First Amendment Common Sense Wins

That exploding sound you hear is heads at the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State reacting to the rejection of their extreme interpretations of First Amendment law by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, which I wrote about here, involves a Texas law that mandates a minute of silence at the start of each school day, with a variety of purposes (“reflect, pray, meditate, or engage in any other silent activity….”) mentioned as possible uses of the time. The ACLU and AU saw creeping theocracy in this bill, while the court saw…no problem. A couple of passages in particular jumped out at me:

From the bill’s text, the obvious purpose of the pledges is to inculcate patriotism among students.  Following the pledges with a minute of silence then allows time for reflection before starting the school day.  Thus, at least from the statutory text, it seems that the purpose of the 2003 Amendments is to foster patriotism and provide for a period, if a student so desires, of thoughtful contemplation.  Within this context, the purpose of § 25.082(d) is clearly permissible.  In addition to adding “pray,” the new text adds “engage in any other silent activity that is not likely to interfere with or distract another student.”  The neutral, non-coercive purpose of providing examples of permissible silent activities during the minute of silence at the start of a now more organized and contemplative school day is buttressed further by the fact that § 25.901, which still provides that “[a] person may not require, encourage, or coerce a student” vis-a-vis prayer, was intentionally left unamended.

As Justice O’Connor stated in her Wallace concurrence: “It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.”  Wallace, 472 U.S. at 73.  None of the courts examining moment of silence statutes have found that the primary effect has been to advance or inhibit religion, and the Crofts [the plaintiffs-DF] point to no case law that supports their contentions.  Instead, the primary effect of the 2003 Amendments seems to be the same as the legislative purposes shown above: fostering patriotism and mandating a moment of quiet reflection.  Especially when analyzing these Amendments in a facial challenge, we should not allow speculative fears to creep into our analysis.

“We should not allow speculative fears to creep into our analysis.” That should be printed on plaques and put over the doorways of every ACLU office in the country, as well as those at AU, People for the American Way, the Interfaith Alliance, and every other theocracy-obsessed secularist lobby in the country. (And before anyone else can say so, I’ll add, “and also over the doorways of the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Coalition for Traditional Values, and other conservative Christian organizations that sometimes go overboard in seeing secularist or anti-Christian boogeymen under every bed.”)

Depends on Whose Ox is Being Gored

There’s been a move in the Connecticut state legislature to meddle in the internal affairs of the Roman Catholic Church in  a way that is grossly unconstitutional. Today, the bill in question, which would have mandated a specific form of governance for a particular religious denomination, was killed as needed. But the protests from Catholics about state interference in their church has provoked a snarky response from Americans United’s Sandhya Bathija:

Today, the Roman Catholic bishops sponsored a rally at the Connecticut Capitol building in support of church-state separation. They didn’t exactly bill it that way, but that’s what it was.

Considering this is the same church hierarchy that speaks so adamantly against same-sex marriage and reproductive rights — and believes that our country’s laws should reflect the church’s doctrines on these issues — a rally to support the church-state wall seems rather ironic.

But today it’s not about the church pushing its religious doctrine on the state. It’s about the state pushing its views on the church, and now the bishops would like everyone to remember and respect church-state separation![Emphasis added.]

The absurdity of the disapproval implicit in the highlighted remark is really astounding. Consider: Americans United never–ever–complains when a mainline Protestant denomination’s leaders or national assemblies take a stance on a political issue. Now, presumably those denominations are doing two things when they opine on, say, the minimum wage, climate change, or, yes, abortion and gay marriage. First, they are saying what they believe as a denomination. Second, they are advocating that the government (at whatever level) adopt their position as its own. In so doing, those denominations are exercising their First Amendment right to seek to persuade the public and its elected officials to agree with them. Nothing wrong with that at all, from a constitutional standpoint.

But when the Catholic church, through the voice of its bishops, make a similar effort to influence the political process based on its understanding of its faith, it is said to be “pushing its religious doctrine on the state,” which is the worst sin one can commit in the AU universe. This Orwellian position, redolent of double-think, is incomprehensible, except inasmuch as its reflects a willingness to ignore one’s constitutional principles for the sake of one’s political positions. Not that it’s news when AU does that, it just isn’t usually quite so blatant about it.

Bathija, after a detour, concludes:

State officials can — and often do — prosecute misuse of non-profit funds for personal gain. If Connecticut laws preventing this kind of fraud are inadequate, perhaps the legislature should tighten them up.

But that’s quite different from a gross governmental intervention into the internal structure of a church. The Constitution simply doesn’t permit that kind of entanglement between religion and government. Moves to reform churches must come from inside them, not from elected officials.

Said [Bridgeport] Bishop [William] Lori, “It is time for us to stop this unbridled use of governmental power. It is time for us to defend our First Amendment rights.”

We say amen to that, Bishop! Now, if only Lori could remember the First Amendment rights of those of us who do not want abortion and same-sex marriage laws to be decided based on church doctrine! That’s just as much of a church-state separation concern as this unconstitutional bill.

This needs some correction. What Bathija meant to say is that she wants “abortion and same-sex marriage laws to be decided on the basis of United Church of Christ doctrine,” rather than Catholic doctrine. Because that’s in fact what she supports. The idea that support for gay marriage and unlimited abortion is somehow a religion-free position, when one of the most prominent organizations advocating the latter, for instance, is the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, is nonsensical on its face. What Bathija really means is, the only religious leaders and organizations that have a right to impose their doctrine on the rest of us are those with whose politics AU agrees.

The End Is Near

Christian writer Michael Spencer has an interesting piece in the Christian Science Monitor today that I think presents a largely accurate picture of the future of American evangelicalism. I don’t agree with everything he says, but it’s all worth pondering and discussing. Here are a few excerpts:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the “Protestant” 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Anyone with half an eye can see that there is a growing anti-Christian sentiment in the West, partially as a result of the rising tide of atheism and agnosticism, partially as a result of spreading hedonism. Evangelicalism, along with Catholicism and Orthodoxy, stand athwart such trends, and as they become more and more the norm, Christians will look more and more like relics who deserve to be run over be the rushing train of culture. It is also the case that evangelical churches are seriously unprepared to deal with this future, as Spencer points out in asking why this is going to happen:

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

This is sadly true, and is explained at least in part by the fact that immersion in a culture that is hostile to our faith (not just our moral values) makes the relatively small amount of time that is spent in Christian endeavors all too often futile. Our children and youth must be taught how to live the faith in every choice and at every moment, not just when they happen to be occupied in “Christian activity.” But to do this, they must also be convinced that what they are doing is right and true, despite the constant messages to the contrary that they receive every day.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to “do good” is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

This is already the case in some areas of ministry (ex-gay work, crisis pregnancy centers) that touch on controversial moral or lifestyle issues. Christian efforts to penetrate sectors of the culture that are considered secular “property” (schools and colleges, media, politics, science) are also viewed with suspicion and hostility, even outright opposition in some quarters. Such responses are not only bad for Christians, they are bad for society as a whole, as they eat away at some of the most vital liberties of a free society. But those engaged in the effort to eradicate Christian influence in the mind and conscience forming sectors of the culture are growing less and less concerned with that, thinking that they are saving society from a medievalist scourge. I hope that Spencer over-estimates the degree to which ministries will downplay their Christian identity in order to survive institutionally, but I can’t say for sure that he does.

He then goes on to ask, “what will be left?”:

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

God help us all if he’s right here. Personally, I don’t think that such churches have any reason to survive, so I won’t mourn their passing, but the resources that will be wasted in propping them up will be unfortunate.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

Folks like this are already at work. My friend Mike Pasquarello, a preaching professor at Asbury Seminary, and I have talked about the need for this for years, and he’s doing his part with his students there and books that he’s written seeking to recover the theological heritage and practical experience of the Church that we have forgotten as we’ve fallen prey to the heresies of the new and therapeutic. (You can find his books, Sacred Rhetoric: Preaching as a Theological and Pastoral Practice of the Church; Christian Preaching: A Trinitarian Theology of Proclamation; and Narrative Reading, Narrative Preaching: Reuniting New Testament Interpretation and Proclamation at Amazon.) I will post on others as I think of them. The point is that this has already begun. The extent to which it is penetrating the evangelical conscienceness, however, remains to be seen.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

The first of these is already starting, as people like Brian McLaren become more comfortable with the National Council of Churches crowd than the evangelicals from which they sprang. As for the second, I think they will become less common and smaller, but they will never disappear. Fundamentalism isn’t just a theological stance, it’s also a mind-set, and people of fundamentalist mind-set will always be with us–some as conservative Christians, some as liberal college professors.

•Evangelicalism needs a “rescue mission” from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

This is also happening now. There are more missionaries from South Korea in the United States than there are American missionaries in South Korea, for instance. The question is whether these workers–from places as diverse as Nigeria, Honduras, and mainland China–will be able and willing to go beyond ministering to their own ethnic group and become universal missionaries. I mean, WASPs need the gospel too, right?

Spencer’s final section asks, “Is all this a bad thing?” I’ll leave that to you to read and answer on your own. But by all means read the whole piece.

A Lie and a Slander

It isn’t often that I see a statement by a leader in the mainline church that is so outrageous, so blatantly false, so scurrilous, that it merits the word “lie.” But that’s the only word I can come up with to describe a statement by the Rev. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, that I came across this morning. He was writing about Religious Freedom Day, which was observed on Friday. He had some harsh, and I think misinformed, things to say about President Bush with regard to religious freedom, but where he crossed the line is with this:

Unfortunately many members of the Religious Right continue attempts to hijack even an emphasis on religious freedom by distorting the promise of the constitution and suggesting that the meaning of religious freedom is freedom for our religion, not yours.

Among those who have joined the so called “Religious Freedom Day Coalition” are the Becket Fund and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, two organizations that consistently have sought to erase institutional boundaries between religion and government in an effort to impose their beliefs on all Americans. (Emphasis added.]

I know the Becket Fund, like the Alliance Defense Fund, is basically a legal resource for Christians  and others who have complaints about the way their faith has been treated in the public square, business, etc. I don’t know its work that well, though what I’ve seen of it doesn’t appear to merit this kind of slander. But I’ll let others who are more familiar with Becket defend it.

On the other hand….

I’ve been a supporter of the Institute on Religion and Democracy for a long time. I know folks there, I’ve corresponded with them, shared information with them, been to one conference there since coming to the Washington area. I think I know what they are about, what their goals are, and how they operate. That being said, I can only call the emphasized portion of Gaddy’s statement what it is: a scurrilous lie. Either he is hopelessly ignorant of what the IRD is trying to do or–and I think this far more likely–he knows, and chooses to lie about it and demonize an organization that dares to question the liberal hegemony in the mainline churches in order to further his own political agenda.

Who Needs a Conscience?

The Bush administration has announced new regulations that will allow health care professionals to exercise their right of conscience and refuse to provide abortion services and information. According to LifeSite News, the regulations will do three things:

- Clarifies that non-discrimination protections apply to institutional health care providers as well as to individual employees working for recipients of certain funds from HHS
- Requires recipients of certain HHS funds to certify their compliance with laws protecting provider conscience rights; and
- Designates the HHS Office for Civil Rights as the entity to receive complaints of discrimination addressed by the existing statutes and the regulation.

This makes sense to me. Performing an abortion isn’t like removing an appendix. It’s a medical procedure fraught with moral implications, and many health care providers believe they put their salvation at risk by cooperating with the evil that is the abortion culture. Women who want to procure an abortion can find a provider, even if it takes a good deal of work or expense; a provider who engages in abortion against his conscience becomes a corrupt hireling. Predictably, though, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a conglomeration of pro-abortion religious organizations and denominations, is outraged at the idea that someone, somewhere, might be unable to get an abortion:

The Bush Administration’s regulation to expand the right to refuse to provide abortion information, services, and referrals is a case study in how respect for religious diversity has been undermined in the last eight years. Using the guise of protecting the conscience of healthcare providers, this Department of Health and Human Services regulation – which was finalized today – denies women and other patients their right to follow their conscience and make decisions according to their religious and moral beliefs.

The logic here defies analysis. Women are being denied the right to follow their “religious and moral beliefs” because they may have to find a health care provider other than the one they’ve chosen. Meanwhile, Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, evangelical Christian, and other objectors to abortion have to ignore their conscience because someone might be inconvenienced by their decision to stand against the culture of death.

Look, no one should be required by the government to compromise their most cherished moral beliefs–that’s one of the most important elements in tyranny. But there’s a big difference between being forced to do something you believe is absolutely forbidden to those of your faith, and being required to go to a different doctor, city, or state to do what you want to do. That ought to be easy to see for people who are supposedly religious, but then the religion of the RCRC seems to be death, with abortion as its highest sacrament.

This is an ideological measure and a troubling end to the Bush Administration’s sad legacy on women’s health. Not only is it a final blow against women’s reproductive health needs, but also it will inflame the divisiveness over abortion as the Obama Administration begins its tenure. President-elect Obama has clearly stated his intention to seek commonsense, common ground ways to reduce unintended pregnancies and the need for abortion. This regulation ignores the very serious public health and community problems of unintended pregnancies and HIV/AIDS.

Abortion stops HIV/AIDS? Who knew? If I were guessing, I’d say they throw this in to make the point that some health care providers (specifically, Catholics who take Humanae Vitae seriously) will refuse to hand out contraceptives. That complain is really a joke–condoms are available at every convenience store, and plenty of doctors will provide other forms as well. It simply isn’t a problem to get contraception in this society if you want it.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) calls on President-elect Obama to swiftly rescind the measure and move on to address urgent reproductive health needs.

Like condoms in every Christmas stocking, and swift passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, no doubt. Oh, and while he’s at it, he’d better issue an executive order immunizing Planned Parenthood from following statutory rape reporting laws. They’re gonna need it.

More Complaints From Prop 8 Losers

I usually disagree with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, but I have to give credit where credit’s due. Some folks out in California are grousing about the tax-exempt status of the Mormon Church and its recent opposition to Proposition 8. AU Director Barry Lynn says get a grip, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

In the wake of Proposition 8’s passage, opponents are railing that churches that supported the ballot measure violated their tax-exempt status.

It’s a common accusation at the now-weekly protests, gaining enough traction that Geoff Kors, a member of the No on 8 executive committee, said lawyers are investigating the issue.

“The Mormon church overstepped its boundaries by being a tax-exempt organization,” said Sharone Negev, 54, of San Francisco, who has gone to protests in San Francisco and the Mormon temple in Oakland. “They clearly are not supposed to be involved in political activities.”

But interviews with experts and activists on the issue say Prop. 8 opponents should look elsewhere for reasons to criticize the measure’s supporters.

“They almost certainly have not violated their tax exemption,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the leading advocacy organization on the issue. “While the tax code has a zero tolerance for endorsements of candidates, the tax code gives wide latitude for churches to engage in discussions of policy matters and moral questions, including when posed as initiatives.”

He’s exactly right, of course, and the way the tax code works now is as it should be on issues of public importance. Churches and their members must be able to try to influence public opinion on matters that are significant to them, or freedom of religion (not to mention speech) is gutted. Not everybody gets that, however:

That doesn’t satisfy Negev, the Prop. 8 protester.

“Why are they even having these tax-exempt laws if churches can exert so much power on issues of civil rights,” said Negev, who attends Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, a reform synagogue that opposed the measure. “Why have these laws in the first place?” [Emphasis added.]

But Lynn, the church-state separation advocate, said that while he was outraged by the Prop. 8 victory, these arguments are a waste of time.

So on the issues that are important to her, Negev apparently believes that any religious organization that opposes her tolerant and diversity-minded views should be stripped of its tax exemption, a perspective that presumably wouldn’t apply to those who are on the side of the angels (which is to say, her side).

There are few events in recent memory that have so marvelously illustrated the authoritarian mindset of some on the left than the triumph of Prop 8. Kudos to Barry Lynn, who though he was against the initiative, nevertheless has the integrity to defend the right to speak out of those on the other side.

AU to Bishop (singular): ‘Shut Up or Else!’

As I demonstrated in a post last week, Americans United for Separation of Church and State is seeking to use the power of the Internal Revenue Service to silence debate and dissent by opponents of AU’s political agenda. This week, the miscreant is the Catholic Bishop of Paterson, New Jersey, the Rt. Rev. Arthur Serratelli, who has had the audacity to write about one of the most abhorrent pieces of legislation to come down the pike in a long time, the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), and one of its most prominent supporters, who happens to be running for president.

In a press release posted on their Web site yesterday, AU called on the IRS to stop this danger to democracy in his tracks:

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson, N.J., after its bishop published a letter advising congregants not to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In the letter, titled “A Politician’s Promise: No Right to Life! No Freedom!,” Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli compared Obama to Herod Antipas, the New Testament ruler who is notorious for ordering the beheading of John the Baptist.

Serratelli criticized Obama for telling a pro-choice group that he would sign legislation protecting abortion rights. Referring to Obama as “the present democratic candidate,” Serratelli attacked his voting record on abortion and asserted, “Today we live in a democracy. We choose our leaders who make our laws. Every vote counts. Today, either we choose to respect and protect life, especially the life of the child in the womb of the mother or we sanction the loss of our most basic freedoms. At this point, we are still free to choose!”

Although tax-exempt religious organizations are free to take stands on issues, they are not, under federal tax law, allowed to intervene in elections by tying them to specific candidates and their campaigns.

Here’s what Bishop Serratelli said that so offended AU’s delicate sensibilities:

In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, the present democratic candidate voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act. This law was meant to protect a baby that survived a late-term abortion. When the same legislation came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served, he held to his opposition. First, he voted “present.” Next, he voted “no.”

Along with 108 members of Congress, the present democratic candidate for President continues his strong support for the Freedom of Choice Act. In a speech before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund last year, he made the promise that the first thing he would do as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. What a choice for a new President!

At the time when Herod murdered John the Baptist because of his promise, Rome practiced the principle “one man, one vote.” Whoever the emperor in Rome placed in authority over a subject people, ruled. Today we live in a democracy. We choose our leaders who make our laws. Every vote counts. Today, either we choose to respect and protect life, especially the life of the child in the womb of the mother or we sanction the loss of our most basic freedoms. At this point, we are still free to choose!

Please note a couple of things: 1) Everything the bishop says about Barack Obama is true. You can love it or hate it, but it’s all true. 2) He does not ever say that Catholics may not vote for Obama, or should vote for McCain. He gives his readers accurate information, and then tells them that they are free to choose their leaders on the basis of that information. 3) He doesn’t say that, if they vote for Obama, they will incure any sort of penalty from the Church. 4) He endorses no one. 5) He does not say any of this from the pulpit, but posts it in a letter on the diocese’s Web site. Though Catholic bishops may, at any time, order priests to read from the pulpit letters to their congregations from the bishop, there is no indication that Bishop Serratelli has done this.

None of this matters to AU. For this supposed church-state watchdog, what matters is that you don’t cross the line into even hinting at opposition to its preferred candidate. The best evidence of that is this: to date, near as I can tell from its Web site, AU has yet to complain to the IRS about any religious figure or organization that has made clear its preference for the Democratic nominee.

AU to Bishops: ‘Shut Up or Else!’ (UPDATED)

One of the most disturbing things to come out of the current presidential election is the growing tendency of liberal politicians, activists, and organizations to use various means, including government agencies, to try to shut down opposing views. They’ve even tried to use the U.S. Department of Justice to get a perfectly legitimate political ad off the airwaves. For one such organization, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the preferred agency is the Internal Revenue Service.

In a column yesterday, AU staffer Rob Boston essentially threatened the Catholic Church with revocation of tax exempt status for the crime of stating its pro-life stance, and its implications, from the pulpit. He writes:

Two Texas bishops have released a letter informing their congregants whom they can and can’t vote for and remain faithful members of the Roman Catholic Church.

The missive by Bishop Kevin Farrell of the Diocese of Dallas and Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Fort Worth is being read in all Catholic churches in the area. It states in part, “To vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or ‘abortion rights’ when there is a morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil – and, therefore, morally impermissible.”

Over the past several years, the Catholic Church has been struggling with the question of voting as it relates to its most essential moral teaching. What the bishops wrote to their own congregants is, near as I can tell, in line with the current state of that teaching regarding abortion. It’s a view of the franchise that is held by millions of people who could never bring themselves to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. But in the world of liberal political advocacy that AU swims in, that is a violation of the tax code:

The letter never mentions Democratic candidate Barack Obama or his opponent, John McCain, by name. But you’d have to be very dense indeed not to get the message. Farrell and Vann go on to assert that other issues traditionally important to Catholics – social justice, care for the poor, health care – need not be seriously considered this year. Instead, Catholics must base their vote on abortion.

In fact, the bishops never tell people to vote for McCain. They might, based on the church’s teaching, vote for a third party candidate. They might decide that their conscience wouldn’t allow them to vote at all. (Catholic writer Mark Shea seems to be taking this approach.) But in the world of AU, if you make a statement of moral principle, and allow people to draw their own conclusions, that must mean you’re endorsing a candidate, and that’s a no-no.

Oh, and you might also notice that, in addition to considering themselves the ultimate arbiter of church-state relations, Boston is apparently looking to substitute AU wisdom for Catholic teaching. The church is now apparently not allowed to elevate abortion as a moral concern, because that offends AU’s sense of political propriety.

Nicole LeBlanc, a member of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Dallas, was among them.

“As a Catholic, we’re taught about being independent moral agents with free will,” LeBlanc said. “That letter from the bishops is basically telling us that if we vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights, we are basically immoral and our souls are imperiled.”

Ms. LeBlanc is evidently a cafeteria Catholic who doesn’t like the church telling her what its stance on moral issues and their implications are for everyday life (including voting). So she stomped out. She’s held up by Boston as a hero who refused to hear the teaching of her church, and instead did what any good liberal should do–close her ears and cry, “I can’t hear you!”

PLEASE NOTE: Ms. LeBlanc has told me via the comments that Boston was incorrect in his reading of the Dallas Morning News story from which he got her name, and that she did not leave the service, nor would she. He has corrected his mistake at the AU blog, and I am happy to do so here as well. My apologies to Ms. LeBlanc for the misdirected harsh words, and for impugning her faith in any way.

Now back to our regularly scheduled post:

Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn said the bishops are walking a fine line.

“This is clearly an attempt on the part of these bishops to do an end-run around the federal tax law ban on electioneering by churches,” Lynn told the Morning News.

Uh, no. I know that Rev. Lynn, a UCC minister, is well aware that his own denomination is full of advice for its members regarding voting. But that advice invariably places the UCC on the side of whoever is the most liberal candidate in a given election. The never come out and endorse, of course–they walk a fine line. But the political preferences of UCC leadership are absolutely crystal clear. The Catholic bishops just made the mistake of emphasizing the wrong issues and the wrong stances.

When it comes to the presidential contest, it would be difficult to read the Farrell-Vann letter and the one issued by [Scranton, Pa. bishop Joseph] Martino as anything but an indirect endorsement of McCain. If the bishops now take the next step and issue “voter guides” telling where the candidates stand on abortion, they will be in clear violation of federal tax law, and an IRS investigation would be in order.

And there’s the threat.

I made clear a couple of weeks ago that I have no use for clergy endorsing candidates from the pulpit. But at this point, AU is looking to use the taxing power of the government as a threat to prevent Christian leaders from giving guidance to their congregations based on the clear moral teaching of their church. If that isn’t a liberal organization trying to use the state to interfere with the life of a church in pursuit of its political goals, I don’t know what is. I guess church-state separation is only important when your political preferences are being supported.

Pulpit “Freedom” Sunday

The Alliance Defense Fund, a group whose work I usually appreciate, organized an effort by several dozen pastors to defy the Internal Revenue Service regulations prohibiting political candidate endorsement from the pulpit. This was presented by the ADF as an initiative to secure freedom of speech for the pulpit, but I think it a foolhardy move on the part of the pastors.

Earlier this week, ADF senior lawyer Erik Stanley said this:

Pastors have a right to speak about Biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights. If you have a concern about pastors speaking about electoral candidates from the pulpit, ask yourself this: should the church decide that question, or should the IRS?”

ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit. Churches can decide for themselves that they either do or don’t want their pastors to speak about electoral candidates. The point of the Pulpit Initiative is very simple: the IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status. We need to get the government out of the pulpit.

Churches were completely free to preach about candidates from the day that the Constitution was ratified in 1788 until 1954. That’s when the unconstitutional rule known as the “Johnson Amendment” was enacted. Churches are exempt from taxation under the principle that there is no surer way to destroy religion than to begin taxing it. As the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, the power to tax involves the power to destroy. The real effect of the Johnson Amendment is that pastors are muzzled for fear of investigation by the IRS.

Stanley is right about the constitutional history, and the story surrounding the Johnson Amendment (named for author Lyndon Johnson, who wrote it while in the Senate as a way of muzzling non-profits giving him fits back in Texas) is more than a little sordid, and it should be repealed if for no other reason than for being a blight on the freedom of speech. He’s also right about the tax exemption for churches, which isn’t a gift from the government for good social works, but a protection for religious freedom.

All that said, pastors should not have gotten involved in this. It’s true that you can’t bring a court case on an abstract question, but have to have real people with real interests involved, but that’s ADF’s problem. Pastors who are getting into partisan politics in the pulpit are abusing their office and their calling. Preach about moral issues in light of Scripture and theology all you want, but when you get partisan you wind up portraying God as a mere politician. You also, incidentally, buy into the fallacy of the religious left (which contends that they have some kind of mandate to stamp God’s imprimatur on to prudential political, social, and economic measures), since choosing between political candidates is by its very nature a matter of prudential judgment. That’s something that all Christians are called to do as they live as citizens of a democratic polity, but it has no place in the proclamation of God’s eternal Word. By helping the ADF pursue their legal crusade, these pastors are doing an enormous disservice to their congregations, and the ADF is doing one to the churches that it is supposed to be dedicated to serve.

No Independence in This Classroom, AU Says (UPDATED)

Americans for Separation of Church and State is in a tizzy because of a court decision that came down in California last week. In it, a judge upheld a teacher’s free speech and equal protection rights, which is obviously a bad thing. According to Sandhya Bathija of AU:

A teacher has the right to hang up a seven-foot-wide “patriotic” banner that reads “All Men are Created Equal, They are Endowed by Their Creator” in his public school classroom, according to a California federal judge.

The scare quotes on “patriotic” are kind of funny considering the banner is a direct quote from the Declaration of Independence. But I guess that’s one of those documents we have to shield high school students from because of its references to God.

Poway Unified School District high school math teacher Brad Johnson hung the outrageously large banner (that used double-sized font for the word “creator”) in his classroom for 17 years. For 25 years, he has also hung up other banners that read “In God We Trust,” “God Bless America,” and “God Shed His Grace on Thee.”

The school’s principal asked Johnson to take the banners down in January 2007, and though he did, Johnson also filed a lawsuit against the school for violating his free speech rights and religious liberty.

Normally I might have wondered about the propriety of such classroom hangings as well (though the fact that they hung there for more than two decades and no one ever complained, according to the decision, does make one suspect that people who worked at or attended the school considered them innocuous). But there’s more here than meets the eye.

In his ruling, [U.S. District Court Judge Roger] Benitez said the banner was Johnson’s private speech, and since the school allowed teachers to display personal messages on bulletin boards, he was within his rights.

Benitez also said since the school permitted other teachers to display religious messages, asking only Johnson to remove his banner is “an unequivocal case of government hostility, not neutrality, towards what (school administrators) perceive to the Judeo-Christian viewpoint.” [Emphasis added.]

Yes, you read that correctly. The school allowed teachers to use a portion of the classroom wall space for personal messages, and among the stuff put up there, according to the decision, were

- posters of rock bands such as Nirvana and The Clash
-posters of professional athletes
-travel posters
-family photographs
-non-student artwork and posters of artwork
-stuffed animal collections
-pictures of nature
-materials promoting the environment
-posters with Buddhist and Islamic messages
-Tibetan prayer flags [Emphasis added.]

Now, one could certainly argue (as Bathija, to her credit, does) that the school is making a mistake by allowing postings such as the latter two, or for that matter any that had any religious content at all. But as long as the school permitted these other displays, it strikes me as an open-and-shut case of viewpoint discrimination, especially when one notes this from the decision:

On January 23, 2007, Westview High School Principal Kastner ordered Johnson to remove the banners, telling Johnson the banners were impermissible because they conveyed a Judeo-Christian viewpoint.

Even though she notes this in her column, Bathija still thinks the court’s decision should be overturned. While she advocates a change in policy by the school, she doesn’t call for a challenge to that policy, something AU is certainly capable of doing. And since courts are supposed to deal with the issues before them, rather than extending their reach out to smite injustice or unconstitutionality wherever they find it, she is in essence arguing that everyone should be permitted to go on the way they were before the decision, except for Johnson, whose “Judeo-Christian viewpoint” so offended his principal.

So much for equality before the law, huh?

UPDATE: The Thomas More Law Center, which litigated the case on behalf of Johnson, has more here.