Religious Freedom or More God in Foreign Policy?

At the Washington Posts "On Faith" blog, David Waters looks at a recent independent study on religion and foreign affairs by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He reports:

The 99-page report was issued Tuesday and delivered to the White House, which is studying the issue, said Thomas Wright, the council's executive director of studies. Some members of the independent task force also are working with the White House commission and they have been trading notes, Wright said. "We're confident that everyone agrees this is a priority for this administration, not a matter of if we need to do this but how. We hope this report will give them a framework for how," Wright said.

American foreign policy's God gap has been noted by others in recent years, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. "Diplomats trained in my era were taught not to invite trouble. And no subjects seemed more inherently treacherous than religion," she said in 2006.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment's reluctance to engage religion continues today, the task force says. "The role of nationalism and decolonization was not widely understood in the U.S. until after the Vietnam War, despite considerable supporting evidence in the 1950s. Such is the case with religion today," says the task force's report, released at a conference at Georgetown University'sBerkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs."

Religion has been rapidly increasing as a factor in world affairs, for good and for ill, for the past two decades. Yet the U.S. government still tends to view it primarily through the lens of counterterrorism policy. The success of American diplomacy in the next decade will not simply be measured by government-to-government contacts, but also by its ability to connect with the hundreds of millions of people throughout the world whose identity is defined by religion."

Scott Appleby, a professor at Notre Dame and the task force's lead writes at SSRC's The Immanent Frame:

Those who were most uncomfortable with making religious freedom the headline tended to imagine the term in ironic scare quotes. “Religious freedom” is perceived by many peoples around the world, not least Muslims of the Middle East, they argued, not as a universal human right, but as a superpower-charged means of advancing hegemonic U.S. (read: Christian or, worse from their perspective, Judeo-Christian) interests. This particular strain of anti-Americanism is inflamed by isolated episodes of Christian missionaries proselytizing defiantly (or clumsily) in settings where they were manifestly unwelcome, and thereby igniting riots and sometimes deadly violence. More broadly, some suspect that missionaries, preachers, or U.S. government agents (sometimes conflated in the anti-American imagination) seek to impose on vulnerable populations “The American Way of Religion”—i.e., voluntarism, church-state separation, a free marketplace of religious ideas—which foreign opponents of U.S. influence believe to be anything but a universal human good.

and

Through reasoned debate in an open public square, the Chicago Council task force members on both sides of this divide were able to identify and embrace common ground. Thus, the TFR calls for the appointment of a new ambassador-at-large with detailed knowledge of the challenges facing both majority and minority religious groups around the world—a person, further, who possesses the communications skills necessary to explain that “religious freedom” is not a hollow shell masking U.S. religious or economic ambitions, but a universal human right that applies to every religion, whether it be a majority or a minority in any given state. The oppression, persecution, or restriction of religious groups by their respective governments, the ambassador should proclaim, is an enormous impediment to the development of religious pluralism and participatory democracy everywhere. Ensuring a public square in which all religions may compete peacefully and lawfully for a hearing and influence is one way of tempering religious groups driven to extremism by exclusion and persecution, and of undercutting those religious cells that exploit state repression by recruiting young, disaffected believers to their ranks.

If our separation of church and state is to be a model to the world of how to foster religious tolerance, our domestic policies may need a little brushing up for credibility's sake. I look forward to watching how the Obama administration receives the Chicago Council's report - and how the current factionalized Republican party receives it as well.

UPDATE: Susan Jacoby takes a swing at the report here.

Heritage Foundation Finds Religious Tolerance on President's Day.

I subscribe to The Morning Bell, a daily email publication by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. Always good to know what ahistorical, revisionist work they're up to. Usually I'm rightly disdainful of most of the shit they post and rant about. But today, I'm happily surprised to say, they got it just about right:

First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen

This season’s snow falls and Snowpocalypse presents a great opportunity to remember our president who also suffered through the cold to save the Republic.

Happy William Henry Harrison Day! No wait. That is not right.Failing to wear a coat in cold weather is not the same asdefeating the British during a blizzard.

The third Monday in February has come to be known—wrongly—as President’s Day. But, this is not a day to celebrate every president in our Nation’s history: like one who served only a month in office. This is the day that we celebrate the man who led America to victory in the War for Independence, who was instrumental in the creation of our Constitution, and whose character forever shaped the executive branch. We celebrate George Washington. That’s why it’s Washington’s Birthday; not President’s day.

What makes George Washington a great president, worthy of such celebration, and example to all other presidents? In short, he was committed to the principles of the American Founding. Liberty, Natural Rights, Equality, Religious Liberty, Economic Opportunity, the Rule of Law, Constitutionalism, Self-government, National Independence: these are the truths that George Washington held.

Matthew Spalding, in his latest book We Still Hold These Truths, explains each of these first principles in depth and often points to Washington as an exemplar practitioner. For instance, Spalding points to an important series of letters to different religious congregations as an example Washington’s commitment to the principle of religious liberty. In a letter to a congregation of Jewish people, one of the most persecuted religious minoritiesin all history, Washington explains:

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given 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 were 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 in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Washington understood that citizenship did not require professing particular religious doctrines. Nor does the possession of rights depend upon one’s membership in a certain race or social class.

Not all presidents are George Washington. But all presidents—and all Americans—can and should dedicate themselves to preserving American’s First Principles.

Proposition 8: How Many Souls Have You Saved?

Ashby Jones at the Wall Street Journal's "Law Blog" quips that while little should be happening in the Proposition 8 case in California at the moment - the trial has ended, the post-trial brief isn't due until the end of the month - there's still a lot happening in the case.

Not only have supporters of the law gone bonkers over reports that the judge is gay (perhaps threatening any public support gains the case could have made 'cause, you know, those gays stick together) but the Alliance Defense Fund is now screaming that supporters of "traditional" marriage are being discriminated against for their religion:

One of the lawyers handling the case for the defendants (that is, defending the constitutionality of Prop. 8) sent us a note recently attacking the plaintiffs’ approach in the case. Specifically, Brian Raum, the head of marriage litigation for the Alliance Defense Fund, has accused the plaintiffs and their lead lawyers, David Boies and Ted Olson, of unfairly attacking religion.

In an email, Raum wrote to us:

As one of the attorneys defending California’s marriage amendment, I’ve been uniquely privileged to be at trial in federal court over [recent] weeks. As the proceedings unfolded, though, something became perfectly clear that can only be described as outrageous. This lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the voter-enacted state amendment protecting marriage. But the plaintiffs, who want to redefine marriage, have focused unabashedly on a systematic attack of orthodox religious beliefs.

The defenders of Prop 8 have been standing on two feeble legs, really: they claim that the vote to define marriage as only between a man and a woman was a democratic process; and that the state has an interest in protecting "traditional" marriage. While the first premise may be true, huge amounts of church money (protected from disclosure by the government's lobbying laws and tax-exempt status for churches) ensured that the proposition passed by 52%. That "traditional" ideas of marriage are defensible has proven a more difficult case to make. Everything from the need for procreation to arguments that homosexuals are not monogamous has been thrown up as justification for a "defense" of heterosexual marriage.

What the defendants tried hard to stay away from during the trial were overtly religious arguments for same sex marriage, fearing that the Establishment Clause could be called on to disprove their arguments. Same sex marriage, they claimed, is a moral wrong, not a religious one.

Yet the overtly Christian Alliance Defense Fund was started in 1994 by the likes of Campus Crusade's Bill Bright and Focus on the Family's James Dobson in order to inhibit the legal rights of non-Fundamentalist Christians. They've made an art out of claiming that individual rights are "religious opression," even if those rights in no way impact the lives of others.

As the cornerstone of what I call the Legal Right (similar in purpose to the Religious Right and the Medical Right), ADF is a well-funded, savvy, highly effective force in law today. Their founding principle, that religious freedom is defined as tolerance by society of their particular religious proselytizing, is neither sweet nor benign.

When you define religious freedom as a one-sided demand that all others tolerate your proselytizing (because your faith is right and others need to be converted), any resistant non-believer becomes opposition to your goal of saving souls. Theologically, fundamentalism is designed to measure a believer's chances at heavenly afterlife by how he's lived (though a little deathbed salvation can fix that) and how many he has converted. It's this work to convert - to "reform" the gay, to make chaste the whore, to assert God's laws on society - that ADF is after.

From abstinence education to school prayer, from ahistorical text books to ten commandments statues in court houses, the primary goal is to teach the word of God - a very specific God - and to win all of society into that faith. Religious freedom, in this frame, doesn't mean freedom to believe as one's conscience dictates - no Christian then would need the ten commandments in a courthouse or to be kept from condoms - but freedom to spread that view either by conversion or imposition of laws unchecked.

It is the intolerance demonstrated by religious forces and their desire to convert and govern that Proposition 8 most highlights, not a greater need for tolerance of religion.

Lancaster, CA, A Good Christian Community.

You heard the news last week about the California Mayor who declared his community Christian?

From Paliban Daily, a report on what God's plans are for Lancaster, CA:

The mayor of the sixth-largest city in Los Angeles County turned his state-of-the-city speech into a call to Christian repentance and growth as a “Christian community” as he supports a ballot measure to permit Christian prayer at City Council meetings.

Lancaster, CA is the sixth-largest city in Los Angeles County. Its population is about 150,000; not a bustling metropolis, but not a backwater burg, either. NBC Los Angeles reports that Mayor R. Rex Parris, presently up for re-election, veered from the expected subjects of his January 28 State of the City speech to urge citizens to support a local ballot measure.

Mayor R. Rex Parris

The measure? It’s available online here.

Kentucky Mennonites Targeted By Robbers.

From Nicole Ferguson at NewsChannel 5, Kentucky:

TODD & CHRISTIAN COUNTIES, Ky. – Kentucky State Police are investigating ten separate armed robberies and break-ins in Mennonite communities over the weekend.

Officials said they were investigators the attacks against Todd and Christian County Mennonites as hate crimes.

"He was almost in tears when he called me," said Shane Hessey, a friend of one of the victims. "He answered the phone and he said 'Shane, I'm in bad trouble.'"

Most of the weekend accounts are the same. The Mennonites describe their homes broken into in the middle of the night, with anywhere from two to five suspects holding their families at gunpoint and robbing them.

"They are a frugal people," said Todd County Sheriff Billy Stokes. "I know that in one of the home invasions [the suspects] only got $15."

Mennonites are Christian Anabaptists, known for their plain lifestyles.

"This would definitely fall under hate crime or targeted group for sure," said Stokes.

Stokes said he has been investigating reports of harassment in the Mennonite community over the past several months. He believes many of the incidents have gone unreported, perhaps because of the Mennonites stance for peace.

"Unless it's something major or repetitive, the [Mennonite] people are reluctant to report anything – they don't want any trouble," said Stokes. "They're very good neighbors to everyone. Anytime there's a crisis, there always first on the scene."

Hessey said patrols have been beefed up in the southern part of the county, but manpower presents difficulty in protecting the Mennonite community. They count on state police to assist them.

"I wish I could provide more protection for them, but that's solely based upon what our fiscal court is able or willing to do for our sheriff's department," said Stokes.

Kentucky State Police officials said the suspects have been described as having dark complexions, ranging in height from 5'7" to 6 feet tall. They were wearing bandanas and ski masks at the time of the attacks. Victims reported the theft of money and one firearm.

Meanwhile Hessey and Stokes fear worse consequences if the suspects are not caught.

"Certainly the fear is that somebody dies in this process of robbing," said Hessey. "It's unfortunate that they're targeting these Mennonite families because they're God-fearing, law abiding, very private families that work very hard for what they have."

"One of two things are eventually going to happen," said Stokes. "Either the perpetrators are going to go into the wrong house thinking it's a (Mennonite) house – we're a real community and most of the people here have weapons. Or the perpetrators are going wind up getting spooked and kill somebody innocent. Either which way it spells out disaster."

Calling on Obama to Address Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives.

In the wake of the National Prayer Breakfast this week, the group Citizens Against Religious Discrimination (CARD) is calling for Obama to address the faith-based initiatives started by the Bush administration.

Sarah Posner wrote yesterday at Religion Dispatches:

Obama had made three pledges: to end the exemption allowing federal grantees to discriminate in hiring based on religion; to require houses of worship receiving federal grants to form separate non-profits so that federal funds would not be directed to sectarian organizations; and to put in place oversight and monitoring of proselytizing by federal grantees.

As president, Obama decided instead to address instances of employment discrimination on a "case-by-case basis" and to only recommend but not require separate non-profits. The administration has not unveiled any plans to beef up oversight of proselytizing by grantees.

At the National Prayer Breakfast Obama claimed, that his administration had "turned the faith-based initiative around," but an article at Americans United for Separation of Church and State notes:

...Leaders of civil rights, civil liberties and religious groups say the president has failed to correct Bush-era policies.

“I was surprised and disappointed to hear President Obama suggest that the faith-based initiative has somehow been ‘turned around,’” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “In fact, in all significant ways, the Obama faith-based initiative right now is the same as the Bush faith-based initiative.

“The Bush rules and regulations are all still in place,” Lynn continued. “Administration officials have failed to safeguard the vital constitutional boundary between church and state, and they have not restored the damage to civil rights law.”

Among the things Americans United and CARD are calling for:

• Revoke a June 2007 legal memo issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that asserts that a 1993 religious freedom law gives religious groups the right to take tax funds and still discriminate on religious grounds in hiring. This interpretation, the joint letter asserts, is “erroneous and threatens core civil rights and religious freedom protections.”

• Issue policies making it clear that social-services providers must give proper notice to beneficiaries of their religious liberty rights and access to alternative secular providers.

• Require that houses of worship and other religious institutions that infuse religion into every program create separate corporations for the purpose of providing secular government-funded social services.

The members of CARD are religious and secular organizations who believe strongly that only separation of church and state will guarantee religious tolerance.

Anabaptist Conscientious Objection in Toronto.

From CNW Group, an update on the Canadian case about conscientious objection:

Mennonite Central Committee Canada (MCCC) and Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC) (Quakers) express disappointment that the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) has rejected a request to intervene in an appeal by US war resister Jeremy Hinzman.Hinzman and family applied for permanent resident status in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, but their application was rejected. An upcoming appeal to the FCA will focus on whether punishment for desertion from the military - if it was motivated by a "deeply held" objection to war - could amount to "undue hardship" for the purpose of a humanitarian and compassionate application.The FCA refused CFSC-MCCC's intervention stating that they weren't directly affected by the issue, wouldn't provide a "fresh perspective", and that the Hinzmans' legal counsel could raise relevant concerns.Jane Orion Smith, General Secretary of CFSC, said, "The Court's decision is profoundly disappointing. Quakers and Mennonites, the core base of historic peace churches, have a unique and influential role in establishing rights for conscientious objectors over several centuries in Canada and internationally. During conscription, most of our members sought exemption as conscientious objectors. Conscientious objection is an issue of the present, not just history. Jeremy Hinzman and his family are an active part of the Toronto Quaker Meeting. Despite this setback, we will continue to educate and advocate for the realization of this much misunderstood right which is protected in domestic and international law."CFSC and MCCC argued that because Jeremy Hinzman's conscientious objection is rooted in his freedom of religion (and conscience), there should be a different test for assessing his punishment for holding those beliefs. It should not have to amount to "undue or disproportionate" hardship. Any hardship for his beliefs could potentially breach his religious rights, and the immigration officer deciding his case had to consider his case in light of these rights.Tim Wichert of Jackman & Associates, counsel for CFSC and MCCC, says: "The Federal Court has specifically said that the issue of conscientious objection still raises a host of outstanding questions, begging for resolution. Because of their extensive experience with this issue, we argued that Quakers and Mennonites had a unique perspective to offer."For further information: Tim Wichert (counsel), (905) 932-8914 or (416) 653-9900 ext 228; Jane Orion Smith (CFSC), (416) 920-5213 or (416) 356-5213

Bible Instruction in Tennessee Public Schools.

How can you teach America's history, politics, culture, foreign policy, or economics without addressing the profound influence of religion? You can't. But it's what you teach about religion that matters - not just to the creation of historical record but to the future of the democracy.

What the continuing contest over the meaning of the Establishment Clause and "separation of church and state" proves is that religious tolerance means many things to many people depending on their objective. (Note the Supreme Court's notorious unpredictability when ruling Establishment Clause cases - or even their avoidance of it when addressing, for instance, patients' rights.)

If the objective of religious education is to promote a particular theological viewpoint - to win souls to one's own conception of God - you're infringing on the separation of church and state. If you're looking at the influence of religion with a critical eye, you're representing the appropriate forces that have shaped the nation. The hinge then on properly approaching religion in public schools - and in society - is not far from the concept of informed consent that patients' rights advocates discuss.

Individual autonomy is incumbent on the choices of an informed conscience. So the new news coming out of Tennessee isn't, in and of itself, alarming to me. Yes, religion, the bible as literature, should be taught in schools. Indeed is necessary for a full educational experience. But how religion is approached is a difficult thing to legislate. Only citizens' constant scrutiny protects the very essential provision of religious tolerance.

I say it again and again: those who work to legislate their particular ideological beliefs are essentially undermining their own right to do so. Tolerance doesn't work one way. The citizens of Tennessee are left to assert that tolerance means both for and from.

From the Examiner:

Tennessee has joined several other states and determined how biblical principles can be incorporated into public school curriculum.

According to the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, Chief Justice, Warren Berger, notes, “the Constitution does not require complete separation of church and state. It mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance of all religions and forbids hostility toward any.” Although many individuals are under the assumption that permitting Bible teachings in public school environments breaks a law and goes against Constitutional rights, a complete severance of religious studies in public classrooms is not required.

Each school can elect how the new curriculum fits into its programs and teachings accordingly; however, theTennessee Board of Education has an approved curriculum it will provide to schools to act as a guideline for how instructors are to teach the information. Prior to the Board’s decision, each school district in Tennessee was permitted to institute its own Bible courses. The new guidelines indicate that schools must use the pre-approved curriculum.

The new guidelines include which translations of the Bible can be taught as well as the instruction of religious history and literature of the text. The curriculum also covers the continued religious and social implications of the Bible’s messages and morals.

Romanticizing the "Plain."

Kay Stoner writes to KillingtheBuddha today to comment on my article last week about Republican talk of converting to the Anabaptist faith (Amish, Mennonite) to avoid the health care mandate.

There are a couple of ironies in the Republican comments that I get to in my piece, but Stoner emphasizes yet another: romanticizing "plain" life. Oh the simple life, oh the tax exemptions, some say.

Growing up in Lancaster County, PA, as I did, or in the community as Stoner did, one can't help but note the romance for the "plain" life that makes the Anabaptists a tourist attraction. People come from far and wide to buy Amish quilts and preserves and to gawk at the funny farms and dress of the throw-back Amish.

Stoner's point that Anabaptists have segregated themselves from the rest of society for a reason is apt. They themselves haven't glorified simple life; they just know that religious tolerance requires separation of church and state. And they learned this lesson through centuries of persecution.

So the next time you hear religious groups working to enforce their beliefs via federal or state laws, in violation of the Establishment clause, think of the Anabaptists and their hard-learned lesson about the necessity of separation of church and state. While it's fun to romanticize a separatist culture, understanding the theological underpinnings of their faith is a vital lesson to us all about the great laws that protect religious tolerance in the US.

The Vatican's Guidelines for Mideast Synod Released.

Fantastic Howard Friedman at ReligionClause notes that the Catholic Church has released its Guidelines for Mideast Synod. And he pulls out some of the points the Vatican wishes to focus on in October.

The Vatican yesterday released a document titled Guidelines for Mideast Synod. The synod, scheduled for Oct. 10-24, is expected to attract some 150 bishops, mostly from Eastern rite churches. Haaretz reports that there are some 17 million Christians in the Middle East from Iran to Egypt. Many Christians have fled, but many others (primarily from Philippines, India and Pakistan) have arrived in Arab lands in recent years to work in domestic or manual labor. Here are some excerpts from the lengthy Guidelines:

18. Political conflicts in the region have a direct influence on the lives of Christians, both as citizens and as Christians. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories makes daily life difficult with regard to freedom of movement, the economy and religious life (access to the Holy Places is dependent on military permission which is granted to some and denied to others on security grounds). Moreover, certain Christian fundamentalist theologies use Sacred Scripture to justify Israel's occupation of Palestine, making the position of Christian Arabs even more sensitive.

19. In Iraq, the war has unleashed evil forces within the country, religious confessions and political movements, making all Iraqis victims. However, because Christians represent the smallest and weakest part of Iraqi communities, they are among the principal victims, with world politics taking no notice.

20. In Lebanon, Christians are deeply divided at a political and confessional level, without a commonly acceptable plan of action. In Egypt, the rise of political Islam, on the one hand, and the disengagement of Christians from civil society on the other, lead to intolerance, inequality and injustice in their lives. Moreover, this Islamisation also penetrates families through the media and school.... In many countries, authoritarianism or dictatorships force the population - Christians included - to bear everything in silence....

22. In the Middle East, freedom of religion customarily means freedom of worship and not freedom of conscience, i.e., the freedom to change one's religion for belief in another. Generally speaking, religion in the Middle East is a social and even a national choice, and not an individual one. To change religion is perceived as betraying a society, culture and nation, founded largely on a religious tradition.

23. Conversion is seen as the fruit of a proselytism with personal interests attached and not arising from authentic religious conviction. Oftentimes, the conversion of Jews and Muslims is forbidden by State laws. Christians, though also subjected to pressure and opposition from families and tribes - even if less severely - remain free to change their religion. Many times, the conversion of Christians results not from religious conviction but personal interests or under pressure from Muslim proselytism, particularly to be relieved from obligations related to family difficulties.

Religion and the Trial of Proposition 8.

At Religion Dispatches, Candace Chellew-Hodge has a review of the first week of the Proposition 8 trial taking place in California and asks, where's the religion?

As we've seen with abortion, aid in dying, and gay rights, religious advocates have used their "pro-life" resources to shape legislation - because God has pull with politicians - but they've worked hard to avoid the Establishment clause issues of claiming religious grounds in the courts, understandably. US courts still struggle with how to interpret separation of church and state, the Supreme Court notoriously avoiding it at all costs particularly on issues of patients' rights and of issuing unpredictable decisions regarding religion in the classroom and the public square.

But the interesting thing this case over Prop 8 is showing is that when claims for "traditional" laws are made without God's backing, they tend to fall flat. Procreation? Parenting? The state should have an interest in protecting marriage on these grounds? The reasons lack legal significance.

If supporters of Proposition 8 were to pull out the Establishment clause, they would have to give up the God ghost that propelled this horrid, draconian law into passage. Saying the forces behind the bill's passage were pushing religious ideology and having it struck down in a court of law as violating separation of church and state would put a giant kink in the work religious opponents of same-sex marriage are doing all across the country.

It's a hell of a lot easier to scare voters and intimidate legislators with discriminatory fear of creepy gay couples, but the third branch of government exists to interpret the constitution, outside of public opinion and away from influence of the legislative branch. On the Establishment clause, judges have often caved to societal pressure and their own convictions. Let's hope the Prop 8 judge sees how little basis there is in the law when religious ideology is extracted from arguments.

If you read some of the testimony Chellew-Hodge includes in the article, the arguments sound even quaint, like the transcripts of a case from the last century, rife with unchecked discrimination and fear of change:

When Proposition 8 was fought at the ballot box in California to deny the newly-minted right to marry for gay and lesbian couples, those leading the charge were mainly religious. The Mormon Church gave more than $180,000 in efforts to repeal the new marriage law. That was peanuts though compared to the nearly $730,000 in cash and services provided by Colorado-based Focus on the Family and the $1.275 million given by the Catholic Church group the Knights of Columbus.

The religious argument against marriage equality for gays and lesbians may have won the round at the ballot box, but in the San Francisco courtroom where the legal battle to overturn Prop. 8 wraps up its first week, religion has been largely absent. Religious arguments don’t hold a lot of legal water, so anti-marriage equality proponents are forced to use their secular arguments, and reading reports from the courtroom (since the U.S. Supreme Court nixed video coverage of the trial), they’re leaking fairly badly as well.

Without being able to argue that God ordained one man and one woman for life (never mind all that Old Testament polygamy) and so we cannot deviate from that pattern, those opposed to same-gender marriage are instead focusing on issues like parenting, economic impact, discrimination, and child rearing.

In their opening arguments, defense attorneys laid out their case:

Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for the Proposition 8 defense (…) is hitting the main points in the defense: that the voters have spoken on the issue, and gay couples in California enjoy strong legal protections under domestic partnership laws. (…) Cooper finished his opening statement, defending the need for society to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and limit it to heterosexual couples for its procreative purposes. He told the judge that marriage must be “pro-child,” and that would be at risk if same-sex couples were allowed to marry. Cooper insisted that the courts should stay out of the issue and allow the voters to decide whether they want to allow same-sex marriage, but the judge questioned that thesis. “There are certainly lots of issues taken out of the body politic. Why isn't this one of them?” the judge asked at one point.

Throughout the week, the plaintiff’s lawyers have taken a whack at each of those issues, and more. Harvard University historian Nancy Cott was the first to dismiss the idea that marriage should be reserved for procreation.

Her task to start the second day of trial is to knock down one of the central arguments of gay marriage foes: that the state has a compelling interest in restricting marriage to heterosexual couples because of the procreative purpose of marriage.

Asked by plaintiff’s attorney Theodore Boutrous whether procreation is a central purpose of marriage, Cott scoffed, nothing that President George Washington, “the father of our country,” was sterile by the time of a later marriage.

“Procreative ability has never been a qualification for marriage,” she testified.

Religious Freedom Day.

Howard Friedman at Religion Clause notes Obama's marking of Religious Freedom Day. Please click through to read the comments and to make your own. (Now if only this administration would address faith-based initiatives accordingly!)

Today is Religious Freedom Day marking the anniversary of Virginia’s 1786 Statute for Religious Freedom. Yesterday President Obama issued a Proclamation (full text) officially designating the observance. It said in part:

The Virginia Statute was more than a law. It was a statement of principle, declaring freedom of religion as the natural right of all humanity -- not a privilege for any government to give or take away. Penned by Thomas Jefferson and championed in the Virginia legislature by James Madison, it barred compulsory support of any church and ensured the freedom of all people to profess their faith openly, without fear of persecution. Five years later, the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights followed the Virginia Statute's model, stating, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .".

Going Amish. Like Going Rogue?

I'm loving the new conservative love affair (see comments) with the Amish and Mennonites. Because word got around a week or two ago that the Anabaptists can and have successfully claimed religious exemption from paying insurance, including the new health care mandate, teabagging, hands-off-my-hard-earned-money types are flirting with the Anabaptist ways.

They won't be flirting for long. But like every other conservative love affair that is founded on fuzzy ideas of "traditionalism" and ideology but has little basis in fact, these faux-converters will soon learn that there's a reason we're not all Mennonite (I'm a generation removed).

Religious freedom, guaranteed by the Establishment clause, works both ways. No one knows this better than the Anabaptists, persecuted and killed for centuries after the radical reformation. The Anabaptists are quite happy to do their own thing and take care of their own without imposing their faith doctrine on federal and state laws. It's a give-and-take I doubt teabagging types could live with.

So don your bonnets and strings, teabaggers. Time you thought a bit about what religious liberty means!

Reporting the Texas History/Social Studies Textbook Hearing.

Here are some great sources:

The Baptist Standard covers testimony

The Texas Freedom Network is lifeblogging

KBTX has a news report posted (beware the "education elites")

Joint Statement on Religion and Public Life Released Today.

After all the noise over the holidays about religion and the public square, Wake Forest University Divinity School convened a panel of religion and public affairs experts to create a document that addresses separation of church and state, religious tolerance, and other pertaining issues.

The result, "Religious Expression in American Public Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law", was released yesterday in DC. Spokesmen say that while many on the panel disagree about what the laws should be, they were able to agree on what the laws are currently.

It's a project that makes great sense to me. I'm looking forward to reading the entire document though anything remotely related to the Brookings Institute is likely to get laughed at by the Right.

From the Religion Press Release Service:

As the role of religion in public life continues to spark intense political debate and high-profile court cases, a group of diverse leaders from religious and secular organizations has issued the most comprehensive joint statement of current law to date on legal issues dividing church and state. Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Christian leaders from the evangelical, mainline and Catholic traditions joined with civil liberties leaders to draftReligious Expression in American Public Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law, released Tuesday at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.

Are persons elected or nominated to serve as government officials required to place their hands on the Bible when making oaths or affirmations? May elected officials reference religious ideas and discuss their personal religious beliefs while operating in their official capacities? Are individuals and groups permitted to use government property for religious activities and events? Must secular nongovernmental employers accommodate employees' religious practices? These are just a few of the questions that the diverse group of leaders sought to answer in the 32-page document.

"The role of religion in public life has long been a source of controversy and litigation," said Melissa Rogers, director of Wake Forest University Divinity School's Center for Religion and Public Affairs, which produced the document. "We have brought together a diverse group of experts on law and religion to clarify what current law has to say about some of these matters."

Members of the drafting committee include those associated with faith-based groups as diverse as the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Islamic Networks Group, theBaptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the Queens Federation of Churches, the American Jewish Committee, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Former staff members of the ACLU and People for the American Way also served on the drafting committee. On Tuesday, representatives of the American Center for Law and Justice, the American Jewish Congress, theFreedom Forum First Amendment Center and other members of the drafting committee will join Rogers for a two-hour discussion moderated by Brookings Institution Senior Fellow and Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne.

"Some of these groups are often on opposite sides of church-state litigation," Rogers said. "But while the drafters of this document may disagree about how the legal line should draw be drawn between church and state, we have been able to come together and agree in many cases on what the law is today."

The document is drafted in a question and answer format for easy reference. Previous joint statements have addressed the role of religion in public schools. This is the first document of its kind to address a wide spectrum of issues related to the role of religion in public life, Rogers said.

The 35 questions and answers that comprise the joint statement address religion and politics; religious gatherings on governmental property; religious expression in the workplace; and chaplains in legislative bodies, prisons and the military; and other issues.

In addition to printed copies of the joint statement, the Center has published an interactive Web version of the statement at its website: http://divinity.wfu.edu/rpa/. A full list of the members of the drafting committee as well as their photos and brief bios, are also posted there.