Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Barry Lynn has a follow-up post at Talk2Action about the upcoming PBS show about the separation of church and state. He links to a statement from PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler where he admits that the show is "heavy handed" and clearly tilted toward the religious right perspective on separation. The problem, of course, is not that it's biased or tilted - any presentation, any opinion, is "biased" - the problem is that it is highly inaccurate. Consider this quote from the narration:
"The United States is a society based on the rule of law. And our Founding Fathers believed that if they did not base their laws on a higher authority, then whoever was in power would determine what the law said. They called this `tyranny.' Their higher authority was the Law of God - the Ten Commandments."
But as Lynn points out, there is no reference to the Bible, to any "higher authority", or to the Ten Commandments anywhere in the Constitution or in any of the documents written to explain and defend the Constitution (the Federalist Papers). Indeed, as I pointed out in one of the first posts I wrote on this blog in 2003, at least 6 of the Ten Commandments are clearly prohibited by the Constitution. How in the world does one make the argument that the Constitution is "based on" a set of religious laws, most of which would clearly be forbidden by that Constitution?
There is certainly room for a balanced, reasonable middle ground on the question of church/state separation. A truly balanced, accurate position - one that Lynn's group should also admit, I think - would be that one can provide powerful historical arguments to support either the Jefferson/Madison position of strict separation or the Washington/Adams position of non-coercive accommodation as legitimate perspectives on the meaning and intent of the first amendment religion clauses. But one simply cannot make the argument that the first amendment could possibly be reconciled with the notion that the Biblical law was intended to take precedence over the Constitution, that it formed the basis of the Constitution, or that it was meant to be enforced as the civil and criminal law of the land. That is entirely ahistorical and can only be based on distortion or demagoguery. It's a shame that PBS has chosen to give voice to a clearly untenable position.
Comments
Clearly the Washington/Adams position has prevailed and I think that this is at best, unfortunate and at worst, a grave mistake. From the time of the founding, the christianists have been trying to undermine the Constitution in order to control the country. Any small opening--such as an accommodation--is exploited to the fullest and if there is no opening, the christianists attempt to force one with distortion and lies. Had the founders been able to force and maintain a clean break between religion and government, the country as a whole and both religion and government would be the better for it.
Posted by: James | June 23, 2007 10:26 AM
Great point. I'm working on a post which should help clarify the "higher law" and show that though the Founders did believe in "higher law," that law is, for the most part, reason, not revelation.
Posted by: Jon Rowe | June 23, 2007 11:37 AM
James wrote:
I don't think it's clear at all that their position has prevailed. In fact, I think it's clear that the Madison/Jefferson position has prevailed more often over the last 60 years or so while the Washington/Adams position tended to win before that. The results, predictably, have been mixed. The courts have allowed things like non-sectarian legislative prayers, innocuous statements on currency and such; on the other hand they've been very stringent in terms of school policy, doing away with forced prayer and Bible reading, with teaching any religious idea, and with almost anything that even gives a hint of government endorsement of religion. The incoherency in our church/state law is largely a result of tension between these two perspectives and the fact that the Court is unwilling to move entirely to one side or the other (and if you want to see how incoherent it is, just look at the various Ten Commandments cases - the last one to be decided resulted in 7 separate opinions from the 9 justices - or the various nativity/creche rulings). So I don't think it's accurate to say that one has prevailed. Each viewpoint has prevailed in different circumstances. The good news is that the third option, which would allow the government to coerce religious belief, is completely off the table; no one, not even Thomas and Scalia, would go anywhere near that standard.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | June 23, 2007 11:58 AM
I haven't been following this story, but is this documentary a result of Bush administration appointees taking over and attempting to correct the supposed "left-leaning bias" at PBS? There was a big fuss about this a couple of years ago, but I haven't seen much since.
Posted by: tacitus | June 23, 2007 12:03 PM
Ed,
You may be right. Clearly, there has been significant push-back over the last half century or so. Whether or not that push-back will get us to the Jefferson/Madison position is open to question. And that is the position I think we should be at and should have been at all along. "...non-sectarian legislative prayers, innocuous statements on currency and such..." are not innocuous, but openings into which the christianists will attempt to drive a wedge. As you have often pointed out, as long as the person giving the prayer is nominally some sort of christian, there is no problem. However, if they are muslim, wiccan, or something else, cover your ears before the whining starts.
Jon Rowe has pointed out many times the compromises the founders had to make in order to get the Constitution in place and get the republic up and working. This is why I stated "Had the founders been able to force and maintain a clean break between religion and government." Undoubtedly, this is another example of that compromising because of the significant pressure of the religious tenor of the times. I do not have the knowledge to say, but I often wonder if the christianists of the founding era were as duplicitous as the ones we are dealing with today.
Posted by: James | June 23, 2007 1:35 PM
James-
Oh, I don't think we'll ever make it all the way to a Jefferson/Madison conception. And that's okay with me. Enormous progress has been made and will continue to be made, even if it never goes all the way. Such compromises are inevitable.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | June 23, 2007 1:39 PM
Ed,
I certainly hope your assessment of the progress being made is correct and my apprehension is misplaced. That will only happen if we continue to push-back and never "censor ourselves so as not to offend the clearly insane" as you so succinctly put it.
Posted by: James | June 23, 2007 2:00 PM