Posted on Jul 8, 2019
Activists DEMAND ‘Separation of Church and State’. Except in California – Black & Blonde Media
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LGBTQ+
State of California
Religion
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 2
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One need not be a Constitutional scholar to understand the literal meaning of the 1st Amendment, nor a professor of anthropology or history to realize that our nation's founders were virtually unanimous in their fundamentalist Christian viewpoint. I think it's safe to say Jefferson, Adams, and Washington would be aghast at much of what's being debated in our national conscience today...and saddened that their words and ideals were being twisted to not only tolerate, but proliferate practices that run contrary to Biblical teaching. Just my opinion, but I'm pretty sure if they had envisioned such a future, we'd have a very different Constitution today.
Now, the realities of a simple phrase, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." have presented us with a legal and moral crisis. I hate to break it to those in opposition, but passing a resolution, let alone potential laws compelling Americans to tailor their beliefs to fit secular norms, is un-Constitutional. More to the point, it's futile, and only creates the potential (remote as it may as of yet be) for criminalizing thought and philosophy.
Now, the realities of a simple phrase, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." have presented us with a legal and moral crisis. I hate to break it to those in opposition, but passing a resolution, let alone potential laws compelling Americans to tailor their beliefs to fit secular norms, is un-Constitutional. More to the point, it's futile, and only creates the potential (remote as it may as of yet be) for criminalizing thought and philosophy.
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1SG (Join to see)
I was in awe of how fatuously wrong you are until I read you say "Just my opinion".
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LCDR Joshua Gillespie
I apologize for the length of my response; it contains quotes, which need context, and so, please bear with me. For my "opinion" to be "fatuously" wrong (great word choice, by the way)...it would have to be refuted by some statement from any or all of those men. As they aren't alive to provide that commentary, we can take their recorded words on the subject:
Washington: "Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion: The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one."
Adams: “But I must submit all my Hopes and Fears, to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be, I firmly believe.”
Also Adams: ”Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.”
Jefferson (to Adams): "The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at least in his exclamation of `mon Dieu! jusque à quand'! would make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknolege and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a daemon of malignant spirit. "
...clearly (to me at least), these men held strong beliefs most would regard as "fundamentalist" today.
However-all three of these men also expressed variously passionate or vague opinions regarding religious intolerance, "state" religion, and/or fundamentalism as it was perceived in their own time...with Jefferson perhaps being the most outspoken:
Washington: "I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."
Adams: “But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
Jefferson: "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. "
As none of these men (to the best of my knowledge) ever provided a definitive commentary on the subject of homosexuality, I can only infer (hence, my "opinion") that at the very least, they would've questioned government intrusion into the issue. One might argue that each would've regarded a state legislature's decision as wholly separate from that of the central governments...but here again, I can only defer to their own statements:
Washington: "...the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction."
Adams: "Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition,Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Jefferson: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
So, if any of that refutes the "fundamental" beliefs of the Founding Fathers, I'm at a loss for any further response. To my mind, it is very clear that these men were both men of faith, and of reason, who justly perceived issues of moral conscience to be separate, and equally protected from, the actions of government.
Washington: "Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion: The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one."
Adams: “But I must submit all my Hopes and Fears, to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be, I firmly believe.”
Also Adams: ”Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.”
Jefferson (to Adams): "The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at least in his exclamation of `mon Dieu! jusque à quand'! would make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknolege and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a daemon of malignant spirit. "
...clearly (to me at least), these men held strong beliefs most would regard as "fundamentalist" today.
However-all three of these men also expressed variously passionate or vague opinions regarding religious intolerance, "state" religion, and/or fundamentalism as it was perceived in their own time...with Jefferson perhaps being the most outspoken:
Washington: "I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."
Adams: “But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
Jefferson: "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. "
As none of these men (to the best of my knowledge) ever provided a definitive commentary on the subject of homosexuality, I can only infer (hence, my "opinion") that at the very least, they would've questioned government intrusion into the issue. One might argue that each would've regarded a state legislature's decision as wholly separate from that of the central governments...but here again, I can only defer to their own statements:
Washington: "...the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction."
Adams: "Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition,Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Jefferson: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
So, if any of that refutes the "fundamental" beliefs of the Founding Fathers, I'm at a loss for any further response. To my mind, it is very clear that these men were both men of faith, and of reason, who justly perceived issues of moral conscience to be separate, and equally protected from, the actions of government.
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