Should our foreign policy separate church and state?

Should our foreign policy separate church and state?

Should the president decline to meet with the Pope?
Should we publicly applaud when Casto meets with him?

Should we object when Afghanistan destroys a Budhist statue?
What if our planes flatten a holy site in Iran? Is that worse than a laic site, such as a hotel?

And should we side with the Christian nations in the Balkans?

I think the world would be shocked if we became areligious.

Um, I don’t know if you aware of this, but the Pope is a leader of a foreign nation-the Vatican is considered a sovereign nation. Thus, he is a foreign leader.
sigh

No.

Foreign policy is about securing the best ‘deal’ for your citizens while not pissing everyone else off to the extent that they’ll go to war or refuse to negotiate with you in future. Long-term, enlightened self-interest, I think.

However the US (or any other theoretically secular state) regards the place of religion in politics, it cannot afford to trample over other states’ viewpoints without reason. Do it once too often, or without being able to justify your actions to a larger group of states, and you risk future treaties, trade deals and military actions.

Similarly, when picking sides in disputes, make sure you’re prepared for the consequences of being seen to support one ‘religion’ over another.

Actually, I once knew that but forgot. Please substitute the Archbishop of Canterbury.

All actions of the Federal government should be bound by the Constitution, including its conduct of foreign policy.

In their conduct of domestic affairs the President of the United States and other politicians at all levels of the government meet with ministers, rabbis, priests, imams and all sorts of “community leaders” who happen to be religious leaders all the time. In general, this doesn’t raise any SOCAS (separation of church and state) concerns. (Things like appointing a bunch of preachers to a “Domestic Policy Advisory Council” might, at least to real hardcores like me.) So meeting with a “community leader” as part of the conduct of foreign policy is legitimate, whether that community leader is a labor union organizer or leader of the political opposition or the mother of a “disappeared person” or an Anglican bishop in apartheid South Africa.

The question of the Pope’s status as a “head of state” is probably fodder for a whole thread in itself. I would argue that the Vatican doesn’t really deserve the status of a sovereign country. Diplomatic relations don’t constitute approval, and it was perfectly legitimate for the United States to have diplomatic relations with the Papal States in the 19th century, which were a bona fide sovereign state, just as we have diplomatic relations now with the theocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and as we had and still have diplomatic relations with various oppresive Communist dictatorships. But I don’t really think the Roman Catholic religion should be given a special status as a country, where no other religious body is.

Encouraging a country like Cuba to move from official hostility to religion to genuine SOCAS and freedom of religion is fine with me. I certainly don’t think we should lean on or encourage Cuba (or any other country) to officially establish Roman Catholocism as the state religion or anything like that.

How does objecting to another country’s religiously-motivated tyranny violate our own SOCAS?

I think “rules of engagement” which gave religious sites a wholly separate status would be at best kind of weird. As far as I know, though, religious sites are included along with assorted cultural and historic sites, not to mention humanitarian institutions, and civilian sites in general. In other words, we didn’t set out to bomb mosques during the Gulf War, but we also didn’t set out to bomb archaelogical digs, the Iraqi State Museum of Antiquities, the University of Baghdad, hospitals and orphanages, and in general we didn’t just randomly blow up houses. We certainly haven’t always fought wars that way in the past, but those seem to be the standards we officially follow now.

You mean, should we side with the Serbs against the Muslims, even if we think the Serbs are the aggressors and the perpetrators of the worst atrocities? Of course not, and we didn’t, either.

I’m not sure what this means. The United States government is supposed to be areligious. Domestically, the government is also supposed to protect the freedom of religion (and other freedoms) of all citizens. Just because the government protects Christians from howling mobs of atheists does not make it religious, so long as the government gives equal protection to atheists from howling mobs of Christians (which does not make it anti-religious). In foreign policy I see nothing wrong with standing up for freedom of religion and against tyranny and persecution. This may be objected to on realpolitik grounds–which have little to do with SOCAS–and I have seen some criticism of legislative acts which seek to give special status to victims of religious persecution as opposed to other forms of persecution; that last, however, could be easily dispelled simply by aiding the victims of all sorts of persecution.

And apparently you’ve now forgotten that the Archbishop of Canterbury is neither the head of the Church of England nor the head of state of the United Kingdom.

To quote Guin: sigh

Monty, I think his point is, “Should the President meet with religious leaders who are not heads of state?” If Kim Jong Il declares himself to be Supreme Grand High Poobah and Pontifex Maximus of the First Church of Kim Il Sung Thought, that doesn’t mean the President shouldn’t still treat him as the head of a sovereign state. After all, treating someone as the head of a sovereign state doesn’t necessarily mean that we like them or approve of their policies, it just means that we’re recognizing reality.

The question is, should the President meet with Desmond Tutu? Does it raise a SOCAS question if he does?

Good counterpoint, Bucky (can I call you Bucky? :)). But I can’t help be feel a little unsettled when our fearless leader goes off to the Vatican to get advice that will be used to shape our law at the highest levels.

Specifically what I am referring to is the Shrub’s recent visit to the Pope in search of advice on the stem cell matter… IIRC he stated pretty clearly that he was seeking papal council on the issue. I would have felt a little better with Bush being able to come to grips on the matter without the help of the church, and make his own decision on an issue that will have such a sweeping impact.

And before you all get out your obvious pointers, I know that religious roads are often traveled by presidents in search of the right thing to do. I just wish Bush had been able to do so in private, which is where (IMHO) religious quandary should be dealt with. To me it’s little different from when Ron & Nancy got their policy-shaping advice from psychics. By that I mean, go ahead and do it if that’s what you really believe, but does the whole country need to see how superstitious (Nancy) or religious (Bush) you are?

It did not make for good press to have the Pope say that both stem cell research and capital punnishment were immoral. That puts Bush in the awkward position of having to be for or against both.

Don’t ask me what that “let’s see how many” means… I have no idea where that came from.

MeBuckner:

Actually, I don’t think it raises the SOCAS issue at all so long as the Prez doesn’t kowtow to a religious leader (“You know, Bish, you’re right. I’ll run home right now and do exactly that and to heck with the constitution and the Supreme Court decsisions back home.” Not going to happen). Now, although I find your comment about the Vatican not deserving to be a sovereign nation somewhat intriguing, it really doesn’t matter that a particular nation’s leader gets to be such a leader by virtue of a religious office–that’s something for that nation and its citizens/subjects to tackle, not us. Since the US has recognized the Vatican as a government (not surprising, since it has been a sovereign government ever since Mussolini got the King of Italy to grant it independence via the Lateran Pacts circa 1929, IIRC), the mere fact of the Prez meeting with the Pope (aka, “Head of State of the Vatican, a sovereign nation”) raises no other issues other than what’s discussed during said meeting. The Vatican is a sovereign nation, the Pope is the head of state of said nation, the United States government recognizes said government and has diplomatic relations with same and the Prez is meeting with the Pope in the same manner as he would be meeting with a president (Brazil), queen (United Kingdom), Prince (Monaco), Defender of the Two Holy Mosques (Saudi Arabia), Grand Duke (Luxembourg), or whatever the nation in question calls its head of state. Since Desmond Tutu is not the President of South Africa, that means that any meeting with him can not be considered as the Prez meeting with a foreign head of state, but rather a meeting with a prominent civil rights leader recognized as such in his own country.

For Attrayant:

Bush is not getting advice used to shape our laws. He’s meeting with one head of state as another head of state. It’s kind of obvious to many of us that Bush, being the Fundied sort he is, already figures that stem cell research is a bad thing as far he’s concerned.

Attrayant: Yeah, I agree, it could be problematic. I guess, though, in the context of this thread, the issue of “foreign policy” is a bit of a red herring. The President seeking the Pope’s advice on an issue is probably no more and no less of a SOCAS issue than the President seeking Billy Graham’s advice is a SOCAS issue. I think the President seeking advice from anybody is more of a political issue than a legal or constitutional one. If the President tries to officially appoint John Paul II (or Billy Graham) as Pope of the United States, then it’s a SOCAS issue of the sort you can take to the Supreme Court. But otherwise, if it’s just a question of whose advice the President listens to, it’s just something which political opponents of the President may not like, and may seek to make a political issue out of in order to persuade their fellow voters not to re-elect that President. The President’s political opponents may or may not have any success in this venture, and politically it could also backfire on them.

Monty: Well, as I said earlier in the thread, the President meets with “community leaders” in the course of conducting both foreign and domestic policy. To meet with a community leader who is a clergyman is not a violation of SOCAS per se. If the clergyman also happens to be a sovereign head of state–the Grand High Poobah of Lalaland–that makes it even more clear that it’s not a violation of SOCAS, but even if the clergyman is merely the Grand High Poobah of the First Church of Lalaland, and is in fact a leading member of the democratic opposition to the President for Life of Lalaland, then merely the fact that he’s a clergyman doesn’t make the President meeting with him a violation of SOCAS.

As to Vatican City: Yeah, it’s been a de jure sovereign state for a while now. The question would be, Should it be? It’s not just that it’s small, or that it happens to be a theocracy. My World Almanac lists its population as 870. Are any of those people really “citizens (or subjects) of Vatican City” who were actually born there and so forth? Is anyone ever actually born in Vatican City? I think that with Vatican City the world has in effect recognized the leadership and administrative apparatus of a church as a sovereign state. I don’t think the world community should be doing that. And the U.S. doesn’t have to recognize Vatican City as a sovereign state just because Mussolini said it was. The U.S. had diplomatic relations with the Holy See with at least some regularity in the 19th Century, when the Papacy did in fact control a real-live state. But we didn’t begin consistently sending ambassadors to the new post-1929 Papal States Lite until the 1980’s, during the Reagan Administration. (According to that State Department page, “diplomatic relations were established” on January 10, 1984.) The decision to establish diplomatic ties with Vatican City was criticized on SOCAS grounds at the time.

This could provoke a few Papal palpitations but the sentiment would certainly have warmed the heart of Henry VIII.

Then of course, there is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which is housed INSIDE the Vatican.

It doesn’t really seem like church and state are seperate anymore, anyways. I mean, they prey in the senate, when you go to court you have to swear by the bible, and Bush wants to fund christian churches!! I hope we get an atheist president who can finally make a true seperation of church and state. But i don’t think it will happen until white christians become the minority.

**

You meant pray right?

**

You don’t have to swear by the bible.

**

I thought he wanted to provide federal funding to various charitable organizations run by religious institutions. Not quite the same as funding churches.

White christians, eh? I guess we can ignore the black and latino christian vote. What’s up with the white comment any way? Are non-whites somehow more tolerant and loving when it comes to seperation of church and state?

Marc

Well, no offense, but latino and blacks dont have the highest vote count in the nation. And yes, i meant pray.

I thought when you went to the witness stand, you put your hand on the bible and said the oath.

**

Yes that’s true. But I question your use of white christian instead of christian in general. I’m not typically anal retentive about this type of thing but I’m curious. So far as I know most latinos and black people in this country are christians. So how would white christians being the the minority help seperation of church and state?

There are other oaths you can take when you’re sworn in.

Marc

Even better yet, you don’t even have to “take an oath.” All you have to do is agree to not perjure yourself. Kind of nifty thing, actually, that Constitution.

Politicians are politicians and just do and say what gets them votes. The population of the US is far, far and away the most ‘religious’ of the western democracies and that’s reflected in the apparent relationship between Church and State. Christianity is invoked and utilised as and when convenient.

Of course, there are those who would suggest the dominant religion in the US is Capitalism with the Corporations being, for example, the Archbishops. Those people would suggest the key issue now, especially in this Administration but Bush is only indicative of a general trend, is the separation of power as between State and Corporations – not that there seems to be any (they would say).

Those people would also argue the role of the Church is a pleasantly distracting red herring from the very real fervour of (fundamental) Capitalism. Quite where democracy: “…of the people, for the people…” resides amidst this relationship isn’t made clear.

I, of course, couldn’t possibly comment <House of Cards voice off>

Yeah, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but sometimes there are problems with that.