The gloves are finally off: according to a poll, one third of Americans want a state religion. Two hundred years after the United States was created by men and women fleeing the stifling rule and religious persecution of their homes, we have come full circle by expressing a desire by some to return to a state sanctioned religion. No surprise that the preferred state religion is Christianity. Reflecting on the reasons for such a supposedly non-American public opinion, the pollsters wonder if it could be “reflective of dissatisfaction with the current balance of religion and politics”. In my mind, however, the results of the poll point to some deep-rooted issues, which instead of being dismissed as inconsequential because it could never actually happen, should be analyzed to understand the thought process of millions of the population.
Surely not a coincidence, a related news story making the rounds last week was that of North Carolina lawmakers petitioning to make Christianity the state religion. While many took it as a joke, it led to a scare among religious minority groups in the state and across the nation. Jewish and Muslim leaders rightly voiced their concerns to the ACLU, whose state legal director Chris Brook explained:
People were horrified by this proposal because it sent a message of exclusion to them, that they don’t matter… It’s a very unfortunate and confusing message to be sending in 2013.
It turned out that the bill was an attempt to sanction Christian prayer in government offices, which is an entirely different discussion. But it could also be taken as a lab test of what the rest of the nation would go through if one-third of Americans had their way. The fact that the bill was struck down was an indication of the soundness of the U.S. constitution and the Bill of Rights, but it – and the poll – are similarly indications of the discomfort and alienation in the minds of average Americans about religion itself. More alarmingly, it points to a lack of religious tolerance and pluralism that interfaith activists like me have been striving towards since 9/11. More than two years ago, Wendy Kaminer of The Atlantic discussed the long-term effects of religious intolerance amongst Americans. Interestingly, even as people become disillusioned with religion, they feel the need to deny others the right to practice their faith in public. Which is the essential, though shrouded, argument for a state or national religion – if you follow anything other than this one religion, you cannot practice it in public.
The benefits of a separation of church and state are innumerable and undeniable. What Americans have never experienced firsthand is perhaps the most dangerous impact of establishing a state religion: persecution of religious minorities. Muslim countries unfortunately have fallen into this trap all too well. From Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and virtually every Muslim nation in between, so-called Islamic laws have crushed the rights of non-Muslims to the extent that those laws no longer resemble true Quranic teachings. The reality is that when one religion is preferred by the government over another, and preferential treatment is meted out to that religious group in terms of even school prayer or invocations, the result can be dangerous and terrifying. The persecution meted out by state sanctioned laws against Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia, and against Christians in the Middle East should be a warning to those Americans who would like to establish one religion over others in their state. There can never be a happy ending to such a sad story.
We don’t live in the pestulance of Pakistan or Saudi. The US has an iron clad constitutional amendment seperating church and state. Jusr an FYI. The UK, Norway and Austria al have state religions as well.
Jerry, I agree that the U.S. is very different from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that any constitution is “ironclad”. The interesting thing about democracy is that if enough people want something, they can make it happen, for better or worse. Remember when slavery in the US was legal… in a pretty ironclad way?
Slavery was never written into the constitution yet it took a civil war and 1 million dead to end slavery through a constitutional amendment.
I suggest you read a detailed explanationj about the process of changing the consititution in the US. You will find that it is quite difficult to engage in a process of creating a state religion.
Um, in fact slavery was actually codified in the US constitution, although not by calling it slavery, but essentially guaranteeing the right to import slaves, with a provision that this could not be overturned until 1807. No other provision in the constitution had any limit to being overturned.
Bottom line, it was not called slavery. 1807 was how long ago?
From my point of view, most if not all, religious labels have at least two divisions, some somewhat good & some not so good.
I consider myself a Christian, but am not a member of any particular Christian organization as I do not support certain Christian organization positions on what is somewhat good and not so good or simply inhumane. I was raised a Mormon, thinking I was a Christian, until I questioned their racist and gender positions – and their support of violent resolutions to human affairs. But, I have family members and friends who are devout Mormons and who I regard as quite good Christians and perhaps more Christian than I am.
These labels and positions can readily become matters of life and death. Note the current divisions in Syria & Iraq with Muslim Shiites and Sunnis and in the Middle East with Jews & Muslims. Then there are secular divisions like in the USA and other countries such as in Israel with militant and non-militant political factions.
Too bad we seem not able to learn how to live under a code of behavior such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There is a lot to be concerned about in today’s world. This isn’t one of them
Many people do not understand the importance of keeping church and state separate–yet it was to get away from religious persecution by the state of England that the ‘pilgrims’ went first to Holland and then to the “new land”. Thomas Jefferson was very concerned that this separation be expressed in no uncertain terms in the constitution of the United States of America. He wrote of it in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, and maintained his stance as the revolutionary war was fought and won, and the new republic was established.
We do not want one state religion. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, but not a promoter of one religion only; I believe in the freedom of conscience of human beings to believe, or not, in religious faith.
As Gore Vidal pointed out, the puritans were not escaping religious persecution in England. They were looking to establish a religious community with no tolerance for nonbelievers, which was not possible in England which allowed for religious freedom. They came here to establish a colony where sinners could be publicly punished and there was no tolerance for license. That ghost is always in the American machine.
reading the last 2 comments, i’m noticing the opposing statements about the pilgrims-and/or puritans who immigrated to america to escape the religious situation in england at the time.
one comment states that there was religious persecution then in england, and the other states that there was religious freedom in england, and the ‘real’ reason for the immigration was to have the ‘freedom’ to persecute non-adherents to their own puritan religion, which england didn’t sanction.
which is the truth?? possibly, some variants of the 2, i don’t know. there had been plenty of religious strife in england at the time of the reformation, and both idealogies fought, so there may have been lots of switches and changes of policy.
my reason for focusing on this is that the whole subject of religious freedom is extremely volatile. depending on who head the religious institutions, any change can happen through political struggles. there is always a need to be vigilant to insure all freedoms which can be usurped behind our backs, with deception and lies.
Shira, the Puritans were around 300 years ago. This is 2013. We have one of te best court systems in the world and a constitution that is very hard ot change.
As for Saadia, she can enjoy celebrating here religi here in te US, whihc cannot be said elsewhere in te Islamic world
I was born in Utah, and moved away when I was a child. In 1971 I moved back there when my husband was transferred there. I could not get a job anywhere because I was not a Mormon. It wasn’t until Affirmative Action was passed that I was finally able to be hired on and enetr the work force in Salt Lake City. That state has a state religion. It’s the only state I’ve ever lived in where the second question you are asked after first meeting someone is, “what religion are you?”
We need to expand the church-state separation into an overall separation between RELIGION and state. And we should push such a separation worldwide. Our country is Exhibit A for how real religion flourishes when separate from the state. The empty churches of Europe are Exhibit A for how state connections corrupt and gut religion from within. Islamists are, at least in part, a reaction to the same decay now happening throughout the Arab/Muslim world. And where is Islam most vital? In those countries where there has been some separation between religion and state–Indonesia, India, central Asia and Albania.
The Constitution is very hard to change directly, but not so hard to change indirectly, through Supreme Court interpretation and reinterpretation. The Roberts Court has wrought huge changes in the Constitution and will continue to do so for years to come. Nothing easier than to affirm the right to practice one’s religion at public events, such as school-sponsored events, thereby imposing them on any non-believer who thinks they ought to be able to go a school-sponsored event without going to a sectarian religious event. But that has been upheld. Cheerleaders can now Rah-Rah-Rah around a cross they post next to the playing field. Imagine what it’s like to be a non-Christian student at that school.
As for the best court system, maybe. But we still have elected judges in 36 states, and I can tell you where the campaign contributions do not come from: criminal defendants, injured individuals, and consumers. In the South, criminal defendants in serious cases, include death penalty cases, still receive indifferent to incompetent legal representation. Even in my own state, Colorado, with an excellent (if underfunded) Public Defender system, a man convicted of murder was released a few years ago because the prosecution and police withheld evidence and inadequately investigated. Two of those prosecutors were appointed as judges (though, to the voters’ credit, the two were not retained).
Do not relax, ever, in the fight to keep religion and the state separate.
You speak of the persecution of religious minorities in countries with an establlshed religion. You neglect the terrible persecution of Muslims in the US. The hate speech against Muslims by figures such as Patricia Geller (labeled as hate speech by the Southern Poverty Center) and Congressman Joe Walsh (Green Party) have led to the deaths of seven persons thus far who were thought to be Muslims and were killed for that reason, though only one was actually a Muslim. The man pushed in front of a subway train by the woman who “Wanted to kill a Muslim” was actually a Hindu. And the government persecutes Muslims by having the FBI infiltrate mosques and their informers try to convince worshipers to perform terrorist acts so that the informer can obtain a reward for revealing the plan. The US also exiles US Muslims: one Ph.Dl student was exiled when she went abroad to present her doctoral work at a conference. The US put her on a no-fly list and would not allow her to return to the US. And all of the US wars are against Muslims. Everyone now knows that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction: the US destroyed an innocent country, just as some are trying to get it to destroy another innocent country–Iran, which is not trying to develop nuclear weapons: the Ayatollah, the real leader of the country, said to his own people in their own language, “Nuclear weapons are contrary to the principles of Islam.” And yet the US hurts the civilians in Iran b it sanctions against the country when it has done nothing contrary to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Well, this is just a beginning. And you talk about discrimination against minorities in countries with an established religion????