[MD] Tea Bagging

[david buchanan]

Mark said to dmb: 
... From my following of recent talking heads, there is nothing in the constitution which demands the separation of church and state (in fact the houses start each day with a prayer).


dmb says:

Yea, that's what Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell said on TV recently. As Steve pointed out, O'Donnell revealed "her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is" when she said that. "That's in the First Amendment?" O'Donnell asked again, eliciting further laughter from the room. Any Senate candidate who doesn't understand that certainly deserves to be laughed at. As Obama said in a speech recently, this is the essence of who we are as a nation. If O'Donnell wins she'll be taking an oath to preserve, protect and defend a constitution that she does not understand. In that same debate, in fact, she staked out positions that violate that particular constitutional principle - the teaching of creationism in public schools. 

I can't imagine that any talking head would deny the separation clause of the first amendment, except on FOX. The idea is well established in law and history and the law school audience that laughed at O'Donnell knows that all too well. And every American really should understand that. The first amendment is arguably the central pillar of our democracy. It's central in the list of principles that Pirsig uses to describe intellectual values, the values that should be used to guide society and to protect the process of intellectual evolution from social level interference. 

I've noticed that religious people sometimes have trouble grasping this concept. That's not just a co-incidence, I suppose. There's plain old ignorance of course but there are ideological static filters at work too. They correlate so strongly that it ALMOST seems like religiosity itself CAUSES confusion about the First Amendment. Almost. It almost seems like one's understanding and appreciation of the separation principle is in direct REVERSE proportion to one's wish for the establishment of religion. In other words, it is misread to the extent that it undermines one's wishes. Psychologically speaking, this is a fascinating phenomenon. 

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas interprets the first amendment is the weakest possible way. He thinks it only prohibits the establishment of a federal church by the national Congress and that the 50 State legislatures should each be allowed to impose a State religion on its citizens. Does that sound like freedom of religion to you? Not me. I think that's morally outrageous and wildly unAmerican.