Quote of the Day (CNN, on Invocations of God in Obama’s Inaugural Oath)

“WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama will invoke God when he takes the oath of office January 20, despite a lawsuit filed by atheist and non-religious groups, according to an attorney for Chief Justice John Roberts, who will administer the oath.”—Bill Mears, CNN, “Obama Wants to Invoke God During Inauguration Oath,” on the latest quarrel over separation of church and state.

(I heard about this yesterday at 5 pm mass in my parish. Sure enough, it was true.

The extent to which separation of church and state keeps getting invoked is aggravating. Atheists and other secularists are fond of evoking the phrase “wall of separation” between church and state, but nowhere in the Constitution is that mentioned: it comes from a letter of Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.

Several points about the letter:

1) Jefferson refers correctly to the Constitution banning Congress making laws establishing a religion or of interfering with its free exercise. The “establishment” part refers to public money being used for a particular religion—the condition that obtained in Virginia until the mid-1780s, a period in which the Anglican Church was funded by the government at the expense of people of other faiths. That state of affairs ended with the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom written by Jefferson and passed with the help of his friend and chief political lieutenant James Madison. Nowhere does the statute nor the Constitution mention banning invocations of religion from the public square.

2) The Constitution was the product of many minds, not just one. The deism of Jefferson (who, while influential in the creation of the republic, did not participate in the writing or debate over the Constitution, as he was in France as U.S. ambassador) was shared by several of the Founding Fathers, but by no means a majority.

3) The infallibility of the pope may be argued from here to eternity, but I have a feeling that Jefferson’s can be dispensed with quickly. He wasn’t. Many of the same people who invoke him most reflexively on the “wall of separation” properly abominate his views on slavery, and I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few wouldn’t mind the name of this longtime slaveholder being removed from public schools across the country for his association with the “peculiar institution.”

4) In the case of his reply to the Baptist group, Jefferson acted in the two ways most congenial to him: as a lawyer and politician. The crux of the Baptist group’s complaint was about their state’s attitude toward their religion, not the federal government. The First Amendment said nothing about a state making a law about this, only Congress, and that is the only legislative body to which Jefferson refers. Because of charges of atheism leveled against him in the 1800 Presidential race, he wanted to give no comfort to any political opponents—and, once you get past the good will he expressed toward the Baptist group, Jefferson never specifically says that the Connecticut law should be changed.

Over time, the nation’s courts have acted properly in incorporating the protections offered by the Constitution and Bill of Rights to states as well as the federal government, and that includes the First Amendment’s guarantees concerning religion. But it’s important not to push the meaning of those guarantees beyond their intent, as the plaintiff in this case, Michael Newdow, is doing.

The “so help me God” that Presidents say is a matter of custom, not law. Whether Obama says it or not is up to him, as it has been to his predecessors (most of whom went ahead and used it). Because the phrase “so help me God” is not legally required, there’s no basis for taking this to court. The only people who benefit from these nuisance suits are, predictably, lawyers.

Obama’s invocation of God steals no money from the purse of Newdow or any other secular person, nor does it deny his right to declaim against religion as much as he likes. Newdow (who filed similar unsuccessful suits after the 2001 and 2001 inaugurals) should save his money and thank his lucky stars that he lives in a country where his views are tolerated—then he ought to consider tolerating the views of others.)