An article I wrote back in 2006:
There has been a great deal of discussion in the media
recently about the celebration of Christmas in the public domain. Some have asserted that displays of the
Nativity scene and symbols such as the cross are religious and therefore have
no place on public property because of the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment to the Constitution.
The Establishment/Free Exercise clause of the First
Amendment to the Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is a two pronged statement that prohibits
an official state religion, like the Church of England, while clearly upholding
the right to religious practice and expression. The anti-religionists give the
broadest interpretation to the Establishment Clause, while the Free Exercise
component is viewed in the narrowest possible way.
If federal, state or local governments were setting up
churches or other places of worship and encouraging or mandating people to
worship at the state church a religion would have been established. However allowing private groups or
individuals, including churches, temples or mosques, to utilize public spaces for
gatherings or religious displays should be no more considered the establishment
of religion than permitting a fifth grade art exhibit depicting “Mother Earth”
on Earth Day.
To believe that such exhibits violate the Establishment
Clause is to take such a broad interpretation of it as to strain credulity. The
intent of the framers relative to the scope of the clause is evident since the same First Congress that proposed the
Bill of Rights also opened its legislative day with prayer and voted to
apportion federal dollars to establish Christian missions in the Indian lands.
In my opinion, those earnest worshipers of the Establishment
Clause, who on other issues often look upon the Constitution as a “living,
breathing document,” are less concerned with the government establishing a
religion than they are with marginalizing those who actually have one.
The ACLU, which was established by a Marxist, amazingly seems
to battle even the most benign expressions of faith in the public square, such
as The Boy Scouts use of a public park, while at the same time vigorously defending
the rights of organizations such as NAMBLA, which advocates and promotes the
vilest crimes imaginable, citing “free speech.” I suppose the warm waters of
free speech end at the shoreline of religious expression. Hypocrisy never had a
more shining avatar.
There is not simply a “War on Christmas” taking place in our
country. There is a more fundamental conflict of values in progress with underlying
agendas on both sides. The groups and individuals that TV commentator Bill
O’Reilly refers to as “secular progressives” are aggressively trying to remove
all expressions of faith from all public venues.
They want “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.
They want “In God We Trust” removed from our currency. They want crèches, the Ten Commandments, and
Christian crosses removed from every public space. In short they want any evidence
of religious faith confined strictly to private property.
Why should we care about this “culture war?” We should care
because by marginalizing Christianity in particular, the secular progressives
will move a step closer to their dream of an America without God, Who demands
certain behavioral norms that inconveniently conflict with the laissez faire
moral attitudes of 21st century America . The ACLU and other radical
“progressive” organizations want to manipulate what America sees and hears while
maintaining their imagined status as defenders of “free speech.”
They know that if you marginalize God by confining religious
expression to private property you limit and diminish the message. By limiting
the message, your secular progressive message has less competition in the
public marketplace of ideas. They don’t want children to see a Nativity scene
on a courthouse lawn and be curious about the Child in the manger.
Once you limit religion to the private sector, then you have
less resistance to your goal of a Godless, faithless, libertine America where
the only behavior not tolerated is the expression of faith in God. Nothing else
explains the rabidity with which the secular agenda is being pursued today,
after over two hundred years of mostly peaceful coexistence of government and
religion in our country.
The imaginary “wall of separation” between religion and
government does not mandate that religion be shoved out of public life. It
simply means what Jefferson and the other framers intended and that is the
prohibition of formal state religion - nothing more.
The soothing words of those who see no problem banishing God
from public life, whether it is a cross on public property or the act of
wishing someone Merry Christmas at the mall, are calculated to make the average
American believe that all is well and that there is really no problem with
keeping religious expression strictly in the private arena.
They even try to foist upon us the canard that somehow
public expression of religious faith “cheapens and demeans” that faith.
Institutions like the ACLU and their fellow travelers, such as George Soros,
don’t spend tens of millions of dollars every year fighting public religious
expression and traditional values for nothing. They are cleverly hiding their
true intent, hoping that the apathetic majority won’t notice – until it is too
late.
