This essay is an opportunity for readers to learn how I respond to a March 3, 2002, statement made by Randall Murphree, Editor, AFA Journal, who asserted the following:
"Suffice it to say I am confident that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's assessment of the place of the Ten Commandments in our culture is much closer than is Gene Garman's to the beliefs of our founding fathers."
I hope nothing but the best for the American Family Association and all such organizations in their efforts toward developing the quality and durability of America's families. This essay has nothing to do with any effort in that regard. The purpose of this essay is to deal with the obvious effort by the AFA to assume a role as historian and to indoctrinate those Americans among whom it communicates with an inaccurate understanding of the unique American principle of separation between religion and government.
As a religion major at the university and graduate of a theological seminary, I doubt if the AFA, Justice Moore, and I have any disagreement about the overall influence of the Jewish Decalogue in the United States of America. The Bible was the most widely read book in colonial America, and for many years some colonies and states even enforced "Sabbath" laws, although on the first day of the week rather than the seventh. Further, the Mount Sinai laws of Moses were (and probably still are) better known than the beatitudes of Jesus in his sermon on the Mount of Olives. Is there an historian who claims otherwise? None I know.
Editor Murphree, characteristic of those who reject the constitutional principle of "separation between Religion and Government" (James Madison, William and Mary Quarterly, 3:555), does not accept or understand the issue which divides those of us engaged in the controversy today, just as it divided some American citizens of the eighteenth century. The issue, as it was in the 1785 Virginia dispute between James Madison and Patrick Henry, for example, is the proper relationship between religion and government at any level:
Government is the essence of coercion. The essence of real religion is voluntarism. Religion which is not voluntary smacks of tyranny, not freedom. That is the issue. Below I will respond to the comments and examples provided by Editor Murphree on behalf of the AFA and post my reply after each.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"I will let Judge Moore and the founding fathers speak for themselves."
GENE GARMAN:
Judge Moore, under cover of darkness took a stone monument containing his chosen version of the Jewish Ten Commandments up an elevator and into the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building. The monument will probably be removed by a superior court order. The Founding Fathers are the fifty-five men who replaced the Articles of Confederation with a Constitution for the people of the United States of America. The Founding Fathers (with capital Fs, see Webster's Dictionary), in 1787, DEBATED, and the overwhelming majority of them APPROVED, the wording of what they proclaimed as "the supreme law of the land." By 1788 eleven of the thirteen states had ratified the new "supreme law of the land" and every state since has accepted the Constitution as "the supreme law of the land."
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"Below are two quotations from my [Editor Murphree's] interview with Judge Moore last fall, followed by 14 quotes (from founding fathers and official public documents) that are also inscribed on the 'Ten Commandments monument' in the Alabama Justice Building."
GENE GARMAN:
Note the small fs which can refer to anyone, like forefathers, who lived in the eighteenth or an earlier century in America, not capital Fs which refer to the actual persons who composed the words of the Constitution. Thus, the issue is to whom will you give greater weight as to the intent of the words of the Constitution: for example, the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, or any Tom, John, or Henry who had something to say about the Constitution during the time the Constitution was drafted? Furthermore, all other writings which existed in 1787 are inferior and subject to the Constitution because it alone is the only constitutionally mentioned and state/people ratified document accepted as "the supreme law of the land" for the United States of America.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION quotes from Judge Moore:
"1. Indeed as late as 1961, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, William O. Douglas, in a case called McGowan v. Maryland, said that the institutions of our society are founded upon a belief that there is an authority that is higher than the authority of the State, that there is a moral law the State is powerless to alter, and that the individual possesses rights conferred by the Creator, which government must respect, and the body of the Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights enshrined those principles."
GENE GARMAN:
Judge Moore quotes Justice Douglas who is not a Founding Father (with large or small fs) because Justice Douglas did not live in the eighteenth century. He wrote the above words 174 years after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Moreover, he is making a statement which has no basis in the Constitution, because the Constitution says absolutely nothing about a "higher" authority. To the contrary, the Founding Fathers declared only the Constitution as the "supreme" law of the land, in which not one word is said about "a moral law," about a "Creator, which government must respect," or about the Constitution enshrining such ideas. Justice Douglas was in error and Judge Moore is in error, as is everyone who accepts such an unconstitutional version of America's history.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"2. No one likes to attract controversy, but the ACLU detractors realize that when a chief justice acknowledges God, it does them great damage. We're simply acknowledging the truth. Indeed, every chief justice of every state should acknowledge the foundation of our civil law, and it's clearly found in the Declaration of Independence: 'the laws of nature and of nature's God.'"
GENE GARMAN:
Judge Moore is wrong. The civil law of the United States is founded in the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence or its deistic reference to "the laws of nature and of nature's God." Even I learned that much during the one year I attended law school. The Declaration has no legal standing in any court of law. The Declaration is merely a significant document of history as it stated the grievances by which the colonists declared independence from King George III. The Declaration did not found the existing government of the United States of America. Eleven years after the Declaration, the Continental Congress authorized a convention which ultimately replaced the Articles of Confederation with the existing Constitution which forms the basis for the existing government of the United States of America.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"It's [the foundation of our civil law] clearly found in the writings of our forefathers. Indeed, James Madison said that we were entitled to have a Constitution because of the laws of God. Now these were not just vague, indiscriminate laws, or something you might imagine the law to be out of natural law. These were revelations from holy Scripture, as defined by Blackstone, and it was a part of the law of nature. Indeed, there are phrases in the Constitution that can't be interpreted unless you turn to the law of God."
GENE GARMAN:
Judge Moore is undereducated. His is the same mentality which makes the ridiculous claim that America is a "Christian nation," yet erects a monument recognizing the Jewish laws of Moses, rather than the teachings of Jesus. Hello? Judge Moore actually relies on the English jurist Blackstone to tell us the Constitution must be "interpreted" according to "holy Scripture" and the "law of God," neither of which is mentioned in the Constitution. Then, he claims James Madison said "we were entitled to have a Constitution because of the laws of God." James Madison said NO SUCH THING and Judge Moore cannot prove it.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION quotes from others:
"1. The inclusion of God in our pledge therefore would further acknowledge the dependence of our people and our government upon the moral directions of the Creator."
"2. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all-- Pledge of Allegiance, 1954"GENE GARMAN:
Inclusion of the 1954 words "under God" into America's national patriotic pledge (which was originally written without any reference to God) was the result of a congressional resolution which became public law yet which the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1943 (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette), had already ruled cannot be required. It was passed by pandering and misguided congressional politicians in the McCarthy era of American history when communism was a major concern in America. Insertion of "under God" into the pledge is a direct slap in the face of the Founding Fathers who commanded: "no religious test shall ever be required" (Art. 6., Sec., 3, Constitution, 1787) and of the First Congress which commanded: "religion" shall not be established by law or Congress (First Amendment).
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"3. Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine--James Wilson."
GENE GARMAN:
The above uncited quote may be that of Founding Father James Wilson, but its wording is not found in the Constitution and is an opinion which has no force in American constitutional law.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"4. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? --Thomas Jefferson"
GENE GARMAN:
The above was a common sentiment expressed prior to and during the Revolution by numerous Americans, including deists such as Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. It is interesting the AFA will reject Jefferson's advocacy of "separation between Church & State" in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, but quote him when it fits their agenda! It was also the opinion of Jefferson that the stories of the virgin birth and the trinity were nothing more than a hoax. To use Jefferson as if he supported the AFA position of an official and/or constitutional connection between religion and government is dishonest.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"5. We the people of the State of Alabama, in order to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do order and establish the following constitution and form of government for the State of Alabama--Constitution of Alabama."
GENE GARMAN:
While the preamble to the Alabama Constitution, in "invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God," is not in harmony with the Constitution for the United States of America--which is "the supreme law of the land" --the following is the "form of government," in regard to religion, which Alabama has established:
"Article 1, Declaration of Rights. 3. That no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination or mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship; nor to pay tithes, taxes or other rates for building or repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be required as q qualification to any office of public trust under this State; and that the civil rights, privileges and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles."
"Article XIV. Education. 263. No money raised for the support of the public schools shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian or denominational school."
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"6. In God We Trust-- National Motto, 1956"
GENE GARMAN:
This motto, as created by the same misguided mentality which produced the congressional resolution that put "under God" into the pledge, is another slap in the face of the Founding Fathers who commanded that "no religious test shall ever be required" (Art. 6., Sec. 3., Constitution) and of the First Congress which commanded that "religion" shall not be established by law or Congress (First Amendment). "What is directly prohibited cannot be indirectly permitted, lest the Establishment Clause become a mockery" (Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. at 131). The real motto for the United States of America is and has been from the beginning: e pluribus unum (from many, one).
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"7. O, thus be it ever when free men shall stand Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation! Blest with vic'try and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto -- "In God is our trust." And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. -- Francis Scott Key, National Anthem"
GENE GARMAN:
The national anthem, like the pledge of allegiance, cannot be required. Just as I continue to recite the pledge as I did in school and when I went to Korea with the Marines (when the pledge did not contain the words "under God") I also choose not to sing the above misguided verse of the voluntary "national anthem." America is a democratic republic, not a theocracy. If, as James Madison pointed out in his 1785 "Memorial and Remonstrance," government can establish Christianity as the religion of America, what is to keep it from establishing "any particular sect of Christians"? Madison concluded, "it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties." Religion is not the business of government at any level.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"8. The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no other-- George Mason"
GENE GARMAN:
George Mason did not sign the Constitution. He was a deeply religious man who had a right to his opinion, but his above stated opinion did not prevail in the founding document of the United States of America wherein the overwhelming majority of the Founding Fathers commanded that the Constitution itself is THE "supreme law of the land." Please, read the Constitution:
"THIS CONSTITUTION, AND THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; AND ALL TREATIES made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND; AND THE JUDGES IN EVERY STATE SHALL BE BOUND THEREBY, ANY THING IN THE CONSTITUTION OR LAWS OF ANY STATE TO THE CONTRARY NOTWITHSTANDING" (emphasis mine, Art. 6., Sec. 2.).
For those readers who may not comprehend the legalese word "notwithstanding," in plain English it means: in spite of. In other words, the Constitution says: "Judges in every state shall be bound thereby" (that is, by "this Constitution, and the laws of the United States") IN SPITE OF "any thing in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary."
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"9. The laws of nature and of nature's God-- The Declaration of Independence."
GENE GARMAN:
Native American Indians and animists worldwide lived by the laws of nature, and it was to "nature's God" (generally understood as the Creator) that the words of the 1776 Declaration refers. Regardless, "God" is not mentioned in the 1787 Constitution for the United States of America, which is "the supreme law of the land," not the Declaration.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"10. The transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be--James Madison."
GENE GARMAN:
In specific regard to the object of the political institution Madison helped create in America, below is a documented quotation from James Madison's essay "Monopolies," which the "Father of the Constitution", wrote after the Constitution was adopted. In this essay Madison specifically refers to and provides examples of the proper constitutional relationship between religion and government:
"Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States" (William and Mary Quarterly, 3:555).Note: I do not find Judge Moore or the AFA citing the above quotation.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"11. The law of nature, being coeval [of the same age] with mankind and dictated by God Himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.... Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws. That is to say no human laws should be suffered to contradict these--William Blackstone."
GENE GARMAN:
The famed English lawyer Blackstone was expressing his opinion, which at one time generally described European attitudes about law, including the divine right of kings. His opinion is not in harmony with American constitutional law, as created by the wiser opinions of America's Founding Fathers. In America, the Constitution was created to be THE "supreme law of the land," and the Constitution of 1787 makes no mention of "natural law." Since 1788, when the Constitution was adopted, only anarchists recognize "natural law" and become a law unto themselves, according to their definition of "natural law."
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"12. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?-- George Washington"
GENE GARMAN: As anyone who has read the Constitution knows, oaths (thanks to early influence from Quakers and others) cannot be required under the United States of America. George Washington said almost nothing during the debates in the Constitutional Convention, but the prevailing Founding Fathers commanded that religion oaths in courts of justice could not be required and stated a person could also declare affirmation of his truthfulness (Art. 6., Sec. 3.)--Washington signed it.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"13. ...so help me God-- Judiciary Act of 1789."
GENE GARMAN:
Under the United States, no religious test shall ever be required (Art. 6., Sec., 3., Constitution). The words "so help me God" cannot be required, regardless of any unconstitutional act passed by Congress: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," (First Amendment). The Founding Fathers and the First Congress rejected the Dark Ages mentality of a theocracy. Some current congress persons and zealot religionists have yet to learn the constitutional principle of voluntary support for religion.
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
"14. The greater part of evidence will always consist of the testimony of witnesses--this testimony is given under those solemn obligations which an appeal to the God of truth impose, and if oaths should cease to be held sacred, our dearest and most valuable rights would become insecure --John Jay."
GENE GARMAN:
John Jay was not a Founding Father (was not at the Constitutional Convention). The Federalist Papers, of which he wrote only five, were written along with those of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to help promote adoption of the Constitution; but, the Federalist Papers are not the Constitution and are not superior to the words of the Constitution. Nevertheless, the ultimate significance of the Constitution is that it means whatever the Supreme Court of the United States says it means. America is a nation based upon the rule of law, and the Constitution established the Supreme Court as the final decision maker in respect to the Constitution. In contrast to some of the current members of the Supreme Court of the United States, I promote the views of James Madison, who attended every session of the Constitutional Convention, was a member of the First Congress, and was on the six member Senate-House committee which produced the final draft of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Here is what he wrote in 1785, two years before he helped draft the Constitution:
"What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people" (Papers of James Madison, 8:302).
Further, regarding Virginia, in 1819 Madison wrote:
"It was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil Gov[ernment] could not stand without the prop of a Religious establishment, & that the Xn [Christian] religion itself, would perish if not supported by a legal provision for its Clergy. The experience of Virginia conspicuously corroborates the disproof of both opinions. The Civil Gov[ernment] tho' bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success; Whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State" (Writings of James Madison, 8:431-432).
Regarding the national government, Madison wrote: "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history" (William and Mary Quarterly, 3:555).
Go to a college or university library and read the above quotations for yourself.