This morning I woke up thinking about the U.S. Constitution. I have often been troubled by the majority understanding of the First Amendment. The modern day understanding of the idea of “Separation of Church and State” stems from how people read the first part of the First Amendment and other documents that are not a part of the U.S Constitution. I also realized that the founding Father’s of the United States made the First Amendment first. Yes, I am the Master of the Obvious. The First Amendment was ratified before the 2nd Amendment (right to bear arms) or even the 3rd Amendment (prohibiting soldiers from staying in houses against the home owners wishes). This simple fact shows the weight of the First Amendment. The importance of the content of the First Amendment.
Here is the short and simple text of the First Amendment. If you haven’t ever read it before, you will be surprised by how easy it is to understand. I think we often suspect the Constitution to be really complicated since we have so many ‘interpretations’ of it.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So what is being said here?
1. Congress shall make no law that would establish a religion.
—- what this means is that congress by law is unable to create a religion that would be the religion of the United States. (sort of like the Church of England was for England) Basically this means the Government can not and will not ever force you to belong to or practice and given religion. Due to this it is clear that we should not consider the United States an official “Christian Nation”. It would be more accurate to say that there are a lot of Christians in the United States, and we have a Christian heritage but the Government has not and will not ever establish an actual religion for the United States, not even Christianity.
2. Congress shall make no law prohibiting the practice of any religion.
—– this is the portion that I strongly feel is being ignored and left out by a lot of Americans and politicians (yes, I guess the politicians are Americans too…) The First Amendment is clear that the U.S. Government will never, in any way, create a law that would prohibit our free exercise of religion. This should certainly include our right to pray, even publicly, and in a structure built with U.S Tax Dollars. So how many laws should exist that would prohibit anyones free exercise of religion? Zero. This includes laws that would prohibit the free exercise of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and yes even Christianity. Christians should be protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
3. Congress shall make no law that would abridge our freedom of speech.
—– I find this interesting that freedom of speech comes directly after stating that no laws would be created to prohibit religious practice. What this Amendment is saying is that the Government will make no laws that would amend, abridge, or censor what someone says. We can say whatever we want. This would certainly include talk against the government, but also to talk about our faith and religious beliefs. The US Government by the First Amendment can not create any laws that would forbid you from discussing your faith with anyone.
4. Congress shall make no law that would abridge the freedom of speech for the press.
—– Basically this says even the media can say whatever they want. They can publish negative articles about the government, and the government by law can not do anything about it. This would also include writing about faith and religion, literally anything. Freedom of the Press. If the US Government were to ever intervene with the Press to hush a story, the government would be breaking the law.
5. Congress will make no law that would prohibit people from being able to assemble peacefully.
—— This includes Church services, and also would include any other assembly that is not violent. This gives every American the right to be in groups, large or small. We can talk about the Government in those groups, we can talk about faith in those groups, we can assemble in huge gatherings or small. Our Government by law can do nothing to prevent us from assembling regardless of the topic matter as long as we are being peaceful. When we go to the streets with rocks, guns, bats or any other thing that can be used as a weapon we the people are breaking the law. Or if a gathering becomes violent we are breaking the law. We can assemble peacefully, it is our right as Americans.
6. Congress shall make no law that would prohibit people from petitioning the government for grievances.
—— What this means is that if something unjust has occurred, or you feel something is wrong you have ever right to bring those grievances to the government and fully expect to be listened to. Government can not ignore you by law. Our government by design is intended to have interaction and accessibility with and to the American people. This portion of the Amendment ensures every Americans right to have access to be heard.
It is amazing that in one sentence the Founding Fathers were able to make six distinct things very clear. And for the most part our society really likes the First Amendment, as long as we exclude point number two in regards to Christianity. I believe Government has moved into the realm of actually creating laws to prohibit the free exercise of religion and speech by preventing prayer in school and other government buildings on the premise of ‘Separation of Church and State’. My individual freedoms to believe in one religion and talk about that is a right I have through the First Amendment. There is no clause forbidding me from that practice in any building or location. The only thing that the U.S Government is unable to do is institute a religion, they should not be in the business of deciding when or where I can pray or talk about faith.
Those were my thoughts this morning. Have a great day!
While I agree with most of your assessment of the First Amendment, you fail to validate your point on statement #2.
“This should certainly include our right to pray, even publicly, and in a structure built with U.S Tax Dollars.”
No one ever said you couldn’t pray wherever you like, including public schools. The issue of prayer in schools amounts to a government mandate for prayer in school being equivalent to a State-sanctioned religion, which the First Amendment is designed to avoid.
Unlike the bible, the U.S. Constitution does not contradict itself, is not worded vaguely so as to be adapted to personal taste, and very distinct in outlining what the government can and cannot do.
You can’t pick and choose passages from the Constitution to justify selfish, mysoginistic, bigoted or violent actions like you can with the bible.
The Government should not be able to dictate to a student that they are unable to pray in a school or other government building. That a student should not be able to bring a Bible to school. That a student can not hold a Bible Study among fellow students on school grounds. These are individuals exercising their freedom of religion. All of these things are currently happening in America today. Not everywhere but it is happening. I agree that the Government should not be forcing prayer in school, should not be forcing the Bible to be read in school, or forcing students to assemble to study the Bible. But they should also not be forcing students to not be able to do these things. A growing idea is that simply by allowing Christians to express their faith in a government paid structure is ‘forcing religion on others’ or ‘Government establishing religion’, when it is actually allowing the freedom of the individual to express their faith and to assemble peacefully. Some schools have outlawed students from speaking about their religious beliefs or praying if they speak at a graduation ceremony or other ceremonial event on school property. Some schools do not allow Christian groups to assemble for ‘religious purposes’ on school grounds before or after school because of their concerns regarding the separation of Church and State. Congress has not made any laws as of yet officially prohibiting these things, but a growing number of people are understanding the First Amendment improperly and are prohibiting the individuals right to their freedom of religion. I am concerned about the direction our country is going in, simply by the population not understanding the First Amendment of our Constitution, largely due to misinformation and improper education of what Separation of Church and State actually mean.
I believe it’s a case of the path of least resistance. By that I mean, since they have to grant everyone the same access to school property, they deny access to all religious groups because they feel that gives everyone equal access, meaning none at all.
The problem as I see it is this: if a school were to give time & room to a christian group, then they are obligated by law to give the same consideration to a group of satanists, wiccans, druids, etc. You know as well as I do that someone would file a ridiculous lawsuit somewhere along the lines, the media would sensationalize the “plight” of those poor downtrodden satanists or whatever, and they would get a million times more publicity than they ordinarily would.
A lot of people argue that if religious prayer is that important, why not get the family up 10 minutes earlier and gather for a prayer at home to start the day? And I tend to agree, because I see religion as a deeply personal matter, not lawsuit fodder.
Let’s face it, there will be prayer in school anyway, as long as there are tests!
I believe that under the First Amendment a person of any faith, including but not limited Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, and even Satanic should have access to public facilities to hold meetings. The only limitation that should be present is if the meeting is not a peaceful meeting. The idea that all groups should be forced out of public facilities is against the First Amendment. Our Constitution protects those rights, but current interpretation is reading it to mean the opposite of what it is intended to say.
I agree that faith starts with the family, but this still does not give the government, schools, or any other publicly funded body the right to prevent the free exercise of religion on their property unless it can be shown that the group is not meeting peacefully.