You Gotta Remember This Is Fox
Wow. You gotta be amazed at how someone passing himself off as a journalist can (a) get so many facts wrong, and (b) pack his interview with so much bias. And usually, these things are allowed to pass without remedy, but this time, the interviewee was someone who knew the actual facts and was willing to stop the conversation and make the corrections (if not point out the bias). Here’s Fox second-stringer Dave Briggs getting his fanny gently handed to him by Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation:
Note the usual Fox captions, including “Preying on Prayer,” and the suspicious ID of the judge, with photo–which, to Fox viewers, is a message saying “harass this person.”
But the vapid, error-filled arguments, really nothing more than right-wing talking points, are what really catch one’s attention. Briggs got pretty much everything wrong. He claimed that no one had complained, when so many had; he claimed that the central issue was that no one is forced to pray, when the issue was separation of church and state; he claimed that the Constitution made mentions of god, when he was quoting the Declaration of Independence, which is not a legal document. He even brought Christmas into it, rather lamely, suggesting that the guest would want to ban that next.
Barker replied well, and even brought up the Treaty of Tripoli, a legal document signed by John Adams himself, ratified by that early Congress, and published publicly without scandal or outcry, which stated unequivovally that the United States is not “in any sense” founded on Christianity. If anything, Barker was kind and gentle to this guy. Me, I detest “journalists” who don’t pay attention to facts, and would have called him out rather ungently. Barker’s approach was better, of course–but you can bet any amount and be safe to win that the vast majority of Fox viewers heard only what the interviewer said and didn’t believe anything said by Barker.
When will these numbskulls get the fact that separation of church and state is there to protect all beliefs, especially the right to religious belief? That this separation, in fact, was originally designed to safeguard the freedom of religion, and that if these evangelicals and wingnuts get their way, it will be the death knell of that religious freedom in this country?
I loved this Barker!
I didn’t “love this Barker.” First, he used the Treaty of Tripoli, as justification to show we are not a Christian country, contrary to a multitude of other evidence because a weak, brand new, country, on the cusp of failure, stood up in the world and dissembled, stating, sure we’re not Christian country…please don’t capture our sailors. It’s a classic, and clever, technique of cherry picking documents that support your case and completely ignoring multitudes of others that don’t …like the perpetual citing of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, not a legal document, but frequently cited as support for “separation of church and state” because he mentioned “a wall of separation between church and state”. It’s easy to quote Jefferson in this private letter and conveniently ignore so much other documentation about the Christian faith of the Founding Fathers.
From Wikipedia “Prior to the nation’s founding, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation recommending “a day of publick [sic] humiliation, fasting, and prayer” be observed on July 20, 1775.[3] During the Quasi-War with France, President John Adams declared May 9, 1798 as “a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer,” during which citizens of all faiths were asked to pray “that our country may be protected from all the dangers which threaten it”.[4] On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation expressing the idea “that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins”, and designated the day of April 30, 1863 as a day of “national humiliation, fasting and prayer” in the hope that God would respond by restoring “our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace”. He went on to say, “…it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”[5][6]
I guess the Continental Congress, Adams, and Lincoln, among others got it wrong. Perhaps Rob Brezsny, http://www.freewillastrology.com/beauty/prayer.html, got it right because he’d have been free to join in the day of prayer….but, wait, he too was denied the opportunity or right to express with others the free exercise of religion, by Mr Barker and his cronies…as were all of us.
Mark, “there are courses for horses”. American Hispanics have come up with the term “culturally Hispanic”, i.e., there is no question that they are as American as their anglo compatriots and that they owe their undivided loyalty to the U.S. They may no longer speak Spanish but they recognize their distinctiveness: I have found the same trait in American friends of Escandinavian origin. I myself, an agnostic “de jure” and and atheist “de facto”, consider myself “culturally Christian”. I was brought up in a Christian environment and I know all the ins and outs of Christianism: I cannot say the same of Islamism or Buhdism. I have no “feeling” for them.
Of all the many traits that make up a culture, religion and language are, acconding to Huntington, the step determining ones. Indeed, the Western culture would be difficult to understand without Christianism. I had no objection to the Pope’s recommendation that in the preamble to the failed consitution of the European Union, reference be made to its Christian background, but the French didn’t like it. It is silly to argue that the Western culture is not Christian: it is also Caucasian. The problem is when fundamentalist of whatever doctrine, take charge and use religion or race to make a point: this is particularly annoying in a country like the U.S. with peoples of all origins. For a European, the big song and dance that Americans make of religion is simply quaint.
I take note that “this Barker” was a fake.
No, it’s an indicator, commonly found, of the principle of having a nation of people, where people may freely exhibit a strong religious faith, while maintaining a wall between the personal endorsement and a national endorsement, between recognition and legal establishment. The error comes mostly from the fundamentalist religious community, which evidently cannot distinguish them, and therefore does not see the essential division.
On the initial “National Day of Prayer” which you use as evidence to your point, note that it is a proclamation, not a law–the law was instituted in 1952, a few years before they added the words “Under God” to the pledge, at a time when the Cold War scare prompted a rash of religious incursions that at other times would not have been allowed. But the founders made no law concerning it. A “proclamation” is not an official endorsement. Same goes with Lincoln’s “proclamation.” You are confusing non-legal recognition of religious faith with official state endorsement or proselytization, giving specific religious sects’ practices the force of law. While those intent on separation of church and state may blanch at a president mentioning god, only the extremists will go so far as to say they are unconstitutional. A politician may express his or her personal faith as much as they want, and they may issue whatever non-binding, revenue-neutral nods to everything from religion in general to National Pancake Month that they wish. Making laws is another thing.
This is the error that Briggs and others make concerning the Constitution. They point to god being prominently mentioned in the Declaration of Independence–often misidentified as the Constitution–and mistake it as proof that the nation is founded on Christianity. What they overlook or ignore is that the Declaration was not a legal document, but instead a public declaration of grievances and justifications for their actions as a body of people. The Constitution was law, the highest law–and it makes ONE and ONLY one mention of religion, and only to establish that no religious test may be applied to a public servant taking office. The founding legal document only mentions religion in terms of keeping it out of government. Not a big endorsement of the concept of a Christian foundation. Indeed, in the 1800’s there were attempts to make the “founded on Christianity” idea a law–and it was soundly defeated each time.
Take your quote from John Adams: “a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer,” during which citizens of all faiths were asked to pray “that our country may be protected from all the dangers which threaten it.” He quite specifically asks people of all faiths to pray; he does not announce that a Christian nation prays such. Presidents often call for prayer. No problem. Proclamations, recommendations, requests, and poetry in rhetoric–these do not violate the principle of separation. Passing a law is different.
Your examples, instead, are excellent ones of how religion may be fully present in the public square without encroaching on the separation of church and state. Not only is Barker not cherry-picking, but even evidence supposedly to the contrary is consistent with what he was pointing out. But, as with many fundamentalists, you do not see the vital distinction between a state which recognizes religion and a state which affirmatively endorses religion.
Instead, you appear to believe that “separation of church and state” means that any mention of god or religion by anyone in government is forbidden, and so take examples of separation to be examples of establishment.
You even misinterpret the Tripoli statement as being subterfuge; it may have been so inasmuch as it diverted attention away from the religious influence on individuals as opposed to the state, but it was in fact a national policy, so self-evident that no one questioned it. Remember, it was published with force of law and no one protested it in a nation full of deeply religious people. Was everyone “in” on it? No, it’s just that back then, the wisdom of separation was widely understood and respected–a sense we have lost over time, and so do not recognize the dispassionate acceptance of the populace of the time for what it really was. They were not lying in the treaty, they were making clear that the nation was not carrying out a religious mission, very much a truth.
I urge you to consider the very idea of separation of church and state, and why it is essential to religious freedom and the flourishing of religious diversity and practice. The founders were closer to this: they remembered, indeed even witnessed the vivid results of a state married to religion. They were descended from those who escaped nations with official religious entities backed by the state, as their ancestors were persecuted and hounded from their churches and homes for believing differently than the state sanctioned. They saw America as a state populated greatly by the victims of that evil. This experience is what brought the wise and successful decision to assure that it would not happen here, that the American state would never allow itself to establish any national religion which would inevitably turn against those with differing beliefs.
The founders were highly cognizant of the difference between a state founded on the Christian religion and a state made up of mostly Christians, and founded on the principle of religious freedom.
A distinction you should appreciate more–since it is that distinction that has afforded you the religious freedom you now enjoy. Had America indeed been founded on the Christian religion as you suggest, there would have by now been a state church, and were you not a member, you would not have the freedom to worship as you wish.
Unfortunately America, the former haven for all refugees is full now.
Many of its citizens perceive immigrants as cocroaches. Wall mentality wins and a part of that mentality is rejecting the different.
“You are not like us” is a curse now and people who are different start to feel the pressure.