[THS] !!! Rick Ungar: The Palin Principle – Bible trumps Constitution

Fri May 14 13:15:57 CEST 2010

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25434.htm

The Palin Principle – Bible trumps Constitution

By Rick Ungar

May 13, 2010 "True/Slant" --  Sarah Palin can’t seem to distinguish between the bible
and the American Constitution.

Appearing recently on Bill O’Reilly’s TV show, Palin advised that what we need to do
in this country is -

    Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant — they’re quite
clear — that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten
commandments.
    Huffington Post

That’s quite a statement – but nothing new to those who would re-imagine this
country as one based on religion. Indeed, the religious right has long sought to make
the case that the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs despite the
fact that the evidence clearly points to a very different intent.

While purveyors of this notion have come up with any number of reasons to support
their claim, the most often cited ‘proof’ is the fact that the Declaration of
Independence puts God front and center. The thing is, there was no American
nation when we proclaimed our independence from Great Britain. And while the
Declaration of Independence is certainly one of the most important political
documents in our history, it simply has no legal effect on the laws of this nation. That
distinction belongs to the Constitution; our first, and most enduring, statement of the
concepts which form the basis of law in the United States.

Another explanation frequently offered up in support of the notion that the founders
had God on their minds is the advent of the phrase “In God We Trust” as the nation’s
motto. What the religion peddlers don’t appreciate is that the phrase was first used in
1864 – almost 100 years after the founding of the nation – when embossed on the
two-cent coin in response to the rising religious fervor in the country as a result of
the Civil War. Indeed, the phrase did not officially become our national motto until
1956.

While God played a part in the personal lives of many of our founders (though not
all), the truth is that nowhere in the United States Constitution can you find the word
“God” – not  even once.

An oversight? Unlikely.

In Thomas Jefferson’s autobiography, he comments on the language he used to
restate the importance of religious freedom in the document that is his second most
famous writing  (and the one historians suggest was the creation he was most proud
of ) , the Revised Code of the State of Virginia.

    Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the
holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,”
so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of
our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they
meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile,
the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
    Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious
Freedom

Does this sound like someone who sought to weave Judeo-Christian theory and belief
into the creation of the Constitution?

Indeed, no less a religious source than Beliefnet.com acknowledges that Jefferson
was a heretic in his time – deeply angered by what he viewed as a total perversion of
Christianity after the time of Christ’s death. Given his feelings, it seems highly unlikely
that he sought to include the principles of Christian religion into the founding of the
nation.

Another key author of the Constitution, Thomas Paine, had this to say in Chapter 1 of
his famous pamphlet, The Age of Reason-

    I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman
Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor
by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church.

Does anyone believe that Thomas Paine sought to include Judeo-Christian beliefs in
his drafting of the U.S. Constitution?

As for author John Adams – a man with strong religious beliefs who allowed religion
to play a part in his personal life but carefully avoided it in public matters – nowhere
is there clearer proof of the man’s approach to this subject than in the little known
“Treaty of Tripoli”, signed by President John Adams and confirmed by the U.S.
Senate in 1796, less than 10 years after the Constitution’s adoption.

Chapter 11 of the treaty reads:

    As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded
on the Christian religion; (emphasis added) as it has in itself no character of enmity
against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never
have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is
declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever
produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
    Treaty of Tripoli

Could it possibly be any clearer?

If people like Sarah Palin wish to argue that the nation ought to follow a course that
places religion squarely into the law making process, I suppose that is their right.

However, the continuous effort by Palin and friends to pervert the true history of the
nation and the intentions of the founders is nothing short of subversive and clearly
dangerous.

At best, the suggestion that religion rests at the foundation of our legal system is one
based on ignorance of the principles that are the heart of this country. At its worse,
the effort is little more than an attempt to pervert the philosophy of the nation’s
founders in order to re-invent America to meet the religious right’s own objectives
and to re-make the nation into something quite different than what it was intended
to be.

I respect and appreciate the value of religion in many people’s lives. But if Sarah
Palin wants to rule a nation based on God, she really should look elsewhere. There
are many countries in the world that would meet her requirements – although she
will find that most of them worship the God of Islam. Palin might ask the women in so
many of these theocracies how government and law based on religion has worked
out for them.

Or Palin and friends might simply look up the word “Pilgrim” in the dictionary and
learn about how our own original settlers were fleeing religious persecution at the
hands of a Monarch who was also the leader of the Christian church in the land of
their birth.

Our founders knew exactly what they were – and were not – doing when
determining the nature of law in this country and the importance of a secular
government.

While the religious right are free to vote for candidates who share their reliance on
religious belief, they are not free to re-imagine the fundamentals of this country -  at
least not without putting their reinvention through the rigorous process of amending,
or re-writing, our Constitution.

That’s the way it was intended to be done and even Sarah Palin doesn’t get to make
it otherwise.