Time to Give Speech to Our Liberty of Conscience

Between them the "no establishment" and "free exercise" clauses constitute what the majority of Americans two hundred and more years ago called "the liberty of conscience. It was strongly and universally believed that the State had no right to interfere with the individual's personal beliefs either by compelling support of an official religion or by preventing religious practice.

At the same time Americans strongly and universally supported the contention that the State had no right to limit the right of the individual to speak and write freely. At least by implication the same right applied to people speaking and writing collectively. After all, collective entities are groups of individuals who operate in concert.

As a result of the second belief, that in free speech, Americans today have the most open public square in the history of the world. Our speech whether verbal or written is free, boisterous, rowdy, even over-the-top. That's just the way it should be. Here. And everywhere.

There is one glaring black spot in this glittering picture of a raucously, joyously open public square. Religiously based speech is absent to an alarming and totally unjustifiable degree.

Sure, religiously based speech occurs regularly and in uncensored form in print, on the airwaves and over the Internet. That's the way it should be.

However, that reality does not eliminate another. The other reality, the dark hole in the public square, is that religiously based speech (and ideas) are rigidly barred from those portions of the public square marked by the signs "education" and "public buildings."

It is ironic and hypocritical that American coins bear the legend, "In God We Trust," while symbols of a particular religion such as Christmas creches are barred from courthouse or city hall lawns. It is ironic and hypocritical that presidential candidates exchange "God talk" in debates while a survey of American history textbooks currently used in high schools and colleges gloss over an apparently unmentionable fact about the history of the United States.

The unmentionable?

From its colonial foundation up through the 1950s Protestant Christianity had a profound effect upon the development of American institutions, values and world view.

Don't like that?

Tough. Get a grip. It's true. True beyond the shadow of even the most unreasonable doubt. For over three hundred years the United States and its colonial precursors can be best described by a term that many people resent today: A Protestant Christian nation.

For most of our history the 'liberty of conscience" clauses lay dormant, alive but not controversial. On a few occasions, most notably during the First and Second World Wars, liberty of conscience leaped to public awareness under the force of hyper-patriotism, and the Supreme Court was forced to make decisions regarding the limits--if any--upon its exercise.

When the winds of exaggerated patriotism diminished, the liberty of conscience clauses returned to their usual place in the background of public consciousness. Prayers were said in public schools, the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, President Eisenhower famously said, "All Americans worship God--whatever God that might be," and every Christmas season traditional carols were heard even on rock and roll stations, and creches dotted the public landscape.

No one seemed upset.

The Geek knows he wasn't. He was willing to stand silently with a slightly bowed head when the school day started with a prayer. It wasn't a threatening, traumatic experience. Neither was he offended when Chuck Berry was bypassed for Bing Crosby or some equally boring guy singing Silent Night. And, his aesthetic sense was no more offended by Christmas creches than it was by plastic Santas or red nosed reindeer.

But that was all before the Age of Sensitivity.

The early 1960s was not simply the era of JFK and Camelot, the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, it was also the dawn of the Age of Sensitivity. JFK and Camelot might have been a public relations triumph. The Civil Rights movement was both overdue and and a victory for what the Pledge of Allegiance termed,"Liberty and Justice for all." The Age of Sensitivity has been and continues to be a disaster area greater than a million Katrinas.

A tragic reality of the American justice system is that a plaintiff can always be found (or fabricated) for any class action or Constitutional litigation. Once the case is filed and not dismissed by a judge with a modicum of get-a-gripness, it takes on a life of its own. If the lawyers are sharp enough and the money plentiful enough, the case will land on the doorstep of the Supreme Court.

If the Honorable Court (or at least four members of it) are out to lunch that day, the case will be accepted. If the national interest is unlucky enough, the Court (or at least five members) will be afflicted with cerebral flatulence and a pathetic decision will be rendered.

Should that happen, the horrid inertia of "let that decision stand" will take over and the Court will be forced not only to keep on a bad path, but perhaps expand it.

So it was with religiously derived speech in the schools and other critical areas of the public square. In the interest of protecting sensitivities, particularly of children, (an unusually elastic term extending apparently from little people in diapers to twenty somethings in jeans) the Court has held in essence that liberty of conscience is a private affair, not to be displayed, talked about or even implied in various portions of the public square lest someone, somewhere, somehow be offended, slighted, diminished, or otherwise impaired by being made to feel excluded from the mainstream of American life.

Parenthetical note: Having recently reread a number of the cases and opinions, the Geek has come to the firm conclusion that judges and justices should stick to the law and not wander off into the linguistic swamps of psychobabble and thera-speak. Likewise, they should stay out of the green pastures of history without employing a competent guide.

Suffice it to say that the liberty of conscience still exists. But, to a significant degree its mouth is gagged.

Why should this matter? So what if religion is not mentioned in schools from Head Start to the University? Who cares if religion as a force is deleted from US history?

The Geek is convinced there are two very good reasons why it matters, why we should care, and why it is important if our history is stripped of the truth.

The first reason is simple. Without full freedom of speech, the liberty of conscience doesn't really matter. Think about it. Even in the most repressive dictatorship, the most totally authoritarian regime one can imagine, an individual can believe whatever he or she wants without fear--as long as the mouth is kept shut, the fingers off the keyboard and away from a pen.

Silent liberty is no liberty at all. Liberty of conscience without a mouth to shout it is no liberty whatsoever.

That's the first reason. It is equal parts ideal and pragmatic.

The second reason is pure pragmatism. Open voiced religiously derived ideas as a full partner in all aspects of the public square is necessary over the long haul--if we are not to lose in the conflict with Islamists.

Kind of boggles the mind, doesn't it? Not when you get a grip.