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Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI190450A
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00:26 Welcome to the Liberty insider.
00:28 This is the program that brings you discussion, 00:30 news, updates, and analysis of religious liberty events 00:34 in the US and around the world. 00:36 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine, 00:39 and my guest on this program 00:41 is my good friend Greg Hamilton, 00:43 President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association. 00:47 How's that for an intro? Not bad. 00:49 Good friend is a part that I hope they pay attention to. 00:51 You know, let's talk about, go back to basics. 00:54 In the United States, at least with the Constitution, 00:56 we're always talking 00:58 about the separation of church and state 00:59 which ironically isn't a term mentioned in it, 01:03 but the First Amendment 01:04 is very plain on establishing a dynamic 01:09 that would clearly separate church and state. 01:11 It says, "Congress shall make no law, 01:13 establishing religion, 01:15 nor prevent the free exercise thereof." 01:17 The key word is respecting an establishment. 01:20 So Congress cannot respect an establishment, 01:23 that means that Congress cannot endorse support, 01:27 or sanction religion, 01:28 or religious practice of any kind, 01:31 either to favor one religion over another, 01:34 or to favor religion in general, 01:36 even over secular norms. 01:38 In other words, the point is, 01:40 is that, they're to be treated equally, 01:41 both secular and religious. 01:43 Now, how do you do that? 01:44 And the Supreme Court and Congress 01:46 is not to be hostile towards religion. 01:49 But is it possible that some would argue 01:52 that it's all right for states to establish religion 01:56 and to favor some religions over others. 01:57 But we were talking before the program, 01:58 I know what you're talking about. 02:00 Someone at the moment on the Supreme Court, 02:02 there is a one voice at least that's, that suggested. 02:05 Clarence Thomas. 02:07 Yeah. Yes. 02:08 Now, I haven't listened to everything that he's said, 02:12 although that could be relatively easy, 02:13 because until his good friend Justice Scalia died. 02:17 He'd said not one word publicly on the Supreme Court. 02:20 But Justice Scalia wouldn't even go that far. 02:22 No. 02:23 But we know there's a certain continuum. 02:26 Scalia did talk very openly about this sort of thing. 02:29 And with his death, 02:31 Thomas is really coming out of the woodwork, I think, 02:34 and you know, he has logic on this. 02:36 It's not, you know, just an ad hominem, 02:39 ad hoc sort of an approach, 02:41 but it's something that we've been 02:43 talking against for years in Liberty magazine, 02:45 and those that defend religious liberty. 02:47 It's another way of bringing in establishment. 02:51 It's another way of bringing in government 02:53 control of religion, 02:55 quite apart from establishment. 02:56 You don't want government meddling in religious affairs, 02:59 and I think we're very close to that. 03:01 There's a mindset among certain jurists 03:05 that the 14th Amendment, 03:08 which you know, maybe foggy 03:10 for some of our audience members said it. 03:12 Well, explain it. 03:13 Well, the 14th Amendment basically... 03:15 Where it came from? 03:16 The way the Supreme Court has interpreted 03:17 the 14th Amendment. 03:19 It's a Civil War amendment, 03:20 and a civil war amendment, basically after the civil war. 03:23 It was ratified in 1868 by the States. 03:26 And it basically gave us the equal protection clause, 03:30 the privileges and immunities clause. 03:34 It gave us the due process clause, 03:40 all very important and basically what they did, 03:44 is they made basic rights 03:46 that were in the first eight Amendments 03:49 of the Constitution, 03:51 made them available to the, to women, 03:54 to minorities, and all people at the state level. 03:57 Was prior to that, it was not made available. 04:00 In other words, they had to abide 04:01 by their state constitution, 04:03 whatever states allowed in terms of rights. 04:06 They, you know, were ensconced in the law, 04:10 and basically these ethnic minorities, 04:12 prior to the Civil War and during the Civil War, 04:15 and women didn't have basic access 04:18 to the Federal Bill of Rights. 04:20 And so therefore, 04:23 they were oppressed 04:25 by state laws that did not recognize them. 04:27 Now, you know, we can discuss it further. 04:29 But there's no question in the US at the moment, 04:32 the sort of the South shall rise again mentality. 04:35 Yes, yes. 04:36 Not in the worst sense. 04:38 You know, the Civil War was long gone. 04:39 But what really is the dynamic, 04:41 is sort of the idea that these are sovereign states 04:44 and how there the federal government bothered them. 04:47 It's a Southern manifesto. 04:48 When clearly, 04:49 this is what people don't quite understand. 04:52 With the end of the Civil War, 04:53 the Constitution was extended automatically to the states. 04:57 Before there was, 04:59 I think in some ways, it was a charade. 05:01 But these were sovereign states 05:02 that just did compacted together. 05:04 Well, that was the Federalist model. 05:06 To counter issues. Yes, yeah. 05:07 But we are past that. 05:09 And you can debate that, I think. 05:10 I mean, they are in the South but on the religious issue, 05:14 and on how that's legally projected to everybody, 05:18 no matter what state they live in, 05:20 it's gone. 05:21 The federal law on separation of church and state, 05:24 the First Amendment principles do apply to the states now. 05:28 They can't weasel out of it and say, 05:30 "Oh, you know, it's a federal deal, 05:31 not our business." 05:32 And that came about through 05:34 the incorporation doctrine that the Supreme Court came up with, 05:35 both in a case called Everson versus Board of Education, 05:38 1947. 05:40 And several Free Exercise cases, 05:41 that had to do with saluting the flag, 05:44 that involved Jehovah's Witnesses 05:46 who refused and etc, etc. 05:48 But the point is, 05:49 is that there's constantly a war, 05:51 this view of two foundings in American history, 05:54 two Constitutional foundings. 05:56 There's the Constitutional founding 05:58 after the Revolutionary War, in 1787, 06:00 at the Constitution convention, 06:02 and then there's a civil war amendments. 06:04 And the Civil War amendments, 06:05 it seems that a certain group of jurists 06:08 and scholars don't want to recognize that. 06:11 And so they basically want 06:12 to take us back to what they view is 06:14 the original intent of the founding. 06:16 But they even get that wrong, 06:17 because right now, 06:19 there's a number of scholars out there 06:21 that are starting to come up with this idea. 06:23 That's actually been around for a long time, 06:25 this idea that states 06:26 have a right to establish religion or religious practices 06:31 and to favor some religions over others. 06:34 And that is a throwback to the time 06:37 that existed before the Constitutional founding, 06:40 during the Puritan era in the colonial period. 06:43 And ever since, 06:45 even during the Constitutional founding, 06:47 after the Constitution was ratified in 1789. 06:51 The states started to disestablish 06:54 their state favored religion, 06:57 tax supported religion or religions, plural, 07:00 okay, and totally do away with them, 07:01 with Massachusetts being the last one in 1833, 07:04 all the rest in the late 1700s and early 1800s. 07:08 And so this occurred way before the Civil War. 07:11 Through a natural process, 07:12 but not by federal mandated law. 07:14 Correct. 07:16 The states decided that this was not the way to go. 07:18 They wanted to mirror 07:20 the federal establishment clause. 07:22 So let's get to root. 07:23 Why is the shift back now? 07:25 I know it's not just today or the last few weeks, 07:29 but in recent history, there has been a... 07:32 Well. 07:34 It can't just be to relitigate something like the Civil War 07:38 and the dynamic thing. 07:39 No, it's this pendulum swing. 07:41 They think that somehow secularism, 07:44 secular humanism is starting to take over the country. 07:47 And so they have this great fear, 07:49 same sex marriage issues, 07:51 they just feel that somehow 07:54 religion and a religious way of life, 07:56 religious mores, religious morals are at, 08:01 are threatened right now like never before. 08:03 So they feel that this is... 08:04 And that is true. 08:06 It is true to a point. 08:07 But threatened by what? 08:09 By the Constitution, 08:10 or by a devolution 08:12 of moral sensibility in society? 08:15 I would say it's the latter. 08:16 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 08:17 It's to alter the Constitution in order to empower religion 08:21 in a way that was never meant. 08:22 It's not the way to go. 08:24 But there is something going on now. 08:26 Even as I was coming here for this filming session today, 08:30 I was listening on the radio, 08:32 and I won't name the Congressman, 08:34 a Southern Congressman was on a program. 08:37 I don't think it was a religious program, 08:39 but they were talking religion. 08:41 And the whole deal was that the other party, 08:44 he was on a conservative party. 08:45 "The other party are godless, they're destroying America." 08:48 And he said, "This is a spiritual battle." 08:50 Yeah. 08:52 Well, you and I like to think that all public figures 08:55 are motivated by higher values personally. 08:57 Sure. 08:59 But to see the partisan divide in the country, 09:02 is coming down to the godless versus the godly. 09:05 It's really twisting things, I think. 09:09 There's a book out there by a Constitutional scholar 09:12 and historian named Laura Edwards 09:14 from Duke University. 09:16 It's titled, 09:17 "A Legal History of the Civil War 09:18 and Reconstruction: 09:20 A Nation of Rights." 09:21 And when she talks about is, 09:23 there's a certain mindset that, 09:25 basically she says, 09:26 the reason why the South lost in the Civil War 09:29 was one basic thing. 09:31 And it's their extreme view of state's rights. 09:35 They believed, okay. 09:38 You take a local township, okay. 09:40 The township said to the city government, 09:43 "Who are you? 09:45 We don't recognize you, we're sovereign. 09:47 We don't have to answer the city government." 09:49 The city government said to the county government, 09:51 "We don't have to answer to you. 09:52 Who are you?" 09:54 The county government said to the state government, 09:56 "Who were you?" 09:57 The state government said to Jefferson Davis, 09:59 who is the President 10:01 of the Confederate States, okay, 10:03 said, "Who are you? 10:05 We don't have to recognize you." 10:06 And, of course, Jefferson Davis said to the federal government 10:08 and Lincoln, 10:09 and to the Congress that was left, 10:12 "We don't have to answer to you, 10:13 we're sovereign." 10:14 What that did is it created a sense of chaos. 10:17 It created a sense of total rebellion. 10:20 It totally... 10:22 It's a reason why they lost, 10:23 in fact. 10:25 Well, it's one of the reasons. 10:26 I mean, the simplest reason they lost 10:27 because they didn't have the industrial infrastructure 10:29 to sustain along the way. 10:31 And administratively, 10:32 their structure was not only flawed... 10:34 It was an ad hoc administration. 10:36 It was inherently not workable. 10:41 Okay. 10:42 Something that I read recently, it surprised me. 10:44 I read a speech. 10:46 I don't have my stuff here 10:48 to refer to because my eyesight's so bad, 10:51 I can't read it, even on the desk. 10:53 But I read a speech recently 10:54 by Jefferson Davis's Vice President, 10:58 whose name I forget, but will live in infamy. 11:01 I don't remember him either. 11:02 Yeah, real hell raising guy, 11:04 and his famous speech given around the time 11:09 of the beginning of the Civil War. 11:11 He said specifically that they were going to institute 11:16 true religious freedom, 11:18 that the Constitution was not allowing, 11:21 under the North not allowing religious freedom. 11:24 So, yes, we can look at it now and say. 11:27 What was his definition of religious freedom? 11:29 What you're getting at is... 11:31 His definition of religious freedom is that, 11:33 religious freedom is meant to establish 11:37 the Christian religion as the religion of the nation. 11:40 It's what I call today, religious entitlement. 11:43 Right. 11:46 A government oversight, and assistance, and funding, 11:50 and a smile of favor on a particular form 11:53 of religious practice, 11:55 and maybe neutrality on the rest, 11:58 but in some cases, maybe even antagonism. 12:00 I mean, we have what? 12:01 A hundred and thirty some religions in this country. 12:03 I mean, that's an enormous amount. 12:05 Who are you going to favor, one over the other? 12:07 And that's happening throughout the world. 12:09 We'll talk about that in another segment. 12:10 I don't really believe that the framers 12:14 and the founding fathers quite thought 12:16 that we would come to this religious pluralism. 12:19 I'll tell you something. 12:20 I've never heard any of our crusades. 12:22 But I think it's really the subtext. 12:26 The reason that they were, 12:28 one of the main reasons 12:29 they were so keen on disestablishment, 12:32 was that the Church of England 12:34 was the auxiliary to the British Crown, 12:37 that there was a deep seated antagonism 12:39 to this established church. 12:40 That's true, 12:42 but they viewed religious pluralism 12:44 in terms of Catholicism versus Protestantism. 12:47 In other words, their big, their big enemy, 12:49 so to speak, was Catholicism, and the pope, and papacy. 12:53 You're right. 12:54 But they also feared, if you read that right there, 12:56 they also feared Islam, 12:57 which is unfortunate for both Catholics and Muslims, 13:01 because actually, 13:03 the founding fathers feared them, 13:04 but they also respected their religion 13:06 and respected the Quran. 13:08 Well, when did you read those quotes 13:11 that they feared as well? 13:12 Well, there are some who didn't. Okay. 13:14 Thomas Jefferson did not... 13:16 No, but I don't think. I haven't. 13:18 I mean, I don't know what exist... 13:19 John Adams, George Washington, James Madisson... 13:21 With the stuff that I've seen, 13:22 where they volunteered opinions. 13:24 Benjamin Franklin. 13:25 It was after the formation of the United States, 13:27 not before... 13:28 No, some of it was before, 13:29 especially Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. 13:31 Yeah. 13:32 Obviously, it's not 9/11 where were things changed. 13:36 Right, yes. 13:37 It was that what led up to the Treaty of Tripoli. 13:41 That's when the new country got its nose bloodied 13:46 by Islamic piracy in the Barbary States. 13:50 And there's a classic scene from a recent book on it, 13:53 where Jefferson and Adams, 13:57 in the early days of the Republic, 14:00 sat down with the ambassador, 14:02 I think it was from Tripoli. 14:07 And they said, 14:09 you know, please don't take our sailors hostage, 14:12 and don't harass us, we're peaceful. 14:14 And he said to them, 14:15 he said, "Since my holy book says 14:16 that I can capture and enslave any infidel, 14:19 he says, that's good enough for me." 14:21 We'll take a break and be back shortly, 14:23 so stay with us. |
Revised 2020-01-16