Separation of Church and State

Before we move on to issue 1.2 of the "What's Left of Our Civil Rights?" series, I have to talk about something that has recently really started bothering me. While I believe firmly that the Constitution guarantees us freedom of religion, and not freedom from religion, I also believe to a large extent in the separation of church and state.

Our founding fathers came here and practiced their religion freely. They left England, where the Church and government were connected, and offered them no true religious freedom, they went to the Netherlands, where they likewise had problems. Finally they went to North America, where they found what they were searching for, freedom from persecution, and the land that would one day found a country based on that very principle.

And while we were tied to Britain for a large part of our early history, part of the fundamental identity of the American people is that we are in fact not British. We are not a Protestant country like Britain, nor a Catholic country like Italy, because we have Article 1, Section 1 which states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

This has led, among other things, to one of the most important tenets of our government: separation of church and state. What people seem to forget lately however, is that the separation of church and state has to work both ways. California is an excellent example of the inequity of this system.

I have thus far avoided writing about the issue of Gay Marriage, not because I don't believe it's a very important issue, but because I didn't trust myself to put together a rational argument about it, given how passionate I am. I will preface the remaining part of the article with this: I have gay friends, and I believe in gay marriage for a number of personal reasons. This however, is not about my personal feelings, and hopefully the article will reflect that.

The general idea is this: If the government stays out of religious affairs, then religions should stay out of the government.

Let me before we continue, allow me to clarify something about Prop 8, which will help this article make substantially more sense, to those of you who did not really do a lot of research on it. Prop 8, was at no point about religious marriage, freedom of religion. It was quite simply, an amendment that sought to change the legal definition of marriage. Freedom of religion means freedom for all religions, not merely ones own. No one was ever going to be forced to marry gay couples to keep their tax status, any more than Catholics are forced to marry people who have not received baptism or catechism. Religious marriage is controlled by each individual religion.

When gay marriage became legal it became just that... legal. Before Prop 8, essentially, churches that wanted to marry gay couples were allowed to, those who did not choose to, simply did not. Gay couples were treated equally under the law, with no prejudice towards their sexual preferences. What Prop 8 did, was change the legal definition required for a state marriage license to coincide with the prevailing Judaeo-Christian belief systems. It allowed religions to control the state law.

Within California there are 770,000 Mormons. They make up roughly 2% of the population, and their views should in no way be law. The Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), actively encouraged it's members to donate money to the Yes on Prop 8 cause. Hundreds of Mormons donated more than $1000 each to the Yes, thousands more made smaller donations. Some like Ronald L. who donated $25,000, Donald P. who donated $50,000, or Mike M. who donated $100,000, donated much more. While other organizations like the Catholic Church, the Evangelicals, and and the Orthodox Church, all admit to being part of the campaign for Prop 8, it's now estimated that between 40% and 70% (the exact percentage is hard to gage because many of the larger donations were not reported) of the total donations for the Yes on Prop 8 came from 2% of California's population, the LDS.

The IRS bars tax exempt organizations from endorsing or opposing specific candidates, or even from using words like "pro-life" (which is misleading, because no one's really against life.) The idea is that the government does not give money to to organizations, which seek to control other people, and keep them from making their own political decisions. Otherwise, it becomes too easy for a very small group of religious leaders to control large amounts of population, and potentially whole elections. The same thing that the IRS seeks to gaurd against in the national presidential race, is now occurring from state to state, as religious organizations take a role in manipulatin of local and state law, moving through the votes and finances of their congregations.

The Mormons ran their adds claiming that the seven supreme court justices ignored the views of California citizens, and yet, they proved their own statement wrong. With all the misinformation, and all the slander, Prop 8 still passed by less than 8%. That's not een 2/3. It wouldn't have been enough to create a constitutional ammendment in congress, and it shouldn't be enough now. The Supreme Court of the United States went against the popular concensus when it decided to desegregate schools and when the decided seperate but equal was not constitutionally viable, because it is the Supreme Court's job (in the Federal Government as in California) to protect the rights of minorities. And yet, by the vote just held, supporters of gay rights are only just barely a minority.

This proposition was able to pass, quite simply because churches have overstepped their bounds in politics, and failed to adhere to the seperation of Church and State. The amount of media manipulation in this race was amazing. This was never an issue of gay marriage being taught in schools, or an issue of existing Churches losing their tax status... though their political actions certainly warrent that in several instances. Instead it was an issue of out of control evangelism.... of groups that instead of seeking to teach and bring people to god, sought to force people into following their beliefs.

To me, constitutionally, was well as morally, this particular issue is so frighteningly clear, that I marvel at the bigotry that would allow the leaders of these campaigns to take away the rights of people who have never done anything to them. And I ask you this: is faith really faith, if what others do outside your church, causes so much fear and hatred in you? Isn't faith unshakeable?

Gay, straight, black, or white, all people deserve civic rights... because all people should be equal under the law. Put aside prejudice.

Sources:
The Salt Lake Tribune
Mormons for Proposition 8
National Public Radio
NBC News - San Diego