The Pope uses the power of the pulpit to tell his followers that they should “vote for the lesser of two evils.” Politicians call for mandating schools to teach the Bible. Oklahoma's top education official orders public schools to teach the Bible while Louisiana leaders direct schools to display the Ten Commandments and Texas leaders propose a curriculum that incorporates biblical lessons.
In 1947 when a woman named Vashti McCollum argued in the Supreme Court that religious education had no place in public schools, SCOTUS interpreting the First Amendment religious establishment clause known as “separation of church and state.” Though not explicitly stated in the First Amendment, the clause has been interpreted ever since to mean that the Constitution requires that separation.
I was a young student some years after that, and I still remember feeling that I didn’t belong. In today’s parlance I was astutely aware that I was the Other. I resented having to sing Christmas carols around a tree in December, having my absent days to mark the Jewish New Year considered an unexcused absence, and being obliged to recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning. So I’m acutely aware of the impact such a sense of exclusion can have and the damage it can cause to a child’s sense of self.
Today, I am acutely aware that the eroding distinction between church and state is eating away at our American identity. That distinction and identity is essential to a democracy, as our founders realized, and it’s been disappearing before our eyes. It’s also driving us further toward autocracy as part of a system of governance, which so many other countries have experienced.
It’s dangerous when popes, priests, politicians, educators and others use their power to alter our personal way of life and it’s distressful when controlling what we believe, what we think, what we choose, or choose to ignore, is no longer an option.
It’s also stressful, and illegitimate, when the courts, namely SCOTUS, mandate that no distinction should be made between church and state. Two years ago, “the conservative majority of the Supreme Court made it clear that there was little room for the separation of church and state,” as the .ACLU put it, when they ruled on two relevant key cases.
They were referring to two major decisions in 2022 that over-ruled “75 years in which the court had recognized that both of the First Amendment’s religious clauses were vital to protecting religious freedom.” One of those cases involved the Establishment Clause which protected citizens from the government imposing religion on citizens or endorsing a religious position. The other case was about the Free Exercise Clause which ensured people’s right to practice their faith as long as it didn’t harm others. These were two incidents in which the Supreme Court overthrew settled precedent. In her dissent, Justice Sonika Sotomayor said these two cases led “us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.”
The ACLU also points out that SCOTUS has allowed “official, nearly exclusively Christian prayer at government meetings and has sided with those who, in the name of religion, discriminate against customers, and recipients of government funded social services.”
Almost two decades ago, as ACLU shares, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor noted that “when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government,” we need constitutional boundaries that protect us from similar worries. Why, she asked, “would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly.”
Why indeed. This election cycle it’s imperative that we keep in mind that we are voting not just for who will occupy the White House with their finger on the button, but who will be appointed to our Federal and Supreme courts for lifetime terms. We owe it to the generations who follow us to leave them with a legal legacy that protects their freedoms, their lifestyles, and their democratic way of life, even when they are in elementary school.
The Pope’s words were misguided and should have been called out. The clergy writ large needs to realize that they are spiritual leaders and not political idealogues when they stand before us. Politicians who like to play God must be removed from office and never elected again. Educators must honor their mandate to educate children in ways that encourage their intellectual, social, and personal growth, and not their religious beliefs. And all of us need to remember the principles upon which our country was founded, because they will keep us free, and because no one, least of all a child, should feel like they don’t belong in their schools, their places of worship, their communities or their families.
Thomas Jefferson put it this way in 1802: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
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Elayne Clift writes from Brattleboro, Vt.