Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your program
bringing you up-to-date news,
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views, discussion,
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and information on
religious liberty events
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in the U.S. and
around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine,
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and my guest is Greg Hamilton,
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President of the Northwest
Religious Liberty Association.
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How are you doing, Lincoln?
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A long time friend
and sometime guest.
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You know, let's
pick up on something
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that most people
don't hear about,
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but it's central to religious
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and religious
liberty developments
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around the world and in the U.S.
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a document that came
out a few decades ago
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now called Dignitatis humanae.
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Yes.
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Which just means the
dignity of the human being or...
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Seems Latin to me.
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It was really the
doctrine of religious freedom
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that was first
proposed at Vatican II
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by Jesuit trained
Monsignor John Courtney Murray
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and an American Monsignor.
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And he went to Vatican
II along with, you know,
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other people it was
known as an ecumenical council
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and John Courtney
Murray proposed...
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It was only Catholic...
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Well, but there actually,
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but there were
all religions there
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who viewed and observed it.
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Yes. Okay.
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But it was called
as a Council of Trent
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even for that matter.
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It was called as a
general Christian council.
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Correct.
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But it was the
Catholic hierarchy that ran it.
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But the point is
that they came together
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and for the first
time, the Catholic Church
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adopted the doctrine
of religious freedom.
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It's a good
document. It's a good document.
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But the document promotes
the free exercise of religion,
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but logically,
because the Catholic Church
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is a sovereign,
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considered a
sovereign nation state
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recognized by the
United Nations that way
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and recognized by
nearly 200 countries,
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who receive
ambassadors from the Holy See
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and in return the same.
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So it denounced or not,
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it silently didn't address
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the whole
constitutional separation
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of church and state.
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And it became a redefinition
of religious freedom,
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so to speak,
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which influenced other people
such as Francis Schaeffer.
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And Francis
Schaeffer wrote a book
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called "A
Christian Manifesto" in 1970.
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It was an earthshaking book.
I read it many, many times.
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That basically
challenged the whole idea of...
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He basically brought up
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the whole idea of
civil disobedience
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that there is a time and a place
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for civil
disobedience in America.
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And to even overthrow its system
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even our
constitutional system...
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He was quite a
revolutionary, isn't he?
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To rewrite it
so that abortion...
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Which was his singular.
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Singular issue at that time.
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That the Roe, well, this
is even before Roe v. Wade
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in 1973 by the Supreme Court
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that decision by
the Supreme Court
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making abortion legal.
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But nevertheless,
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it anticipated it
almost prophetically in a way
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but his mentees,
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the people he mentored up
in his mountaintop retreat
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in outside of
Basel, Switzerland, L'Abri.
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And guess who were his
mentees, who sat at his feet?
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The modern day
Christian right...
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Now, obviously
some of them are dead,
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I'm gonna name
but Jerry Falwell,
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Pat Robertson,
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Dr. James Dobson,
John Whitehead who is...
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I'm about to
mention him, I know him.
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Who has since reformed
and really is a believer
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in the constitutional separation
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of church and state,
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and D. James Kennedy
of Coral Ridge Ministries
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of Florida who is now deceased
along with Jerry Falwell.
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This is all very
fascinating to me
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because this
Catholic redefinition
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of religious
freedom that is they believe
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in the free exercise of religion
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and liberty of conscience.
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And the right to hold any
religion of your conscience
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and change at
will without coercion.
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That's revolution.
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But essentially
reject the Protestant
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based founded document of
the notion, the principle,
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the constitutional principle
of the separation of church
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and state, that's
essentially the redefinition
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that has emerged
throughout American society.
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And there's a constant struggle
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between those who are
constitutional separationists
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in this country
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and those who want to emphasize
free exercise of religion only.
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And to me, that's a phenomenon
that is not often talked about.
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To me, the religious right
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is just as much of a
threat to religious freedom
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as what we are gonna talk
about later in another segment
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as the interfaith left.
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Right.
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And Liberty Magazine has
kept that line for a long time,
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even when some
didn't think it was logical.
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By the way, in this current
and emerging administration,
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the new Attorney General
Jeff Sessions very recently
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in the media was quoted
as saying, he doesn't believe
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in the separation
of church and state.
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Now, this is an
outgrowth of that same
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one of the better id
religious right thinking.
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You know, they're ready
to overturn the constitution
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or at least
what the constitution
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apparently demands
for this religious agenda.
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What they believe comes
from the Federalist Society
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and other groups like
the Heritage Foundation
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and other groups on the right.
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That believes that
the Establishment Clause
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of the First Amendment,
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where it says "Congress
shall make no law respecting
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and establishment of religion
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or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof."
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The establishment clause,
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the constitutional
separation of church and state,
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they believe that
the constitution founders
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only intended to prevent
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the establishment
of a national church,
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didn't mean anything else.
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And yet, Supreme
Court has made it very clear
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over and over
again that the two words,
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an, which is a
root word for any,
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an establishment,
and the word respecting.
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The word respecting is
the reference to neutrality,
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which says that government
can neither sanction support
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or endorse religion
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or religious
practices of any kind.
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They just want to
obliterate all of that
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and they want federal funding
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to flow directly
from their coffers
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to private
religious institutions,
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and that's a problem.
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Because once the
church has federal money,
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they can also then turn
around and call the shots.
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Absolutely.
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But it seems to me
that in holding that view,
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they're just absolutely
ignoring the Virginia Statute,
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which was same wording
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and the comments
upon it by Jefferson.
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Well...
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The contemporary.
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So it's one
thing to play the game,
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as Scalia always said,
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you know, original as
what, what did they think,
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try to get into their minds.
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We know what was in
the mind of Jefferson
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and most of his peers.
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And then, to pass the words
out to bypass that, it sort of,
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it will be the equivalent
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to our church
having a clear council
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from our prophet on
our publishing institutions
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and then saying,
"Well, let's study what it is,
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and we'll do
something different."
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There is two leading gurus
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who introduce this
Catholic redefinition
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of religious freedom.
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The first is Judge Robert Bork
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the failed Supreme Court nominee
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under the Reagan administration.
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And then...
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He was quiet a
stir and a shaker,
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in some ways I think
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it was a safe
call to pass it by.
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He believed, one of the things
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that he put
forward in his writings,
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in fact, came
out later in his book
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"The Tempting of America"
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and also the book called
"Slouching Towards Gomorrah".
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By the way he was the
chief constitutional advisor
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to Mitt Romney,
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during the Mitt
Romney presidential campaign.
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I notice that.
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That was a real
problematic in my opinion.
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But it was
Justice Antonin Scalia.
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Now Justice Antonin
Scalia was the other guru.
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And in 1961, when he graduated
from Harvard Law School
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tops in his class, okay,
cum laude all that stuff.
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He took a job in a law
firm in Cleveland, Ohio,
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and the head of the law firm
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invited him
home for a big party,
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for all of his
colleagues to welcome him.
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Is this in this
book? That's in this book.
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It's actually
in six biographies,
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six different
biographies that I've read.
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What's the book
you've got today?
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But most recently is
an "American Original,
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the Life and Constitution
of Supreme Court Justice
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Antonin Scalia" by Joan Biskupic
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who's writes for
the USA Today newspaper
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and also writes and speaks
for National Public Radio.
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But what's interesting is,
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Justice Antonin Scalia
before he became a justice,
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when he was just lowly
attorney at this law firm,
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when they threw
this party for him,
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there was a big argument.
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And the argument was over a case
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that was before the
Supreme Court at that time.
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This was 1961.
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It was the McGowan
versus Maryland case
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before the Supreme Court.
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It was the last decision
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or ruling that Supreme
Court has ever ruled on
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when it came to
Sunday Closing Laws.
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Okay.
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And he argued till
3 am in the morning,
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and brags about it in
all six of the biographies
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written on him,
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including this
one by Joan Biskupic,
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which is largely an
interview with Antonin Scalia.
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With laws that
are unconstitutional.
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That was his stand of view.
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His argument was that the
law was not unconstitutional
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and that he
predicted Supreme Court
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ruled that was fine.
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And he turned out to be right.
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But he went on to state that
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if my dream ever
comes true and a national,
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I mean not a
national Sunday Law,
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but if a Sunday Law, you know,
comes up before Supreme Court,
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I will rule in favor of it
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because I see
no problem with it.
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Okay. So that's
fascinating to me.
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And denied statements like
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that only a few
years before he died.
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Yeah.
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It wasn't at the very
beginning of his career.
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Even before he died,
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he believed and this is
what Judge Bork believed in,
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that states could establish
00:10:05.37\00:10:06.77
their own state
tax supported churches.
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In other words, states
could have favored churches
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and then unflavored churches.
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And that was perfectly
constitutional in their mind,
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in their thinking,
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which is a complete
violation establishment clause,
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but it's part of
that Catholic redefinition
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of religious freedom
that I'm talking about.
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I agree with that point.
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But I must tell you about
my study of American history,
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I think there's
some truth in that.
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The U.S. clearly was setup
with the federal government
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for just defense
and interstate commerce
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and the states
were sovereign states
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that had covenanted together.
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But the change that we
can never get back previous
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to any more, civil war,
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really took away the
true national sovereignty
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and we're under a very old
embracing federal government.
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And under that, this would mean
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that there's not to
be state establishment,
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but I think originally
they were okay with it.
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Well, here's the reason
why and you're half right.
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And here's...
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It's good to be half right.
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You're half right,
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but as a constitutional scholar,
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I'll just tell you that,
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and as a
constitutional historian,
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to be honest with
you, what happened was.
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States started enacting,
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after they
started disestablishing
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all their state
churches from the back,
00:11:19.54\00:11:21.18
the holdover
from the Puritan era,
00:11:21.21\00:11:23.11
they came up with
this scheme, whereby,
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when they wrote
their state constitutions
00:11:26.58\00:11:28.28
that they
created such a separation
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between church and
state within their own states,
00:11:31.52\00:11:34.26
in their own constitutions,
00:11:34.29\00:11:36.19
that the federal
government didn't need to act.
00:11:36.22\00:11:38.06
Now here's another one...
00:11:38.09\00:11:39.43
Because there was this,
00:11:39.46\00:11:40.80
the federal
government was established
00:11:40.83\00:11:42.16
and the constitution
00:11:42.20\00:11:43.53
because of the
spirit of the times.
00:11:43.57\00:11:44.90
Establishment was in
disrepute then, but...
00:11:44.93\00:11:47.57
Right.
00:11:47.60\00:11:48.94
There were some states
that had established churches
00:11:48.97\00:11:51.37
that linked a long time.
00:11:51.41\00:11:53.38
And my point is that
it became a moot point
00:11:53.41\00:11:56.01
after the Civil War because...
00:11:56.04\00:11:57.38
Yes, we're gonna get to that,
00:11:57.41\00:11:58.75
but let me
systematically explain that
00:11:58.78\00:12:00.12
so our audience
understands this.
00:12:00.15\00:12:02.68
Article VI of the Constitution
sections one and two
00:12:02.72\00:12:06.15
is known as the
Supremacy Clauses,
00:12:06.19\00:12:08.66
which is something the South
00:12:08.69\00:12:10.03
never wanted to accept this idea
00:12:10.06\00:12:11.76
that any anytime
there's a state law
00:12:11.79\00:12:14.46
that's in
dispute with federal law,
00:12:14.50\00:12:15.90
federal law trumps, always.
00:12:15.93\00:12:18.03
Okay. They never
wanted to accept that.
00:12:18.07\00:12:19.47
Okay.
00:12:19.50\00:12:20.84
So they wanted to, they
totally rejected Article VI
00:12:20.87\00:12:24.44
and they adopted what's
called through John C. Calhoun,
00:12:24.47\00:12:28.21
even Andrew Jackson
fought John C. Calhoun
00:12:28.24\00:12:30.38
on this
doctrine of nullification
00:12:30.41\00:12:31.98
that is states are
ultimately sovereign
00:12:32.01\00:12:33.98
over the federal government,
00:12:34.02\00:12:35.35
which is not what the
founders intended, okay.
00:12:35.38\00:12:37.05
It's very clear,
they intended federalism,
00:12:37.09\00:12:40.09
they intended that
states be their own satellites
00:12:40.12\00:12:43.76
without interference
with the federal government,
00:12:43.79\00:12:45.66
unless there was a conflict
between federal and state law.
00:12:45.69\00:12:49.76
And it seems to me, I agree
with the statement generally,
00:12:49.80\00:12:52.50
but it's not all laws,
there are some state laws
00:12:52.53\00:12:57.04
that don't need to be in
harmony with the federal.
00:12:57.07\00:13:00.31
The federal laws are the ones
00:13:00.34\00:13:01.74
that are
certainly on civil rights,
00:13:01.78\00:13:05.31
and on national
rights, and so on.
00:13:05.35\00:13:08.48
But there's been a
history even on pre Civil War,
00:13:08.52\00:13:11.85
what about slaves
states and non slave states?
00:13:11.89\00:13:13.86
If the states
supersede federal law
00:13:13.89\00:13:16.42
in a positive way that
don't violate federal law
00:13:16.46\00:13:20.00
but does better
than federal law,
00:13:20.03\00:13:21.90
then the federal
government doesn't touch it.
00:13:21.93\00:13:23.53
And that's...
00:13:23.57\00:13:24.90
You can see the
whole marijuana laws
00:13:24.93\00:13:26.27
in cities right now.
00:13:26.30\00:13:27.64
I was about to say.
00:13:27.67\00:13:29.00
That's the...
00:13:29.04\00:13:30.37
Marijuana laws are fascinating.
What is that, Oregon?
00:13:30.41\00:13:32.24
It's legal to have
marijuana and federal government
00:13:32.27\00:13:34.08
is still saying no.
00:13:34.11\00:13:35.44
Colorado, Washington. Yeah.
00:13:35.48\00:13:36.81
We need to take a break,
we're very close to halfway
00:13:36.85\00:13:40.15
and we're gathering steam
for an interesting second half.
00:13:40.18\00:13:43.32
So, we'll take that
break, come back with us
00:13:43.35\00:13:45.52
and we'll
continue this discussion,
00:13:45.55\00:13:47.19
constitutional and
religious liberty and both.
00:13:47.22\00:13:49.96