the Declaration is a mere lawyer's trick to neutralize a very important part of the discussion, for of course without the Declaration, there would be no Constitution. The Founders never repudiated their words acknowledging the grantor of Natural Rights, the Creator.
It is only such as you who can come along 200 years later and say 'no, it ain't so'. It is attitudes such as yours that lead to people believing that the Constitution, an interesting antique rag of paper without its buddy the Declaration, grants them their Rights.
I believe that rwfromkansas's post #144 is an excellent summation, and one that I can agree with:
To: gcruse; All
While anybody who says you can't legislate morality is a pure idiot and should be banned from voting since they don't have the IQ of a pile of poop, the best way to change society is by CONVERSION, not government.
I agree with Harris that the current view of church and state is not what the founders intended. Anybody who bothers to read the Annals of Congress....in which the debates on the first amendment are recorded....will see people were concerned the Amendment could be read to be for a strict separation. Madison spoke up to assure them that that was not the amendment's intent, and the assembly was satisfied and adopted it.
But, while I agree with her there, she was a bit over the top otherwise.
We were not intended to be a theocracy, but a balanced government primarily secular in nature but with some religious influence.
A strict separation is not what was intended.
As for Jefferson, he wrote a letter in which he said that the state had the right to deal extensively with religion, just not Congress.
"...No power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the states or the people...Libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals." --- Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Kentucky Resolution (may have just been a draft, or left in the final version...can't remember)
Some more quotes from Jefferson and others:
"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, Jan. 26, 1799 (source: Library of Congress online)
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority (Jefferson letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808)."
"The Whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments." --Commentaries on the Constitution by early SCOTUS Chief Justice Joseph Story
"[T]he clause of the Constitution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, ever one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes and they believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes." -- Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
"Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." ---Northwest Ordinance
They make and enforce rules don't they?
It's interesting that Kant and his writings were coeval with the Founders. I'm wondering if the solution to the posit of FreedomFighter78 about the Founders being able to defend the Rights without the Creator lies here.
Hard to say how long it took to digest and interpolate the main writings of Kant. I'll have to look into the matter.
LOL!
Yes, really.
The idea of natural rights/natural law emerged out of Enlightenment thinking, and, though many Enlightenment thinkers were religious, Reason/rationality was at the center of Enlightenment thought. Look at Hobbes, one of the early Enlightenment thinkers (and also one of the first to spell out the idea of natural rights). According to Hobbes, there are certain things that all humans do: they seek out their own self-interest and contentment (i.e. they pursue happiness), they seek to amass whatever items/land/etc they can (i.e. property), and they seek self-preservation (i.e. life). Hobbes argued that since such activities are universal, they must be inherent human traits, and so to deny them would be to deny one's right to be human. Since all humans necessarily have a right to be human (it would be absurd to argue that a human does not have the right to be human), and since these other things (life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness) are an inherent part of being "human," it follows that all humans have a right to life, liberty, etc.
That is, of course, an oversimplification of Hobbes' argument (read Leviathan sometime, it's long but worthwhile), and of course, Hobbes wasn't nearly as "liberal" (old-meaning...the good one) as later Enlightenment thinkers (his ideas on how government should protect "natural rights" were decidedly illiberal). But, it demonstrates, at the very least, that there can be an argument for natural rights that does not depend on a Creator. For more, check out Locke's (the Second Treatise on Government is most applicable, though you should also probably read his Letter Concerning Toleration)
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
"One, such as a monarch or dictator, that rules or governs. 2. A straightedged strip, as of wood or metal, for drawing straight lines and measuring lengths."
You can grant legislators the status of rulers if you like, but I know that they are public servants, which can be changed by the will of people.
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