Printed from Urbana-Champaign IMC : http://www.ucimc.org/
UCIMC Independent Media 
Center
Media Centers

[topics]
biotech

[regions]
united states

oceania

london, ontario

[projects]
video
satellite tv
radio
print

[process]
volunteer
tech
process & imc docs
mailing lists
indymedia faq
fbi/legal updates
discussion

west asia
palestine
israel
beirut

united states
worcester
western mass
virginia beach
vermont
utah
urbana-champaign
tennessee
tampa bay
tallahassee-red hills
seattle
santa cruz, ca
santa barbara
san francisco bay area
san francisco
san diego
saint louis
rogue valley
rochester
richmond
portland
pittsburgh
philadelphia
omaha
oklahoma
nyc
north texas
north carolina
new orleans
new mexico
new jersey
new hampshire
minneapolis/st. paul
milwaukee
michigan
miami
maine
madison
la
kansas city
ithaca
idaho
hudson mohawk
houston
hawaii
hampton roads, va
dc
danbury, ct
columbus
colorado
cleveland
chicago
charlottesville
buffalo
boston
binghamton
big muddy
baltimore
austin
atlanta
arkansas
arizona

south asia
mumbai
india

oceania
sydney
perth
melbourne
manila
jakarta
darwin
brisbane
aotearoa
adelaide

latin america
valparaiso
uruguay
tijuana
santiago
rosario
qollasuyu
puerto rico
peru
mexico
ecuador
colombia
chile sur
chile
chiapas
brasil
bolivia
argentina

europe
west vlaanderen
valencia
united kingdom
ukraine
toulouse
thessaloniki
switzerland
sverige
scotland
russia
romania
portugal
poland
paris/ãŽle-de-france
oost-vlaanderen
norway
nice
netherlands
nantes
marseille
malta
madrid
lille
liege
la plana
italy
istanbul
ireland
hungary
grenoble
germany
galiza
euskal herria
estrecho / madiaq
cyprus
croatia
bulgaria
bristol
belgrade
belgium
belarus
barcelona
austria
athens
armenia
antwerpen
andorra
alacant

east asia
qc
japan
burma

canada
winnipeg
windsor
victoria
vancouver
thunder bay
quebec
ottawa
ontario
montreal
maritimes
hamilton

africa
south africa
nigeria
canarias
ambazonia

www.indymedia.org

This site
made manifest by
dadaIMC software
&
the friendly folks of
AcornActiveMedia.com

Comment on this article | View comments | Email this Article
Commentary :: Civil & Human Rights : Regime : Right Wing
The Fundamentalist Attack on Separation of Church & State Defames America and Its Founders Current rating: 0
05 Jun 2005
It is not the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments that form the bedrock of American values. It is the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution. If anything should be chiseled in stone on our public buildings, it's the Bill of Rights.
The right-wing's multi-front war on American democracy now aims at our core belief in separation of church and state. It includes an attempt to say the founding fathers endorsed the idea that this is a "Christian nation," with an official religion.

But the founders---and a vast majority of Americans---repeatedly, vehemently and with stunning clarity denounced, rejected and despised such beliefs.

Nowhere in the Constitution they wrote does the word "Christian" or the name of Christ appear. The very first phrase of the First Amendment demands that "Congress shall make no law concerning an establishment of religion."

One major reason Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Ethan Allen and the vast majority of early Americans rejected the merger of church and state was the lingering stench of Puritan intolerance. The infamous theocratic murders of the Salem witch trials sickened the American soul, just as today's power grab by Karl Rove's new corporate fundamentalists creates an atmosphere of intolerance and fear, defined by the world's largest prison gulag.

With characteristic duplicity, the radical right is attempting to re-write another of this nation's most cherished beliefs. Consider a widely circulated screed by the University of Dayton's Larry Schweikart. With astonishing inaccuracy, Schweikart asserts that Jefferson's famous demand for a "wall of separation between church and state" doesn't really mean what it says. Jefferson's observation that the founding fathers were not particularly devout is also dismissed, as if Schweikart knew them all and Jefferson didn't.

Twisting metaphors, changing meanings and ignoring Jefferson's Unitarianism, Schweikart conjures a completely fictitious endorsement for a Christian state.

Then comes the astonishing assertion that the incomparably urbane, tolerant and ever-eclectic Benjamin Franklin was somehow a Christian soldier. Never mind that in his Autobiography the Puritan-born Franklin, with his usual wry wit, laments having been dragged by a friend to church, from which he fled back to his books and experiments.

Never mind also that the legendary atheism of the wildly popular Tom Paine and Ethan Allen was embraced throughout a new nation that loved rational reason.

Instead, the Rovewellian claim that the US belongs to Puritan fundamentalists and their corporate sponsors is fed with random shreds deliberately misused as if by divine right.

The Deistic God of Franklin, Jefferson, and their Enlightened cohorts was in fact a humanistic divinity, rooted in the possibilities of the mind and spirit. America's true founding faith drew strength from diverse sources, including native America, pacifist Quakerism and the actual teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount: broad, peace-loving, tolerant, egalitarian, pluralistic, loving.

In other words, the precise opposite of G. W. Bush's totalitarian jihad. Today's theocratic crusaders promote the mean spirit of Puritan fanatics who ruled Boston from 1630 with an iron fist and a hangman's noose. To claim that this infamously repressive (and repressed!) state church was somehow supported by its most focused opponents is to defame America's founders and Truth itself.

It is not the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments that form the bedrock of American values. It is the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution. If anything should be chiseled in stone on our public buildings, it's the Bill of Rights.

Which is precisely what this attack on our history means to burn at the stake. Awakened America rose up in revolt against King, corporation and clergy. Its rejection of a state-sponsored church, Christian or otherwise, was fiercely explicit and decidedly mainstream.

Today's corporate-funded fundamentalist jihad is at war with America's uniquely diverse revolutionary soul. Spitting in the face of our historic core, the Big Lie of a "Christian nation" is vintage Rove at his most Orwellian.

America's founding genius lit up the world with secular pluralism. Those who attack our uniquely open spirit with phony scholarship are those whom George W. Bush might most accurately describe as "people who hate America."


Harvey Wasserman is author of Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States.

© 2005 Free Press
http://www.freepress.org/

Copyright by the author. All rights reserved.
Add a quick comment
Title
Your name Your email

Comment

Text Format
To add more detailed comments, or to upload files, see the full comment form.

Comments

Re: The Fundamentalist Attack on Separation of Church & State Defames America and Its Founders
Current rating: 0
06 Jun 2005
Prayers have been removed from classrooms, football games, and graduation ceremonies in the last 30 years. Some on the Christian Right are trying to bring those prayers back. Would we then return to the "theocracy" days of the 1950's, 40's, 30's, 20's?