I almost forgot about Blog Against Theocracy! This is the last day of it, so at least I noticed before it was too late. From my earlier post announcing my participation:
“Blog Against Theocracy” is an event happening on blogs of those who understand the importance of defending our constitutionally required separation of church and state. From April 10-12, look out for posts all over the blogosphere, including here on SDR, concerning varied issues relating to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This is not an atheist blogswarm, per se, but is open all who support Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation.”
The Establishment Clause: It Applies to the Nonreligious Too!
There is a bigoted and invalid criticism some religious bigots levy against the nonreligious. It isn’t a criticism of the lack of religion or belief in a god, which is, true or false, a completely valid intellectual argument to make in good faith. No idea is beyond criticism. This specific claim is different; it is not in good faith. Some claim that the nonreligious are not protected under the United States Constitution’s freedom of religion as religious citizens are! This is so unbelievably disgusting I must repeat it: they claim that atheists and others with no religion do not have one of the most basic rights that our country was founded upon.
Those who make such an argument aren’t basing it on anything legally and constitutionally factual. They are expressing their absolute hate – not of atheism, but of atheists – by making a claim that they wish were true. This is the definition of bigotry, disliking people simply for holding a view, not anyone’s actual actions. Criticizing destructive actions if they are based on a specific viewpoint, and then pointing out the actions were due to the views the actors hold is acceptable. Hating a whole group of people who have done nothing other than to hold specific views is the clearest expression of bigotry. Attempting to remove civil rights protections from that group, or claim they never had them in the first place, is a another level of disgusting.
These bigots want it to be true so that they can persecute the nonreligious, or at the least so that we cannot complain when our civil rights are violated – we wouldn’t have them anymore. Why otherwise would they make such a ridiculous, untrue claim? They already believe the nonreligious are evil and therefore morally deserve anything we get. If the nonreligious have no constitutional right to their views of religion, it breaks down the legal barrier to seeing them as American citizens like anyone else. If we lack a constitutional right granted to others, we are lesser citizens. Religious bigots love the thought of that. If we are lesser people, as they believe, then why should we have the same rights as the religious? Does this sound familiar? It’s the same justification used when blacks had less rights than whites.
The First and Fourteenth Amendments
When debunking this claim, the scope of the First Amendment must first be established. The Establishment Clause states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This clause has been clearly and repeatedly interpreted by the Supreme Court and constitutional scholars as barring government from establishing or discriminating against religious views. One can argue that this discusses Congress, not other parts of government or state governments. The prevailing interpretation is that no part of federal government can discriminate on religious grounds, and as per the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states cannot either:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The fact that the Establishment Clause is meant to keep religion out of government completely (and government out of religion) is reinforced by the fact that the First Amendment’s writer, Thomas Jefferson, described in his own words that it creates “a wall of separation between church and state.” The Establishment Clause, therefore, must protect all of us, whether religious or nonreligious. As per the Equal Protection Clause, all of the Constitutional rights apply to all citizens of the United States. The First Amendment does not specify that one must be religious to have religious rights. There is no freedom to have religious belief if there is no freedom not to have religious belief (in recent popular parlance, “freedom of religion and freedom from religion”). Otherwise, government would be promoting religion over non-religion, which would surely be no wall of separation.
Hypocrisy
Let’s take those of the nonreligious who are atheist, for instance. Atheism isn’t a religion and isn’t a religious belief, it’s the very lack of belief. This doesn’t make atheists any less protected. Atheism is not a religious belief, but it is certainly an idea about religion. Freedom of religion has never been defined as protecting only “beliefs.” One doesn’t need to be religious to have opinions about religion, and it is these opinions that freedom of religion protects. Nowhere does it say that the nonreligious are exempt from such protection, no matter how badly the bigots would like to believe the contrary. As an aside, this shows the hypocrisy of and how disingenuous many anti-atheist bigots are: they call atheism a religion that requires faith when it suits them, but then admit it isn’t a religion in order to claim we aren’t protected by the First Amendment.
In Praise of The Establishment Clause: For Us All
Separation of church and state is a great thing for all citizens, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, any other religion, or no religion. All Americans should use this time to reflect and be thankful for the founding fathers’ gift to us, one important enough to be the first addition to the Bill of Rights along with freedom of speech. We should be happy to live in a country where the religious can worship as they choose and the nonreligious can choose not to. Freedom of religion that only protects the religious is not freedom at all. Luckily, the bigots’ wet dream isn’t reality.
