In addition to the other good points by John Mace and Raza, I will also add that I don’t think that non-textualists say that the Constitution says whatever the Supreme Court says it says. What we say is that it is the job of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution and their interpretation is the law of the land. We just have a different opinion of how the Supreme Court should be interpretting it. That is different than saying that the Court’s interpetation is infallible. I can disagree with a decision that the Supreme Court makes but still consider it to be the law of the land…just ask Al Gore!
And, textualists…despite their claims…don’t really get around the issue of needing the Supreme Court interpretting the Constitution. One still has to interpret what it says and I would say that only arrogant, egotistical textualists (which unfortunately may be a significant fraction of the textualists) would say that there is one unambiguous correct interpretation.
Having just finished a lengthy biography of John Adams, I would say that he was considered one of the premier constitutional experts of his time and the only reason he wasn’t present at the writing of the Constitution was that he, Jefferson and Franklin were all in France and Amsterdam raising money for the war.
However, Adams was almost entirely responsible for the writing of the Massachusett’s Constitution which, if you read, you’ll notice it contains a great many references to religion and Christianity. To quote:
If anyone would have desired to call America a Christian nation, it would have been Adams. His official stance that America was not founded upon Christianity should carry MORE weight rather than being dismissed. As to what Adams thought of the document itself, I will quote from his inaugural address:
First we acknowledge the truism that we are a “Christian nation,” and then comes the internecine Holy War to determine whose persuasion reigns supreme!
My money’s on the Southern Baptists, on the basis of sheer firepower alone.
Shodan: Check out the meanings of dictum. Then, if you would, answer me whether Mr. Justice Brewer’s opinion requires “the recognition of the U.S. as a Christian nation” to justify permitting the immigration of an Anglican priest, or whether that was opinion by Mr. Brewer thrown in to amplify and fortify his point. That would to me define the difference in the two forms of dictum as regards this particular issue – and I’d have the view that it was non-binding obiter dictum.
Frankly, I think all this talk about “The Founders” is a red herring. Sure, they wrote the constitution, but why do I care more about what they thought than the guys (and they were all guys) in the State Legislatures who ratified it? Or, what the constituents they represented thought about it? Considering that many of the states had explicit recognition of Christianity in their constitutions, I think it’s fair to say that many of the legislators who ratified the US Constitution were Christians who thought the Christian religion had some place in government, if not at the federal level.
It’s a totally unrelated issue. The United States government (as I’ve already said) is most assuredly secular, not founded “upon Christianity” or any other religion. However, that’s distinctly different from the idea of a “Christian nation.” A Christian nation is simply a nation that is Christian. Nations aren’t founded, they aren’t created by design they are created by the ebbs and flows of different societies and cultural groups that coalesce together to form national identities over hundreds and hundreds of years.
Who “founded” the German nation? No one in particular. Over many hundreds of years a great many people who lived together and had a similar culture “fleshed out” what we view as the “German nation.” Now, there are clearly persons responsible for the founding of Germany the State just as there are clearly persons responsible for founding the United States as a State. However the German nation wasn’t “founded” it simply developed over time as all nations do. Through reproduction, sharing of cultural values across the nation and et cetera.
Note that the German nation is not synonymous with Germany. Members of the German nation live all throughout Europe, with many in Austria and Switzerland.
John Adams is definitely correct that the United States is not founded on the Christian religion. However, McCain did not technically say otherwise, he said that the Constitution establishes a “Christian Nation.” This is patently incorrect not because we are not a Christian nation, but because the Constitution no more founded “America as a nation” than does this message you’re reading right now.
Analyzing America as a nation is difficult because of the fact that there are distinct nations within the United States and there is also a vague, multicultural “mega-nation”, the “American nation.” Traditionally nations have been monocultural and with its members all identifying with the same general racial group (even if they identify with subgroups.) The American nation is multicultural and multiracial (if one can even say there is such a thing as an American nation.) America isn’t unique in this, because the great spread of peoples around the world has resulted in a general meshing of nations to a greater degree than ever before (however even in countries with long histories of being relatively homogeneous nation-states there have always been the meshing of various nations.)
People either believe there is no American nation, but many American nations under one State’s banner, or they believe there are many American nations but also a generalized “American nation” that all of us belong to in addition to our membership in one of the many other nations within the United States; either way we’re talking about predominantly nations that are Christian religiously, both in the number of nations that are Christian within the U.S. and the proportion within those nations themselves which are Christian.
No, but your argument does seem to employ a meandering drift among the various definitions of the word “nation,” as though to establish some sort of equivalence between them. The assertion that the United States is a “Christian nation,” as I think you know full well, implies definition #1 here, and that the population of the United States also includes some Indian tribes (definition #3) and ethnic groups (definition #4) is irrelevant.
So now that we all know that by “nation” we’re saying “a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own,” if you still wish to insist that we are a “Christian nation,” I’d be grateful if you could point me to where I, as an atheist, might find the separate (non-Christian) system under which I am governed, and I suspect there’s more than a few Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc., who’d appreciate learning whom they might petition for a redress of grievances, all of us apparently now non-citizens of the United States of Jesusland.
For what it’s worth, Justice Scalia, in his book A Matter of Interpretation, specifically mentions Holy Trinity as an example of the dangers of NOT using a textualist approach – the Court was faced with a conclusion it did not like, and solved the issue by reaching beyond the plain letter of the law – indeed, by turning the plain letter of the law on its head – and following some nebulous unwritten “sense” of what the law should be.
I’d be interested in seeing what states had specific recognition of Christianity in their Constitutions. Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom specifically to avoid creation of a “state religion” here.
“Defining characteristic” means that its presence or absence defines membership in a group, right? So if Christianity is a defining characteristic of the “Italian-American” nation or the “African American nation,” then anyone who isn’t Christian isn’t a member of that “nation,” by definition.
Likewise, since you earlier opined that “it only makes sense to call the United States a Christian nation,” you are saying that non-Christians are not truly part of that nation either.
You seem to still be undecided about whether or not the “American nation” even exists. So how are you so certain that it’s a Christian nation?
It does exist, by the way. Some of our widely valued characteristics are inclusivity and freedom of religion. So it doesn’t really make any sense to call us a “Christian nation,” any more than a “white nation.”
Here are the God references in state constitutions:
concluding with the following summary
[quote]
Notes
The above excerpts illustrate some interesting points:
[ul][li]In almost all cases, states mention God in the preambles to their Constitutions. Only a few do not. New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia do not have preambles. Tennessee’s only mentions “Lord” in the context of dates. Oregon’s preamble is decidedly neutral. [/li][li]The use of the term “in the year of our Lord” is very common. [/li][li]Many states mention God in sections that refer to religious freedom, but many of those refer to “Almighty God,” which, by all objective standards, is an endorsement of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic deity (several of the religious freedom sections mention Christianity specifically). [/li][li]A handful of states, Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina, and Tennessee, have provisions that deny elective office to anyone who does not believe in God. These provisions are probably not enforceable. In Arkansas and Maryland, persons who do not believe in God are constitutionally forbidden from being witnesses in a trial. [/li][li]The oaths of office codified in the various constitutions often include the closing statement, “So help me God.” Several states allow an alternate statement such as “Under the pains and penalties of perjury.” Several do not allow an alternate closing, and several have no such closing whatever. [/li][li]Only West Virginia does not include any of the search terms or a variation. [/ul][/li][/quote]
In addition, Massachusetts mentions education being a blessing to the Christian religion and Vermont indicates that while everyone is free to worship as they see fit, Christians really should go to church on Sunday.
Distinction without a difference. What non-textualists deny is that something has to actually appear in the text of the Constitution in order to be in the Constitution.
Sure, but that’s not the issue. What 'living document" types seem to argue is that there is no limit at all to what the Supremes can say is in the Constitution.
Never mind abortion as an issue - people can’t seem to argue on any other principle besides whether or not they favor abortion. Take the example of the recent decision where the Supremes ruled that confiscating someone’s property because a developer would pay more in taxes did not violate the takings clause.
On what basis can you argue that this is wrongly decided? Because the Constitution seems to say exactly the opposite?
I have no idea whether it requires any conclusion other than “the US is a Christian nation” or not. That hardly matters. Nor does it matter why Brewer threw it in there - perhaps because of what Bricker mentions.
I assume you aren’t arguing that the US is not a Christian nation because the treaty cited earlier drew conclusions based on that premise. Wasn’t that equally “opinion thrown in to amplify and fortify a point”?
I am arguing that the US is not a Christian nation because of the 1st amendment, and because no SCOTUS decision has translated that to mean “the US is a Christian Nation”. There is difference between a SCOTUS justice mentioning in a decision that most people consider the US to be a Christian nation, and that justice saying that we must interpret the 1st amendment that way.
Just that seems to you to be what they are arguing, doesn’t mean it is the case. Even those who see view the Constitution as an evolving document accept that when it is clear on something, one does not look beyond the text.
That’s a pretty clear limit on what the Supremes can say is in the Constitution.
Generally, it seems to me (and also, with much more credibility, to Ronald Dworkin) that the Constitution was, at times, written in deliberately vague terms to allow the interpretation of it to adapt over time, and it seems to me that textualists manipulate language to attempt to demonstrate clarity when none was ever there.
The language of the Court there is, I think, dicta, though I would need to read the case more closely. Also, the Court made the decision based on construing the statute, not by a constitutional decision.
As divisive as this topic may be, I have not seen any reason for anyone to decide to make it a personal fight, so personal remarks should probably be kept out of this thread.
(Not aimed at a particular post or poster, but to a trend I see developing.)