Merit-bound Alley

South Carolina state government is getting into the religion business, and hardcore, too according to this story from the Charlotte Observer.

One creates license tags with “I Believe” in front of a cross; a second makes clear prayers can be offered before public meetings and a third allows set public displays of key historical legal foundation documents that would include the Ten Commandments.

Well, that runs the gamut, doesn’t it? Promoting Christianity specifically by offering only a cross on the license plate, promotion of religion in the government with a prayer, and allowing display of religious “legal” documents on public grounds.

Offering only the cross is pretty blatant, but the other two seem pretty general and maybe all-inclusive, don’t they? Yes, until we understand where the government is coming from on religious views:

What about Wicca, commonly referred to as witchcraft? “Well, that’s not what I consider to be a religion,” McGill said. And Buddhism? “I’d have to look at the individual situation. But I’m telling you, I firmly believe in this tag.”

Interesting. So, some small-minded bureaucrat will be making the decisions as to what counts as a religion. It’s good to see that they are putting so much thought into this. It’s plainly evident that the people creating and supporting these bills will be using them to put their particular brand of Christianity into the government. Should these unconstitutional bills pass, and somewhere down the line a Buddhist or a Wiccan wants a pentagram or fat guy on their license plate, the same people purtporting this as all-inclusive will be fighting the petitioners with the standard cry, “This is a Christian Nation founded on Christian principles!”

This is why complete separation of church and state is necessary. As soon as it even cracks a little bit, the religion with the most clout will take a sledgehammer to it, and in the process destroy the rights of everyone not part of the In Crowd.

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This being my first day off for the week, I got some more study done this morning. In my first hour after waking, before I even finished my first cup of coffee, I found yet another writing by Thomas Jefferson, supported by James Madison, which supports the Wall. It’s getting more and more plain to me that Rep. Paul is not the scholar that he professes himself to be, and anyone who denies that at least some of the Founding Fathers had intense interest in Separation is just plain ignorant, fooling themselves, or trying to fool others.

In 1777, Thomas Jefferson drafted an act called “An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom“, which he then proposed to the General Assembly of Virginia after becoming Governor of Virginia in 1779. This bill predicts the future Establishment clause and gives yet more clues as to how these two Founding Fathers (Jefferson and Madison) felt about the separation of civil and religious themes. Section I of the bill has a lot of good stuff:

Well Aware that:

• the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds;

…

• That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness

…

• our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions

This Act resolves that:

SECT. II. WE, the General Assembly of Virginia, do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

The Act for Establishing Religious Freedom has one other telling aspect: it was the first time that a western government put into law an act to protect the religious freedom of all of it’s citizens, it it did that by ensuring a wall of separation between religion and civil government. Not only did Jefferson believe in and write favorably on the separation of church and state, he pioneered this worthy cause by bringing it into law in Virginia.

The Act for Establishing Religious Freedom is one of the reasons why the government of Virginia was a template for the Federal government, and is it not surprising that it found a partner in the First Amendment when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.

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I am definitely thankful that I saw that video of Ron Paul over at Bad Astronomy, as it has helped me take a deeper look at Ron Paul’s candidacy. I found an interesting essay written by Dr. Paul back in 2003 entitled “The War on Religion”. This essay starts with the fairly generic war on Christmas tripe that I’ve already covered. However, Dr. Paul then goes on to make some very interesting (and researchable) claims.

Please note that I really am not trying to take shots at Ron Paul. This essay was one of the first that caught my eye mainly because religion and “wars on” are enjoyable topics to me, and looked like something I would like to delve into a little more thoroughly. For any RP supporters, I do realize he makes some good points in other areas, but this article is not about them. That being said, this is not an opinion article, but an analysis of the claims made in one article and an investigation into those claims. I truly hope that anyone who reads this will looks at his essay and my response with a skeptical eye, rather than immediately leaping to his defense or an attack on the man.

That being said, let’s sally forth, tallyho, and get this ball rollin’.

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