Of course. An atheistic message would be no better than a theistic one. The government should simply be neutral. “E pluribus unum” and “Liberty” are both mottoes that appear on all our coins alongside “In God We Trust”; either of them would be fine.
D.G. REG. FID. DEF., short for Dei Gratia Regina, Fidei Defensor, or “By the Grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith”. Of course England has no separation of church and state–the Church of England is a state church (although I don’t think most English subjects these days are adherents to it or even care about it very much one way or the other).
—That’s why the seeming passivity struck me as odd–for you especially.—
But I’m not passive. I do advocate for the removal of that motto. I’m just saying that, when doing so, I have to be realistic. The Supreme Court isn’t going to strike it down anytime soon. The only way it will ever change is if Congress changes it. And that isn’t going to happen until the general population becomes far far more sophisticated than it is: sophisticated enough to realize that striking down a religious themed motto is not the same thing as repudiating religion. It’s not that people are stupid. It’s not certainly not that they are religious: in fact, I think it would be more likely to be struck down IF people in the U.S. started to think and care about religion more, and what that might mean for government. It’s just one of those things that is impossible for politicians to get behind, because they fear that, rightly or wrongly, they could be portrayed as being anti-religion.
Apos, I think there has been some confusion between us about what the seeming passivity applied to. Believe me, I’m not holding my breath for removal of the motto either–still less for a Supreme Court strikedown! But I do think that a local school board can be persuaded to reverse a decision such as this one because there are many good arguments–and not only ones concerning constitutionality–for why large motto-bearing plaques purchased by churches should not be displayed in public school classrooms by order of the board. Remember that school boards are usually elected, and while this type of situation isn’t likely to attract the kind of attention that the Kansas creationism fiasco did, it is just possible that a well-handled campaign to reverse this decision could work, given time.
MEBucker: “D.G. REG. FID. DEF., short for Dei Gratia Regina, Fidei Defensor, or “By the Grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith”. Of course England has no separation of church and state–the Church of England is a state church (although I don’t think most English subjects these days are adherents to it or even care about it very much one way or the other).”
Thanks for that, ME. I just want to add, for anyone who might be wondering, that there really isn’t any need for Britain to have the kind of separation of church and state that we have. The Church of England goes way back to sixteenth century and predates the Enlightenment mentality that motivated our founding fathers to emphasize separation of church and state (along with other key constitutional principles). In a very old country such as England there are outmoded institutions that become a part of the nation’s heritage–such as the monarchy–and the existence of a state church is one of these things. In any case, the English fought a bloody civil war over religious freedom in the 17th century, and over the course of the next 200 years or so the Church of England lost almost all of the privileges that had given it true political power. Since that time England has become a much more secular country than is the United States. At the same time, there is no written constitution in England, so a lot of what is considered acceptable, legally and otherwise, is judged from this kind of historical vantage. For all of these reasons, there is, to my knowledge, comparatively little need to be vigilant about religion exerting influence over the state (or vice versa), and comparatively little controversy about such things.
What can be done is presuade people to take them down. The legal argument is dead in the water. The only thing that would work legally is by nastily bullying them with the fear of huge legal fees to defend their action. The school board would win eventually, but it would be too costly for them to pursue it. It’s the national motto. It’s not going to be declared unconstitutional, no matter who pays for the plaques.
No, of course it’s not going to be declared unconstitutional on grounds of who pays for the plaques. Nor is the motto likely to be declared unconstitutional in our lifetime on any grounds given the composition of the Supreme Court and the surrounding political context. And, yes, what can be done is to persuade the board that displaying the plaques is a bad idea. And, yes, there are (as I said) many grounds on which to make such a persuasive case. But, no, I don’t agree that one prong in this persuasive case couldn’t be the fact that debate still exists about the constitutionality of the motto as well as any other practice that seems to violate the principle of separation of church and state. One can, in other words, argue the merits of separation by way of convincing this board about this local decision, without hoping at the same time to convince the Supreme Court or the Congress that the motto should be stricken. (Bear in mind I don’t say that this would be the most successful argument; but it could conceivably contribute to a set of successful arguments.)
And, yes, an alternative to persuasion would be the threat of legal action. And at this point, I, at any rate, have no opinion as to whether that would be advisable or not, since it would depend on the existence of legal counsel willing to take on the case against the board for free. And it would also depend on knowledge of the community and what is likely to be the most effective and constructive action in the long run.
I really wish the Church of Scientology would get more involved in stuff like this, if only because they are by far the most litigation-minded of all the religions out there.
Or, maybe we could get the Scientologists to apply for a large chunk of Bush’s faith-based charity money. It would either be amusing to see them get the money, or they’d sue the pants off of the administration when they don’t.
Mandelstam: Doesn’t the Church of England have some folks in Parliament? I can’t see that as being particularly fair to the other religions resident in the UK.
Monty, I think that what you mean is that bishops sit in the House of Lords; but the House of Lords is much like the monarchy. Their power is mainly symbolic. Yeah, the most republican-minded Britons don’t like the Lords just as they don’t like the monarchy. But such people probably wouldn’t object to the bishops being in Parliament anymore than to the aristocracy itself sitting in parliament. I suppose it’s possible that some other religions inside and out of Christianity want to have seats in Lords (I think there may already be some seats for high-ranking Jewish and other clergy but don’t quote me on this). In any case, though, I don’t really think any of it is a big issue. To my knowledge there hasn’t been a serious movement to rid of the Lords or the monarchy in recent memory: both are fairly popular.
The two archbishops of the Church of England, the Bishops of London, Durham, and one other see, and the 20 or so most senior of the other bishops, held seats in the House of Lords, not because they’re bishops, but for two other reasons: (1) because the sees of the Church of England were in the medieval times equivalent to the lordships – concentrations of land and power that deserved representation in the councils of the realm; and (2) because aside from them, no clergyman of the Church of England was eligible to sit in Parliament; they represented the voice and views of the church and of churchmen. Remember that the Church of England is the established church in England (though there is no established church in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland) and in their system is entitled to a voice in how the country is run. However, I believe this was thrown out in the recent reform of the Lords; perhaps a Brit happening by this thread will clarify. AFAIK, the only way for any clergyman of any other faith (Catholics, Dissenters, Jews, Moslems, or whatever) to serve is to run for the Commons and be elected to office, or to get himself named a peer of the realm (or inherit a peerage, I suppose).
Polycarp, I checked and you are right. There are Jewish peers in the House of Lords and one happens to be the emeritus Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth. (At least this was true in 1999). And in fact the document that I found this on was making the case for an official representative of the Jewish faith in the House of Lords. So Monty, you’re right that there are other religions out there agitating for representation in Lords. But, still, I would emphasize that it’s all still fairly symbolic. The Lords don’t govern Britain in any meaningful sense of the word. And the Anglican Church has no real political power any more. Perhaps a Brit poster or a poster more knowledgeable on contemporary religious debate in Britain will disagree–but I somehow doubt it.
The history of why a particular religion has representation in Parliament, albeit in the House of Lords (an aside: it cracks me up that MPs in the Commons refer to the House of Lords as "the other house) is irrelevant. What matters is that they hold seats in the national government. Those other religions agitating for representation in Parliament are also, IMHO, wrong. What they should be agitating for is the removal of the “religious” seats.
I think that would probably be tantamount to imposing a particular US principle (separation of church and state) on an institution (the House of Lords) that conforms to no other Englightenment-era US principle. After all, unless the bishops of the Church of England were suddenly to misbehave in some egregious way, why would anyone want to remove them from a largely symbolic position any more than to remove the Queen, the Prince of Wales, or the whole flock of aristocrats who compose the Lords. The C of E bishops that sit in the House of Lords are there b/c they, like their secular counterparts (earls, barons, dukes, etc.) are peers of the realm. Likewise the queen is the titular head of the C of E. If one wanted entirely to modernize (in effect, to republicanize) British government, one would probably want to get rid of all of these trappings, and not just focus on a single dimension of it. But I think all this is very unlikely, because I think there is great national pride in the continuity of British institutions. Over the course of hundredsof years these inst’s have been mended to conform to modernity, but never ended. I suspect it will stay that way for the foreseeable future.
But really all this just by way of explaining why things are so different there from here.
Dogface
“Thank God for Kentucky.”
Indiana’s state motto.
What do you call a virgin in Kentucky?..A twelve year old that can out run her brothers.
Being from eastern Kentucky I am imposed to bear all sort of these state sanctioned ditties…The Lord’s prayer is even dominantly displayed in the activities room in the Federal housing complex were I reside…It does not set well with me, or the Jewish guy…but we learned early not to bring objection by constitutional argument, that is if we wanted to remain housed.
What do they teach in Kentucky high schools?..The three R’s - Readin Righting and Route 23 to Columbus Ohio
Hmmm … is the concept of the separation of church and state an American invention? I mean, were there other countries (even Native American tribes) that put a similar principle into practice before the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did?
That’s an interesting question but not one I can answer authoritatively. Most of the principles that influenced the US constitution do derive from earlier precedents: often Greek, Scottish, English, French or Italian. But I think that separation of church and state might well be of American origin b/c older European countries typically had ties, via their monarchies, either to a state church or to the Catholic church. I know even less about Native American tribes, but I’d be willing to guess that they didn’t have a conception of the state as such, and therefore no opportunity to to draw a boundary between it and religion. The point behind separation of church and state is to authorize the state to serve certain collective ends without allowing it to encroach on individual religious choice. The desire to do that presupposes a notion of individual rights. I don’t think that Native American culture was very individualistic in that sense; but I could be wrong.
Both houses actually refer to the other as “the other place”. If you go to Hansard and search for “the other place”, you will get 280522 hits (as of today).
I am so going to print these and hang them on the wall. Of my house, I mean. I’d hang them at work, but there’s just entirely too many people there that I’d have to explain them to.
amarone: I frequently watch “Prime Minister’s Questions” as it’s quite interesting. I did watch a telecast of the House of Lords. Well, I started watching it and it put me to sleep although the beginning of the debate was good. IIRC, it was about changing the makeup of the Lords.