Religious Freedom Day

For the past eleven years, under both a Republican and a Democrat, the Office of the President has issued a proclamation declaring January 16 to be Religious Freedom Day in the United States. There are a couple of coincidences in this that interest me--first that even though I'm an addicted news junkie, I've never heard of this in the past eleven years; and second that it should be scheduled just days before the inauguration of the President. I suspect there is significance in both those facts, but I don't intend to pursue them here. Something else has caught my attention.


Michael Newdow, the professional gadfly and theophobe who brought suit to have the phrase "under God" stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance, has sued now to prevent the offering of prayers at the Obama inauguration and to prohibit the President-Elect from uttering the words "...so help me God" at the end of Oath of Office, as every President since Washington has. He's been making these protests quadrennially for many years, never with any success, but he keeps at it, and he backs his argument with several egregious fallacies.


Newdow's website (http://www.restorethepledge.com/) asserts that he is pursuing his agenda in order to protect the "right of Christians to worship God and Jesus whenever and wherever they choose," and that the only way to do this is to banish all mention of God, Jesus or religion from the mouths of any public servant. This is a fallacious twofer. His proposition is both self-contradictory and absurd in its extremity. He suggests that in order for Christians (or anyone else) to freely exercise their Constitutional rights of unhindered religious belief (or non-belief), all statements of belief, all recognition of beliefs, all actions, symbols, behaviors and words that might remotely infer belief should be prohibited to anyone connected in any way with government and entirely banished from public view. In other words, he wants to protect religious worship by making it utterly and completely invisible, private and without any form of mutual support system (Fallacy alert: see Oxymoron). This is like the 19th century naturalists who sought to preserve wildlife by killing it and having it stuffed.

Newdow's arguments against public expressions of religious belief are based in an extension of the concept of freedom of religion. The right itself is well-established in law (even though it appears in the Constitution only by inference), but Newdow's interpretation carries it to an absurd extreme (Fallacy alert: see Reductio ad absurdum), contending that the only way to freely exercise religious belief or non-belief is never to have to acknowledge the existence of any belief that differs from your own. Consequently, Americans could only enjoy freedom OF religion when they are made free FROM religion. It's an interpretation that suits Newdow's belief system, but only at the expense of all others who may disagree.


When challenged on this Newdow responds with his own question: "Why don't you want to follow the Constitution?" Sadly, he's gotten away with this false choice fallacy for so long that he feels smugly secure in making the charge. Here's the rub. The Constitution doesn't say what he wants it to say. The 1st Amendment prohibits Congress from creating any law "respecting an establishment of religion." Granted, the phrase can be read in various ways, either to prohibit legislative action to "establish" a state-sponsored religion or to prohibit legislative interference with any religious establishment, i.e. an organized church. But the Constitution does not say that religious organizations must be forced out of the public arena. Newdow is right when he contends that the Presidential Oath required by the Constitution does not include the the phrase "...so help me God," but neither did the Constitution prohibit George Washington from appending that humble phrase when he took the Oath. Nor does it require any other President to depart from the tradition Washington established, and which has been followed by every American President since, without exception. What Newdow fails to understand is the essential nature of the Constitution itself, and that the rights, powers and actions not specifically enumerated in the Constitution are "retained by" and "reserved to...the people," to be exercised at their discretion (9th and 10th Amendments). The people, by an 80-90% majority, retain the right to practice their religion openly, and no court can take that from them however many suits Newdow brings. His contention that the supporters of an appeal to God's grace appended to the Presidential Oath are not following the Constitution poses a false dilemma.

In defending his legal actions in various interviews, Newdow has jumped behind the favorite of his verbal barricades. He habitually recites that tired old argument that more wars have been fought over religion than any other cause or issue. He's right, or course--unless you count the Peloponnesian Wars, the Philippic and Alexandrian Conquests, the First and Second Punic Wars, Caesar's Conquests of Germany, Gaul and Britain (not to mention the Roman Civil War), the Gothic, Frankish and Vandal Invasions of Rome, the Incan and Mayan Conquests, the Norse Invasions of Europe, the Hundred Years' War, the Seven Years' War, the American, French and Russian Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars (engulfing four continents for a generation)the American and Spanish Civil Wars, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Manchurian Invasion, the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and hundreds of other conflicts that have consumed lives and treasure and in the course of steering history. The truth is that mankind has found a hundred excuses for war, including religion, and no one of them can reasonably be burdened with the entire blame. Newdow's claim is a textbook example of the Big Lie, told loudly, told often and told consistently until even the liars believe it, but it's a load of hooey.


It is cliche to note that the 1st amendment protects Newdow's right to make these ridiculous and fallacious claims, but it's also beside the point. He is free to be as wrong as he wants to be. It's just that his arguments don't hold up under scrutiny. That's why he and his supporters are so often wrong at the top of their lungs.