Get God into Government?

As American politics approach the famous or infamous "Iowa caucuses," of course that is very much in the news. One particular item of comment concerned which candidate so-called Evangelical voters are going to favor. Accordingly, the news reporters interviewed a few such.

One of them said, "We've got to get God back into this country." Another said, "We have to get God into government."

I dearly wish I could have asked them exactly what they meant. But absent that, my reaction would be to say that America is not a theocracy, never has been, and anyone who thinks that a theocracy is in any way desirable should look at the example of Iran, where the opinions of the ruling ayatollahs trump the views of the more secular organs of government such as, indeed, President Ahmadinejad. Considering the freedoms that prevail in Iran—or rather the lack of them—should make anyone think twice before wishing for a theocracy in this country. (But they'd probably try to argue that a Christian theocracy is a good thing even if a Muslim theocracy is a bad thing.)

I have a feeling that these respondents, if I were to expostulate with them on the notion of church-state separation, would give me the standard Religious Right line that church-state separation is a "myth." And I would point out that it was Thomas Jefferson who, in a famous letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, wrote of a "wall of separation" between church and state. (And the idea has even earlier roots, going back 150 years earlier still, to Roger Williams who was exiled from the Bay Colony in Massachusetts and established Rhode Island to provide religious freedom.)

If I did have my hypothetical chance to interrogate these same (presumably) caucus-bound Republican voters in Iowa, I have a feeling that before too long we'd hear that they want to see things like a return of prayer to the public schools; posting of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, city halls, etc.; total outlawing of abortion and same-sex marriage. These have been issues for, and aims of, the Religious Right for a long time—in some cases for decades.

Just as an aside, when they helped elect Ronald Reagan, and maybe ditto for George W. Bush, they were very disillusioned that these objectives of theirs were not realized. That those policies were not enacted, even by presidents whom these people thought were one of them or at the very least largely on their side, shows that these are not popular (in the original sense) or mainstream positions.

I think some polls have shown that about one-third of American voters consider themselves Evangelicals. Even if that is so and is not an inflated statistic, that number still is not a majority. Yet this minority aspires to political power such that it can trample on those who don't agree with it. The majority in the US gets to wield power via elections; but when it comes to rights (e.g. the civil rights of minority groups), the government is set up so that the majority cannot impose its religious views or practices on a minority. Nor a minority on the majority. The arbiter of any disputes about that is our court system.

Some of the earliest polities in America—for example, the seventeenth-century colony settled by Puritans in Massachusetts—were in fact set up as theocracies. A dissenter such as Roger Williams was kicked out of Massachusetts and went on to found Rhode Island. But the Framers of the Constitution, a century and a half later, in envisioning the shape of a federal government, wanted to avoid any government like that.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Update, January 4, 2012
This posting received a comment from a faithful follower of this blog. While I have the power to moderate all comments—that means I can allow or not allow a comment to be posted—I am pledged to allow dissenting opinions to be expressed on my blog.

However, I have to object to what was said; and I at first did so by writing a comment myself, commenting on the reader's comment.

However, I think I will use this avenue, an "update" to my original posting, to further express my refutation of what this person says.

He accuses liberals of being opposed to "school choice." Now, what exactly is school choice?

First, the term is a euphemism of the sort that I particularly hate because it obscures what is really being talked about. To me that is deceptive and downright evil.

"School choice" means what are also called school vouchers. Vouchers are given to parents of school-age children who can take them and use them as payment for school tuition; that is, tuition at private schools, and that usually means parochial--religious--schools.

So, school vouchers are beloved by the Religious Right. I, however, am strongly opposed to them. They allow tax money—my tax dollars—to be used to pay for religious education. I don't think I should be forced to pay for religious, sectarian, doctrinal education—which might, for example, teach Creationism instead of evolution. I believe that breaches the Constitutionally-mandated separation of Church and State.

Here is an interesting slant on school vouchers from the article on that subject in Wikipedia:

In some Southern states during the 1960s, school vouchers were used as a method of perpetuating segregation. In a few instances, public schools were closed outright and vouchers were issued to parents. The vouchers, in many cases, were only good at privately segregated schools, known as segregation academies.[6] Today, all modern voucher programs prohibit racial discrimination. [Wikipedia, s.v. school vouchers]

Public school teachers and teacher unions such as the National Education Association oppose vouchers. For all of the arguments both in favor of and against vouchers, see the Wikipedia article.

An interesting alternative, which does not seem to me to be as objectionable, is called "education tax credits." This basically says that if you pay to send your children to private school, you don't have to pay taxes which go to finance public schools. That seems fair, but I'd hasten to add that by the same logic, people such as myself, who have no children, probably should not pay for public schools, either.

There was an important ruling by the Supreme Court: in "2002 in a landmark case before the US Supreme Court, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, . . . the divided court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled the Ohio school voucher plan constitutional and removed any constitutional barriers to similar voucher plans in the future. . . " [Wikipedia, ibid.].

However, in Florida vouchers were struck down:

In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court struck down legislation known as the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which would have implemented a system of school vouchers in Florida.[67] The court ruled that the OSP violated article IX, section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution: "Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools" [Wikipedia, ibid.].

Why Hate Stephen Hawking?

A lot of the ideas the emanate from the political Right currently, such as denial of global warming, advocacy of Creationism (and creationism disguised with different names), opposition to evolution, etc., can be characterized as anti-science. They show a distrust of science and a lack of respect for science. A lack of understanding of how science works, what a scientific theory is, the nature of scientific evidence.

Recently there was an item on Huffington Post about Stephen Hawking, the British physicist, cosmologist, and former Cambridge University professor who has a neurological disease "related to" ALS (aka "Lou Gehrig's disease"), is confined to a wheel chair, and can "speak" only with the aid of an electronic device.

Now, Stephen Hawking is widely regarded as one of the leading thinkers of our time. I remember when I first became aware of him, in the 1970s. I was working with the astronomical community, and Hawking was then regarded as a very promising and rising young scholar. In the years since, he has received numerous awards and has written several books for a popular audience such as A Brief History of Time, which was a runaway best-seller.

Yet, to my very considerable surprise, the comments on the Huffington Post piece about him very largely blasted Hawking. I'm at a loss as to why he should have a negative image amongst the Joe Six-Packs. I can't understand what is political or controversial about his scientific ideas, which may not be very widely understood. It might have to do with comments he has made that appear to be anti-religion. (For example, he has said, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.") And in this, the most religious of the Western, developed countries, that might not go down very well. I also suspect that this is part of the long-standing strain of animosity to science in America.

That might be viewed in part as a contemporary problem, lack of scientific literacy due in turn to failures of the American educational system. Or it can be viewed as a historical problem, only the latest manifestation of a strain of American thought that goes back a long ways.

Some of the "Founding Fathers" of this country, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, might be considered amateur scientists. Everybody knows of Franklin's famous experiment with the kite, by which he demonstrated that lightning is electrical in nature. And Jefferson did considerable experimentation in agriculture—among his wide intellectual interests.

On the other hand, a lot of American ideas and ideals—maybe I should say mythology—developed along with the settling of the West, the movement of pioneers to the frontier; an ideology arose which glorified the individual, the ordinary man, the humble man, the man with little formal education. According to Wikipedia, "Culturally, the ideal American was a self-made man whose knowledge derived from life-experience, not an intellectual man, whose knowledge derived from books, formal education, and academic study."

Also, religious movements that arose in America emphasized religion and religious experience over reason, rationality, learning, science. And even if some of these trains of thought arose 100 or 150 years ago, I think we still have their legacy, just as we still have a "Wild West" ideology that glorifies guns, aggression, and people shooting one another.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein