From the
"Idiot", "Moron", "Stupid", "Insane", "Delusional" ... aw, hell take your pick Department:
Bryan Fischer, ignoring all the evidence and relying instead of
wishful thinking, asserts again that the First Amendment applies only to christians…
Bryan Fischer is sticking with his delusion that the First Amendment applies only to christians. He has
said before that the First Amendment “was not written to protect the religion of islam,” that,
islam has no
fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was
not written to protect the religion of islam. islam is entitled only to
the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy…From a
constitutional point of view, muslims have no First Amendment right to
build mosques in America.
Writing on the un-American anti-Family Asshats website,
he wishes to make clear that also excluded from First Amendment
protections are every other religion outside of christianity. And yes,
that includes judaism. jews, not being christians, are, in Bryan
Fischer’s view, not protected by the First Amendment.
The trigger? Those wiley Satanists who have
outsmarted not only the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby whose
ultimate plan it is to mandate a 4-year bible curriculum
in America’s schools, but the white patriarchs on the Supreme Court who
agreed with Hobby Lobby that corporations can have deeply held
religious beliefs. Their weapon? Religious freedom. Rut roh…
Fischer explains,
Just as the Court ruled
that Hobby Lobby cannot be forced to violate its religious principles
by being compelled to pay for abortifacients, so
the Detroit chapter of The Satanic Temple is arguing that Satan’s disciples cannot be coerced into complying with informed consent laws when they seek abortion services.
Since their religion argues for absolute,
unrestrained, no-holds barred freedom of human will, they contend that
Satanists cannot be forced to read literature that explains fetal
development and abortion risks.
Now if the word “religion” in the First Amendment
was intended by the Founders to refer to any belief system in a
supernatural power, then the Satanists are absolutely right. They have
just as much a First Amendment claim as anybody else.
But if by the word “religion” the Founders meant christianity, then they don’t. And muslims don’t either.
Joseph Story, the longest serving associate justice
of the Supreme Court and author of the first definitive history of the
Constitution, wrote this about the First Amendment:
“The real object of the amendment was, not to
countenance, much less to advance mahometanism, or judaism, or
infidelity, by prostrating christianity; but to exclude all rivalry
among christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical
establishment…”
It’s hard to get much clearer than that. The word
“countenance” means “to accept, support, or approve of (something), to
extend approval or toleration to.” So the purpose of the First Amendment
was most decidedly NOT to “approve, support, (or) accept” any
“religion” other than christianity, including islam and Satanism.
Keep in mind now, as we proceed, that in his corner Fischer claims Joseph Story, though he fails to relate
the rest of what Story said.
When you read it, you will see why Fischer would just as soon ignore
the rest of Story’s words, since they not only stress a history Fischer
would rather ignore, but caution against what the very goals of Fischer
and the Religio-wingnuts today: namely to establish a theocracy:
Article VI, paragraph 3
of the U.S. Constitution declares, that ‘no religious test shall ever
be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
United States.’ This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of
satisfying the scruples of many persons, who feel an invincible
repugnance to any religious test, or affirmation. It had a higher
objective:
to cut off for ever every pretence [sic] of any alliance between church and state in the national government.
The real object of the
First Amendment
was, not to countenance, much less to advance mahometanism, or judaism,
or infidelity, by prostrating christianity; but to exclude all rivalry
among christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical
establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage
of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious
persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and of the subversion
of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been
trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age.
The history of the parent country had afforded the most solemn warnings
and melancholy instructions on this head; and even New England, the land
of the persecuted puritans, as well as other colonies, where the Cult
of England had maintained its superiority, would furnish out a chapter,
as full of the darkest bigotry and intolerance, as any, which should be
found to disgrace the pages of foreign annals. Apostacy, heresy, and
nonconformity had been standard crimes for public appeals, to kindle the
flames of persecution, and apologize for the most atrocious triumphs
over innocence and virtue.
Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion
is left exclusively to the state government, to be acted upon according
to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions; and the catholic and the protestant, the calvinist and the arminian, the jew and
the infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils,
without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.
For the record, the First Amendment says,
Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances.
John Ragosta (Religious Freedom, 2013:113)
asks “what does the short amendment mean?” and points to the days before
the Supreme Court became a subsidiary of the repugican cabal, for an
answer:
In 1879, Chief Justice
Morrison Waite, writing on behalf of a unanimous court in Reynolds v.
United States, turned to Jefferson’s language from the Statute’s
preamble [the Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom] to
define the religious freedom protected by the First Amendment: “to
suffer the civil magistrate to intrude powers into the field of opinions
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,” what Waite referred to as “the true
distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the
State.” Wait went on to note that Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury baptists identifying a constitutional “wall of separation” between
cult and state,” [c]oming…from an acknowledged leader of the advocates
of the measure [the First Amendment],” deserved to “be accepted almost
as an authoritative declaration.” Since then, the majority of the
Supreme Court has been clear that the “Virginia Experience,” including
Jefferson’s Statute, Madison’s Memorial & Remonstrance, and the
Letter to the Danbury Baptists, expresses the vision and wisdom at the
heart of the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty.
Historians have broadly agreed. Based upon the history enunciated in
Reynolds and later in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Jefferson’s
Statute has taken center stage in our understanding of the religion
clauses of the First Amendment.
It is Fischer’s claim that he has Thomas Jefferson on his side, writing that.
As Jefferson put it in
his second inaugural address, he had left religious exercises “under the
direction and discipline of State or Cult authorities,” right where
the Constitution placed them.
Fischer likes to misunderstand his cherry-picked
quotes. As we know, Jefferson said quite a bit about religious freedom
and none of it agrees with Fischer. As well as Jefferson’s
Virginia Statute, we have Madison’s
Memorial & Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments
(1785) arguing against Fischer’s assertion (and as you can see and as
historians will tell you, the two men were of like mind when it came to
religious freedom).
It should also be noted to that Jefferson said in his
autobiography about his own preamble:
Where the preamble
declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author
of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “jesus christ,”
so that it would read “A departure from the plan of jesus christ, the
holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great
majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of
its protection, the jew and the gentile, the christian and mohammedan,
the hindoo and infidel of every denomination.
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
The Citizens of the
United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving
to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy
of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience
and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is
spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that
another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For
happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no
sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live
under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.
“All possess alike…” just like the Constitution
says. Everybody. Not just protestants, but jews too – and Fischer’s
hated muslims. There is no justification at all for Fischer’s claim that muslims are “parasites who must convert or die.”
Though they won’t bring it up themselves, for
obvious reasons, wingnuts are also forced to like to downplay or
argue away the significance of the
Treaty of Tripoli (1797),
which states in unequivocal terms that “the Government of he United
States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the christian
religion, – as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws,
religion, or tranquility, of musselmen [muslims].”
The important point here is that this treaty was
signed by the president, John Adams, and ratified by Congress without a
single complaint being uttered.
It would seem, upon further examination, that
Fischer has very little supporting his argument that the First Amendment
was intended solely for christians.
