For all of the shouting about religious liberty — from the landmark
Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case, to the passage of the anti-gay Religious
Freedom Restoration Act in Mississippi, and more — there is barely any
mention, let alone any observance, of the official national Religious
Freedom Day, enacted by Congress in 1992 and recognized every January 16
by an annual presidential
proclamation.
The day commemorates the enactment of the
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786.
Why is this seemingly obscure piece of Revolutionary-era legislation
so vital? And why doesn’t the Christian Right want you to know anything
about it?
The bill, authored by Thomas Jefferson and later pushed through the
state legislature by then member of the House of Delegates, James
Madison, is regarded as the root of how the framers of the Constitution
approached matters of religion and government, and it was as
revolutionary as the era in which it was written.
It not only disestablished the Anglican Church as the official state
church, but it provided that no one can be compelled to attend any
religious institution or to underwrite it with taxes; that individuals
are free to believe as they will and that this “shall in no wise
diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
As a practical matter, this meant that what we believe or don’t
believe is not the concern of government and that we are all equal as
citizens.
Following the dramatic passage of the Statute in 1786, Madison
traveled to Philadelphia, where he served as a principal author of the
Constitution in 1787. As a Member of Congress in 1789 he was also a
principal author of the First Amendment, which passed in 1791.
Jefferson was well aware that many did not like the Statute, just as
they did not like the Constitution and the First Amendment, both of
which sought to expand the rights of citizens and deflect claims of
churches seeking special consideration.
So before his death, Jefferson sought to get the last word on what it
meant. The Statute, he wrote, contained “within the mantle of its
protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the
Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”
That is a powerful and clear statement. Jefferson, almost 200 years
ago, refuted the contemporary claims of Christian Right leaders, many of
whom not only
insist
that America was founded as a Christian nation, but that the framers
really meant their particular interpretation of Christianity. (And they
are sometimes
encouraged by a surprisingly wide array of pundits.)
Jefferson further explained that the legislature had specifically
rejected proposed language that would have described “Jesus Christ” as
“the holy author of our religion.” This was rejected, he reported, “by
the great majority.”
No wonder the Christian Right does not want us to remember the
original Statute for Religious Freedom — it doesn’t fit their narrative
of history! Nor does it justify their vision of the struggles of the
political present, or the shining theocratic future they envision.
Religious Freedom Day is nothing but bad news for the likes of Religious Right leaders like
Tony Perkins, who
argue
that Christians who favor marriage equality are not really Christians.
They can believe that if they want, but it can make no difference in the
eyes of the law. That is probably why on Religious Freedom Day 2014,
Perkins made no mention of what Religious Freedom Day is really about —
instead using the occasion to
denounce president Obama’s approach to religious liberty abroad.
This
barely commemorated
day provides an opportunity for LGBTQ people, and progressives
generally, to reclaim a philosophical, legal and constitutional legacy
that the Christian Right is busy trying to
redefine for their own purposes.
Alright. So the Christian Right really does not want us to know about
this day, but if we do, they certainly don't want us thinking about
this stuff -- and so the standard fare of faux outrage about president
Obama and various conspiracies against faith in general and conservative
Christianity in general is likely to dominate our foreseeable future.
But it doesn't have to be this way. And the Christian Right probably knows it.
When I say that the Christian Right does not want “us” to think about
it, I mean everyone who is not the Christian Right and their allies,
and especially not LGBTQ people and the otherwise “insufficiently
Christian.” I think that is why the Christian Right is mostly so eerily
quiet about it, even though religious freedom is so
central to their political program.
But what if we did?
What if we seized this day to think dynamically about the religious
freedoms we take for granted at our peril; freedom that is in danger of
being redefined beyond recognition. What if we decided to seize this
day to consider our best values as a nation and advance the cause of
equal rights for all?
If we did, we might begin by recalling the extraordinary challenge
faced by the framers of the Constitution when they gathered in
Philadelphia. They met to create one nation out of 13 fractious colonies
still finding their way after a successful revolt against the British
Empire; and contending with a number of powerful and well-established
state churches and a growing and religiously diverse population.
Their answer? Religious equality. And it is rooted in Jefferson’s bill. Let's remind ourselves about the origins of the bill.
Jefferson wrote the first draft in 1777 — just after having authored
the Declaration of Independence in 1776. And it was James Madison who
finally got the legislation passed through the Virginia legislature in
1786, just months before he traveled to Philadelphia to be a principal
author of the Constitution. The Virginia Statute states that no one can
be compelled to attend or support any religious institution, or
otherwise be restrained in their beliefs, and that this “shall in no
wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities . . .”
The Constitution, framed according to “The Virginia Plan,” drafted primarily by Madison,
contains
no mention of God or Christianity. In fact, the final text’s only
mention of religion is in the proscription of “religious tests for
public office,” found in Article 6.
In other words —
Jefferson’s words — one’s religious identity, or lack thereof, has no bearing on one’s “civil capacities.”
If we thought about the meaning of Religious Freedom Day, we might
start thinking about things like that — and not capitulate to the
Christian Right’s effort to
redefine
religious freedom to include a license for business and institutional
leaders (both government and civil) to impose their religious beliefs on
employees and the public.
If we thought about things like that, then we might consider them in
light of a host of initiatives in recent years, often advanced under the
banner of religious freedom, but which, in fact, restrict the religious
freedom of others.
We might consider, for example, the recent federal court
decision in the case of
General Synod of the United Church of Christ v. Cooper,
which found that North Carolina’s ban on clergy performing marriage
ceremonies without first obtaining a civil marriage license, was
unconstitutional.
Since state law declared that same-sex couples could not get marriage licenses, this subjected clergy in the
United Church of Christ, the
Alliance of Baptists, and the
Central Conference of American Rabbis, among others, to potential prosecution for performing a religious ceremony.
As religious equality advances, so does equal rights for all. So you can see why the Christian Right might not want people—
people like us—thinking like Jefferson. And that is why we must.
Religious Freedom Day was the brainchild of some of the town fathers
and mothers of Richmond, Virginia, who have since created a
museum dedicated to education about the Virginia Statute
(PDF).
But we need more than a museum to breathe more life and liberty into
the living Constitution. Not much goes on around the country on
Religious Freedom Day, January 16th.
There is no time like the present to seize this day.
This post is adapted from two recent columns at LGBTQ Nation, and is crossposted from Talk to Action.
UPDATE There has been some understandable confusion about one important point. I have written
elsewhere
that the web site ReligiousFreedomDay.com, which comes up first in a
Google search for Religious Freedom Day is not what it seems. The group
behind it is a small California evangelical Christian Right agency
called Gateways to Better Education, headed by longtime activist, Eric
Buehrer. This group is part of a wider movement with a long history of
efforts to hijack, or compromise, public schools in order to promote its
religious views and to evangelize children. (This is detailed in
The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, by Katherine Stewart.)
Gateways is unambiguous about its intentions: “Gateways to Better
Education is a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 to help public
schools teach about the important contribution the Bible and
Christianity make to the world.” They insist that “Religious Freedom
Day is not ‘celebrate-our-diversity day.'”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
|
The
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777 (however it was not first introduced into the
Virginia General Assembly until 1779)
[1] by
Thomas Jefferson in the city of
Fredericksburg, Virginia. On January 16, 1786, the
Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The statute disestablished the
Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed
freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including
Catholics and
Jews as well as members of all
Protestant denominations.
[2] The statute was a notable precursor of the
Establishment Clause and
Free Exercise Clause of the
First Amendment to the
United States Constitution.
The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his
epitaph.
[3]
Text of statute
An Act for establishing religious Freedom.
Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;
That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or
burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of
hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of
the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind
yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his
Almighty power to do,
That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well
as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired
men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own
opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as
such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and
maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and
through all time;
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the
propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;
That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own
religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of
giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would
make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to
righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary
rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct
are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the
instruction of mankind;
That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,
That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public
confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices
of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that
religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and
advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a
natural right,
That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it
is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours
and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;
That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such
temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their
way;
That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the
field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of
principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy
which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course
judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and
approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square
with or differ from his own;
That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government,
for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts
against peace and good order;
And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to
herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and
has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition
disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing
to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to
frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry
whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in
his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his
religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess,
and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and
that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil
capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the
people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to
restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal
to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be
of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that
the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and
that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to
narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.[4]
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Since our country's founding, religious freedom has been heralded as
one of our most cherished ideals. The right to practice religion freely
has brought immigrants from all over the world to our shores, often in
the face of great adversity, so they could live their lives in
accordance with the dictates of their consciences. Some of America's
earliest settlers, the Pilgrims, arrived at our shores in search of a
more tolerant society, free from religious persecution. Since that time,
people of many religious traditions have added their own threads to the
fabric of our Nation, helping advance a profound and continuous
vindication of the idea of America.
When the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was adopted on January
16, 1786, it formed a blueprint for what would become the basis for the
protection of religious liberty enshrined in our Constitution. Drafted
by Thomas Jefferson, the statute proclaims that "all men shall be free
to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of
religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or
affect their civil capacities." The First Amendment prohibits Government
from establishing religion, and it protects the free exercise of every
faith. Our Government does not sponsor a religion, nor does it pressure
anyone to practice a particular faith, or any faith at all. The United
States stands for the protection of equal rights for all people to
practice their faith freely, without fear or coercion, and as Americans,
we understand that when people of all religions are accepted and are
full and equal members of our society, we are all stronger and freer.
Our commitment to religious freedom has fostered unprecedented
religious diversity and freedom of religious practice. But these ideals
are not self-executing. Rather, they require a sustained commitment by
each generation to uphold and preserve them. Here at home, my
Administration is working to preserve religious liberty and enforce
civil rights laws that protect religious freedom -- including laws that
protect employees from religious discrimination and require reasonable
accommodation of religious practices on the job. We will keep upholding
the right of religious communities to establish places of worship and
protecting the religious rights of those so often forgotten by society,
such as incarcerated persons and individuals confined to institutions.
We will also continue to protect students from discrimination and
harassment that is based on their faith, and we will continue to enforce
hate crime laws, including those perpetrated based on a person's actual
or perceived religion. This work is crucial, particularly given the
recent spike in reports of threats and violence against houses of
worship, children, and adults simply because of their religious
affiliation.
As we strive to uphold religious freedom at home, we recognize that
this basic element of human dignity does not stop at our shores, and we
work to promote religious freedom around the globe. We are working with a
broad coalition against those who have subjected religious minorities
to unspeakable violence and persecution, and we are mobilizing religious
and civic leaders to defend vulnerable religious communities. In
addition, we are calling for the elimination of improper restrictions
that suppress religious practice, coordinating with governments around
the world to promote religious freedom for citizens of every faith, and
expanding training for our diplomats on how to monitor and advocate for
this freedom. All people deserve the fundamental dignity of practicing
their faith free from fear, intimidation, and violence.
On Religious Freedom Day, let us recommit ourselves to protecting
religious minorities here at home and around the world. May we remember
those who have been persecuted, tortured, or murdered for their faith
and reject any politics that targets people because of their religion,
including any suggestion that our laws, policies, or practices should
single out certain faiths for disfavored treatment. And as one Nation,
let us state clearly and without equivocation that an attack on any
faith is an attack on every faith and come together to promote religious
freedom for all.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of
America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and
the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 16, 2016 as
Religious Freedom Day. I call on all Americans to commemorate this day
with events and activities that teach us about this critical foundation
of our Nation's liberty, and that show us how we can protect it for
future generations at home and around the world.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of
January, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and
fortieth.
BARACK OBAMA
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