Most of the media seems to be ignoring this, so I have to resort to using Focus on the Family as a primary source:
At a Capitol Hill news conference, Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., and Sens. John Kyl, R-Ariz., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said the country needs the Pledge Protection Act to safeguard our freedom.
Right. Our “freedom” to have legislators pass laws without the judiciary being permitted to review those laws to determine their constitutionality is in jeopardy. I’m so frightened — but of totalitarian politicians who think that they have the authority to govern without their decisions being reviewable by independent agencies.
“If somebody complains to a federal judge that it’s unconstitutional for school children to say the Pledge of Allegiance,” Akin said, “then that federal judge would have to say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have jurisdiction to hear this case.’ ”
Of course, no one has actually tried to claim that it’s unconstitutional for school children to merely say the Pledge of Allegiance, so Akin’s statement here is disingenuous. People have challenged mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and won. People have challenged being forced to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance and won. Akin’s measure would allow legislatures to reinstate such requirements without fear of having them challenged in federal court — it’s a license to break the law.
Akin said the idea that there is a God, that God grants rights to human beings and that the purpose of government is to secure those God-given rights is a foundational principle in American history. Brownback, meanwhile, said that God and country have been inextricably linked since the founding of the republic.
Akin obviously doesn’t mean any generic “god” here; instead he specifically has the Christian god in mind — and this means that he essentially admits to seeking to abuse the power of the government to promote belief in his god over others. Brownback may think that the fact that such linkage between politics and his religion has occurred a great deal in American history justifies it, but that’s false.
“It’s important to understand the role of Divine Providence throughout America’s rich history,” Brownback said. “I believe we need to continue the fight to be sure that God never becomes a bad word in America. ‘In God We Trust’ is uniquely American, and it’s a part of our national fabric. I believe we must defend it for our culture and our history.” [emphasis added]
Notice Brownbac’ks attempt to secure God for America and America alone. If trusting in God is uniquely American, and if God has played an important role in guiding the course of America through history, then God and America have a special relationship that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. This is the theocratic idea that America is a new Israel, tasked by God to bring liberty, democracy, and Christianity to the rest of the world. This ideology has animated American politics since the earliest colonial era, but it has no room in the modern secular state.
Andrew Sullivan quotes from an email sent out by the Concerned Women for America:
[Concerned Women for America’s (CWA’s) Director of Government Relations Lanier] Swann said, “As Americans commemorate Flag Day, it is also appropriate to remember the importance of keeping God in our Pledge. CWA strongly supports the mention of God in our nation’s oath in keeping with our constitutional freedoms. We are free from an established religion and free to worship as we choose. Our country’s founding fathers were men of faith who intentionally included the phrase ‘under God’ in an oath that serves as a symbol of loyalty and patriotism to our great country.
As Sullivan points out, this statement from the CWA is filled with errors. The Pledge of Allegiance was not created by America’s “founding fathers” — it was not created until 1892, and by a socialist to boot. Even then, however, the phrase “under God” was not a part of the Pledge. This wasn’t added until 1954 in order to make a statement against communism. They are rewriting history in order to serve their ideological, religious agenda — but isn’t that the only way they can hope to achieve anything?
Marci Hamilton wrote in response to the Pledge Protection Act back when it first came up in 2004:
If the Act were to become law -- and if it were, itself, to be upheld as constitutional -- only state courts would be able to hear constitutional challenges to the pledge. We would therefore have a 50-state collection of views as to what the Free Exercise Clause, and the Establishment Clause, mean in this context. And that would be constitutional lunacy.
Perhaps this sort of “constitutional lunacy” is what the Christian Right has in mind? It’s not inconceivable, if they believe that they will get their way in every state because of their ability to pressure local politicians. On the other hand, if it looks like they might start losing in some states, then they will have to revert to the same strategy they are using with gay marriage and flag burning: write their beliefs and prejudices directly into the Constitution via a new amendment, thus eliminating any need to defend themselves in any court.
From their own experiences in Britain and Europe, the framing generation knew the baleful consequences of joining the power of a national government with religion. The colonists came here in the wake of the Reformation and the extreme religious turbulence that resulted when Protestants and Catholics jockeyed for power under the British monarchs. They knew, many of them firsthand, what happens when a centralized government becomes a partner with a particular religion.
This was why the framing generation instituted one of the most innovative aspects of the Constitution: a rule that denied any religious entity sovereign power, and thereby privatized religion. The result has been to make America a teeming, robust, and extraordinary marketplace in religion like the world has never seen.
Denying sovereign power to religious authorities is indeed a basic purpose behind the First Amendment, but this is also what the Christian Right is fighting hardest against. They are convinced that they know God’s will for humanity and, therefore, are unwilling to give up on forcing everyone else to abide by that will.
This isn’t the first time that the Christian Right has tried to strip courts of the authority to hear cases on religious issues. Jesse Helms tried to do it with school prayer. Several have tried to do this with the Ten Commandments. In all of these cases, the format is the same: courts decide that government has no authority over some religious matter and Christian Right leaders try to circumvent the courts in order to reinstate the government’s ability to enforce, endorse, or support religious beliefs, doctrines, or texts.
The Carpetbagger underscores what is at stake here:
Put aside the question of whether Congress was right to add religious language to the Pledge 50 years ago, because that’s actually secondary. The principle is far more important: can Congress take away the courts’ ability to hear a case simply because lawmakers may not like the way the courts may eventually rule?
And if Congress can, what’s to stop lawmakers from simply attaching a measure to every single piece of legislation they pass that says, “Oh, and by the way, the courts aren’t allowed to consider the constitutionality of this legislation”?
Well, Republican President George W. Bush already attaches “signing statements” to many pieces of legislation in which he states whether or not he’ll bother obeying this or that provision of the law. It would be consistent, then, for Republican lawmakers to attach provisions to their legislation denying courts the authority to determine if the legislation is constitutional or not. If a Republican president can put himself above the law and Constitution, why can’t a Republican legislature put itself about the law and Constitution as well?
Perhaps this is one reason why Republican lawmakers have been so lax in doing the least little thing to stand in the way of President Bush’s assertions that he can act outside and above the law — perhaps they, too, are hoping for analogous power and think that it’ll be easier if they already have a strong precedent. Maybe this explanation is far-fetched, but there has to be some reason for why Republican lawmakers not only aren’t stopping the president from ignoring the law, but are themselves moving to nullify judicial checks on the laws they pass.
Update: Americans United reports that the measure was defeated in committee:
The so-called “Pledge Protection Act” (H.R. 2389) failed on a 15-15 vote this morning. One Republican, U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, voted with 14 Democrats to scuttle the measure. ... “This is a tremendous victory,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of American United. “A proposal this at odds with our system of government should never have come up for a vote to begin with.”
Note that it is only thanks to a single, sensible Republican that this didn't go to the full House.
Christian & Religious Privilege:
Ten Commandments:
- What are the Ten Commandments?
- Ten Commandments in America
- Ten Commandments News
- Ten Commandments Decisions
- Analysis of the Ten Commandments
- Commandments, Politics, Law
- Ten Commandments & Religion
- Judge Roy Moore & the Ten Commandments
Religion in Public Schools:
- Religion in Public Schools: News
- School Prayer
- School Holidays: Good Friday & Easter
- School Holidays: Christmas
- Arguments Against School Vouchers
Pledge of Allegiance, Under Gods: