Patriotism Can Exist Without Bows to God

FROM THE ARCHIVES (Columns)

Patriotism Can Exist Without Bows to God

Jeremy Patrick (jhaeman@hotmail.com)

The Omaha World-Herald

October 16, 2001

Imagine. It is Sept. 12, 2001. Terrorist attacks have struck New York City, the Pentagon, and elsewhere. In an attempt to foster patriotism and unity, Congress passes new legislation: From this point all, all currency will read "In Jesus We Trust," the Pledge of Allegiance will say "One Nation Under Jesus," and schoolchildren will be encouraged to sing "Jesus Bless America."
Imagine further: The rabbi of a nearby synagogue contacts his congressman to tell him that he is disturbed by the government’s appropriation of religious language and symbolism. The congressman tells him that, although Jews are certainly "entitled to the full protection of the First Amendment," didn’t he make a decision to become Jewish and shouldn’t he have to "live with the consequences?" After all, he says, we can’t go around restructuring society every time the government decides to use religious language.

The congressman notes that America is 85 percent Christian and only 5 percent Jewish and that Christianity was historically an important influence on the country. He concludes by stating that although the Jewish view "deserves tolerance and respect, so also do the sincere expressions of the (Christian) majority."

I hope we would all be aghast at that hypothetical congressman’s reasoning. We would understand that the Constitution doesn’t allow the majority to impose its religious beliefs on a minority because the very purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect minority groups from democratic majorities. We would also understand that a grave evil is committed when the government makes decisions about such a complex, private, and ultimate question like "What is the nature of God?"

Yet, our imaginary congressman’s argument is the same one The World-Herald used in an Oct. 12 editorial about the mixture of government and religion. In addressing whether it was OK for the president to call for national days or prayer or insert religious exercises into traditional patriotic ceremonies, The World-Herald simply asserted that atheists have chosen their beliefs and must live with the consequences of feeling excluded; even more, atheists need to be "tolerant and respectful" of the religious majority’s "sincere expressions" of faith.

The problems with what happened in the imaginary scenario and what has occurred recently are the same: in each case, the government has decided a religious question and has promoted it as the "correct" one without even considering that others have different religious beliefs. The problem with the use of religious terminology by the government is not that atheists are offended (though we are) or that we feel excluded (though that certainly occurs, too) but that we understand better than most the dangers that occur when the government becomes enmeshed with religion. And we hate to see what should be a fundamental ethic of civil life reduced to an "annoying" constitutional issue that government officials try to either ignore or work around.

What becomes apparent as well is that these references to God are not mere "cultural" artifaccts of a long-ago age; nor are they de minimis violations of the Constitution. Every time one of these "ceremonial deisms" is allowed, it is invoked as a reason why another questionable involement of government with religion (such as school prayer or nativity scenes) shouldn’t be prohibited. As the Supreme Court said almost 40 years ago, "it is no defense to urge that the religious practices here may be relatively minor encroachments on the First Amendment. The breach of neutrality that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent and, in the words of Madison, ‘it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.’"

Try then, to explain to a child how—although our currency says "in God we trust," his schoolteachers have him recite "one nation under God" and sing "God Bless America" every day, and the president and Congress constantly exhort him to pray—the government is really remaining rigorously neutral on the question of whether there is a god or what his or her relationship to humanity might be like.

The World-Herald would have me "respect and tolerate" government us of religious terminology and symbolism. I can respect, tolerate, and even encourage private citizens to express their religious beliefs, because I know that I have the exact same opportunity to express my own (or lack thereof). But I cannot tolerate it when some private citizens, even a majority of them, have hijacked the government into endorsing their religious beliefs in a way that I can’t match.

There are several billboards in Lincoln that state two slogans we’ve been hearing a lot lately: "united we stand" and "in God we trust." When the government has stopped proclaiming the second one, I might agree with the first one.