OLLIE NORTH: COMMON SENSE OR NONSENSE?

Q: Is Ollie North correct in saying (Nov. 3, 1997): In the Constitution there is "absolutely no provision whatsoever for the separation of church and state."

A: Nonsense!

1. Art.6,Sec.3: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

2. First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

3. James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," was present for the entire 1787 constitutional convention which drafted and adopted Art.6, Sec.3, and was cochairman of the 1789 Joint Senate-House Conference Committee which drafted and adopted the religion clauses of the First Amendment--both wordings were approved by Congress and the states. This is what James Madison said about the Constitution's only provisions respecting religion: "Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history" (William and Mary Quarterly, 1946, 3:555; America's Real Religion, p. 27).

Q: Is Ollie North correct in saying (Nov. 3, 1997) that according to The Federalist papers, America's "whole premise, going back to the seminal documents of this country, was based on very firm Judeo- Christian principles"?

A: Nonsense!

1. The Federalist papers never use Ollie North's words "Judeo-Christian principles." The Constitution for the United States of America never uses the words Judeo-Christian, Christian, God, or Bible.

2. The principle respecting religion upon which this country is founded is religious autonomy--the right of every man and every woman to make up his or her own mind as to what he or she chooses to believe and support respecting religion. Religion is a matter of individual opinion and, as such, is not within the jurisdiction of government. Therefore, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and, no religious test shall ever be required for any office or public trust under the United States. The Founding Fathers and the Congressmen who worded the Constitution and the First Amendment clearly established a principle of separation between religion and government.

3. In Reynolds (98 U.S. at 164, 1879) the Supreme Court of the United States accepted President Thomas Jefferson's deliberate definition of the religion clauses as "building a wall of separation between Church & State." In Supreme Court decisions Everson (330 U.S. at 59, 1947)and McCollum (333 U.S. at 232, 1948) is the following assertion: "We have staked the very existence of our country on the faith that complete separation between the state and religion is best for the state and best for religion." The justices on these 1879, 1947, and 1948 courts were not liberals or communists; they were patriotic, conservative Americans who had done their homework and accepted the Constitution as written.

Q: Many times on his national radio broadcast, Oliver North has harangued President Bill Clinton for sending his daughter to a private school while at the same time opposing school choice for all American children. Is Oliver North using common sense?

A: Oliver North's argument is nonsense. No one opposes school choice. The issue is public money. President Clinton did not use public money with which to pay for his daughter's private school education. Oliver North wants another pap on the federal sow from which public money would flow to private schools.