11/02/23
11/2/2023“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; . . .”
So says the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 14thAmendment extended its authority to the various states, so for the past 155 years or so it’s served as basic law everywhere in the United States, under every jurisdiction.
Not everyone is happy about that.
The “free exercise” part is just fine. It’s the “make no law respecting an establishment of religion” part that they wrestle with.
Everyone can believe what he or she chooses to believe. That’s a freedom everyone enjoys. The corollary, of course, is that I don’t have the right to use government, through legislation or administration, to force my beliefs on you. You can’t do that to me, either.
But there’s some of that going around these days.
The U.S. Supreme Court back in 2015 ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the due process clause and equal protection clause of the Constitution. Opponents of same-sex marriage could not persuade the Court that such marriages automatically damaged the participants or their children, or society at large.
When it came down to it, most of the objections to same-sex marriage arose from the religious beliefs of the opponents. The Court correctly dismissed those arguments. I’m not a constitutional scholar. But it’s pretty clear that to allow a religious argument to carry the day on something as basic as marriage would violate the First Amendment.
Yet some members of Congress today propose to pass legislation that would outlaw same-sex marriage, apparently because it violates their religious beliefs.
Years earlier a Court decision arising from a case brought up from Virginia declared that interracial marriages should be treated the same as marriages between persons of the same race. Much of the argument against interracial unions, like that against same-sex marriage, arose from religious beliefs, which under the First Amendment do not constitute a legitimate basis for American laws.
Today, in some locations, there are attempts to infuse public school lessons with the belief that America, led by “traditional” Americans, are chosen by God as special, and that the nation’s history is guided by a Supreme Being.
Those teachings are perfectly OK at home or in a private or religious school, if that’s what the students’ parents and the school’s leaders wish to impart. They don’t have a place in a public school. The First Amendment forbids public school students, in the classroom or in other school activities, to be taught such religious lessons by school officials.
I have no problem with public officials stating the role their religion plays in their lives. For many of us, in both our private and public life, faith provides guidance and strength that we otherwise would not have.
But it’s not in keeping with the First Amendment for adherents to a particular religious belief, no matter how widespread or popular, to try to impose that belief on everyone through government action. In our constitutional democracy, legislation needs to stand on its own because most of us think its results will be beneficial on their face, not because it’s in line with a particular form of religion.
The constitutional pendulum swings back and forth on such issues, and recently it has been swinging toward a greater role for religion in government actions and decisions. For some folks that’s fine—it’s how they envision America should be run.
For others, not so much. Not everyone adheres to religious explanations for history, and even if they do, it’s a violation of the First Amendment if their government takes action because of those beliefs. To put a finer point on it, not all Christians think alike, let alone believers of other faiths.
A true test of Americans is whether they can resist the temptation to force their religious faith into government institutions even if it’s the foundation of their life.
