Commentary on Supreme Court Ruling Concering Religious Discrimination Against Religious Students Attending Religious Schools

This week, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that prohibiting the use of government funded scholarships and other financial from paying for attendance of a religiously oriented school is unconstitutional, on the grounds that it constitutes religious discrimination against students who are otherwise eligible for the scholarships.  A number of comments have been made regarding this ruling, both positive and negative, including commentary from the four dissenting justices.  I would like to add my own commentary both on the ruling and on some of the comments.


In my personal opinion, the Supreme Court ruling was correct.  There are three parts of the Constitution that address religious freedom.  These are generally referred to as the "establishment" clause, the "free exercise" clause, and the "no religious test" clause.  The establishment clause, contained in the First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."  This is mildly ambiguous, which is probably why it is so often misinterpreted.  The phrase "establishment of religion" is generally interpreted to mean any religious organization, however this is not how it was intended nor what it actually means in this context.  A brief review of the history of the period as well as some of the discussions on the Bill of Rights that occurred during its drafting reveals that the term "establishment of religion" was a reference to the concept of a state established religion.  Thus, the Anglican Church would be an "establishment of religion", but in England, where the Anglican Church is the state religion, the Catholic Church wouldn't be considered an "establishment of religion".  In the U.S., no establishments of religion exist, because the establishment clause prohibits the establishment of a state religion.  Further, this can be verified by the general use of the word "establishment" back when the Bill of Rights was written.  In modern times, "establishment" is often used to refer to buildings or organizations that are "established" by individuals.  When the Bill of Rights was drafted, "establishment" did not mean this.  It actually referred to a command or organization created or endorsed specifically by the government.  In the context of religion, "establishment" entirely on its own was understood to mean "a single dominant ecclesiastical institution (or religion, church, denomination, faith, sect, creed, or religious society) that enjoyed a government-preferred, government-sanctioned, government-financed, or government-protected status within a state, and which represented an indistinguishable union with the government and the preferred (or 'established') ecclesiastical institution."  (Source of quotation)  Further, "establishment" religions were at least partially run by the government, giving the government operational powers over the religion, including the power to define church doctrine and set church boundaries, the power to control the hiring and religious authority of clergy, the power to build church buildings, the power to fire clergy, and the power to control what rituals and such individual members of the establishment church were allowed to participate in.  Governments with establishment religions were also known at the time to exercise powers like requiring civilian attendance of church services, punish citizens who did not attend the establishment church or who openly professed beliefs opposed to those of the establishment church, deny those who were not members of the establishment church government jobs, and suppress dissident movements with fines, bans on the use of civil services, and in some cases imprisonment and even execution.  Most of the current Supreme Court Justices are trained as lawyers, not historians, and have little education in the history and intent of the Constitution that is absolutely critical to understanding it.  Instead, they interpret it as they please, without any regard for the actual meaning.  In this case in question, the establishment clause is not even relevant.  No state in the U.S. has an established religion, nor does the Federal government or any county or municipal government.  Allowing religious schools to accept and benefit from state funded scholarships would only constitute anything near an establishment of religion if it restricted the scholarships to one specific religion, and it wouldn't outright violate the establishment clause unless that religion was generally funded and controlled by the state.  (One could reasonably argue, however, that providing scholarships to students of one specific religion was a violation of the intent of the establishment clause, even if that religion wasn't officially owned and controlled by the state.  Though it does not explicitly say it, this clause is generally regarded as also meaning that the government may not favor one religion over another.)

Directly following the establishment clause is the free exercise clause, which reads, "[Congress shall make no law...], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...".  This clause was intended to protect people from religious discrimination by governments.  The correct interpretation, based on historical records, is that the government cannot favor or disfavor people based on religion or religious beliefs.  It may not make behaviors illegal that are essential parts of the exercise of a particular set of religious beliefs, with the intent of discriminating against those who participate in those behaviors for religious reasons.  There is some ambiguity around this, highlighted very effectively by the outlawing of Mormon polygamy.  Specifically, courts ruled that the outlawing of polygamy was legal, on the grounds that it affected everyone not just Mormons.  The reality, however, is that this law was explicitly and deliberately passed with the express intent of discriminating against those of the Mormon faith.  Nearly all future rulings on laws infringing on religious exercise rights have either mandated religious exemptions from the law or upheld the law on the grounds that discrimination was not intended.  (Under modern legal precedent, the anti-polygamy law would have been shut down so hard.  It may be important to clarify here that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, aka Mormons, abandoned the practice of polygamy over a century ago and no longer practices nor endorses the practice.)  So, how is this relevant to the Supreme Court case?  It's a little complicated.  The first question is, how does prohibiting the use of scholarships to pay for attendance of a religious school violate the free exercise clause?  Taking the clause literally, it doesn't.  It doesn't prevent people from engaging in religious behavior in any meaningful way.  Yes, the scholarships might facilitate engagement in religious behavior, if attending a religious school is a mandatory practice of that religion, but denying the scholarship does not remove any existing ability to engage in religious exercise.  We know that the clause was intended to mean more than its literal interpretation though.  It was also intended to prohibit the government for favoring or disfavoring people on grounds of religion.  Knowing that many of the Founders of the U.S. were not particularly religious, it should be fairly obvious that this clause wasn't written assuming that 100% of people would have religious beliefs and thus was also intended to protect less religious people equally.  In that context, favoring or disfavoring any group on grounds of religious beliefs or lack thereof is a violation of this clause.  And that means that this clause protects religious and non-religious people equally and by extension it protects religious and non-religious schools equally.  The free exercise clause was actually included in the First Amendment expressly for the purpose of preventing the kind of religious discrimination that this case is about.

There is one more religious rights clause in the Constitution, the "No Religious Test" clause.  Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution says, "... ; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."  This clause is intended to prevent the religious establishment practice of restricting public office holders to members of the state religion.  This clause is actually obsolete at this point, as the establishment clause of the First Amendment covers this and is more broad.  As part of the establishment issue, which is irrelevant to the Supreme Court case in question, this clause is also completely irrelevant.

Before continuing on to quotes regarding the case, it is worth noting that the establishment clause may not be completely irrelevant here, despite what I said.  We've discussed the fact that the establishment clause is not about maintaining some broad distance between the government and religious organizations but is rather about prohibiting a specific state religion either officially or unofficially.  It is not about keeping the state from ever doing anything that could benefit religious organizations.  There is some ambiguity, however, in what even constitutes religion in this context.  For example, are Atheism and Agnosticism religions in this context?  Defining religion is generally difficult, but a commonly held definition is a belief or connected set of beliefs regarding the existence of a supreme power.  Ideally though, we would consider the definition generally accepted by the Founders, as that would give the most accurate interpretation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  We can start with the known fact that many of the Founders were not considered "religious".  Most notably, Thomas Jefferson was not even considered Christian, but contrary to popular belief now days, he did actually believe some sort of God existed, but he wasn't overly attached to overt signs of worship.  People of that time period generally agreed that Jefferson acknowledged the existence of a God but was otherwise Agnostic.  Agnosticism is a form of irreligiousness.  Agnostics generally don't care whether God exists or not.  Agnostics are not Atheists, because Atheists explicitly believe that God does not exist.  Most modern Agnostics do not believe in God, but they also do not disbelieve.  Atheists disbelieve.  It turns out this is a critical distinction that is not generally appreciated by native English speakers who typically do not understand the difference between passive and active negatives.  Disbelief is a positive belief against some idea, while merely not believing is more like having no opinion or position.  The reason this distinction is so important is that positive belief defines religious belief, which neutral lack of belief does not.  And that makes Atheism a religion but Agnosticism not.  However, in the relevant historical context none of that matters.  The evidence suggests that they didn't define religion in this way but rather regarded any person's personal opinions on things as that person's religion, which would make Agnosticism and Atheism apply, and this also extends to secularism.  If we interpret the establishment clause with this understanding of religion, we will immediately see that it is fairly likely the Founders would have viewed excluding religious schools while allowing secular schools to participate as a real establishment of religion, where that religion is secularism, and a quick look at government control and influence on science and secular organizations in general will easily support the idea that we are about half way to the establishment of scientific secularism as the state mandated religion.  (The reason we are not already there is things like religious exemptions for things like mandatory vaccination.)  The point here is, if we really consider the history and intent of the establishment clause, there is actually some evidence that it is relevant here, in ways that further support the Supreme Court's ruling.



Let's start with the majority opinion.  Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "A state need not subsidize private education. But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious."  This is completely in line with the correct interpretation of the three religion clauses in the Constitution.  What is concerning is that most Supreme Court rulings don't even cite the Constitution, though this one actually does, which is a breath of fresh air.  Let's note though, none of the Supreme Court Justices are actually familiar enough with the historical context of the Constitution to have any business interpreting it.  U.S. judges are generally trained as lawyers, not as historians, however for the Supreme Court, which is tasked with interpreting the Constitution, this is completely inappropriate.  Supreme Court nominees should be automatically rejected by the Senate if they don't have significant education in Constitutional history, including history of Europe around the time the Constitution was drafted and ratified.  Contrary to past comments made by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and other Justices, interpretation does not mean taking language and updating its meaning to fit current circumstances.  Any educated interpreter will tell you that interpretation is purely about expressing intent, even to the point that if something like a joke, compliment, or insult does not translate literally, the interpreter will just tell the other person that the comment was a joke, complement, or insult and to respond appropriately.  The fact is the Constitution is a living document.  It was designed to be updated as needed.  If it has not been updated to mean what a particular Justice thinks it should mean, it is the responsibility of Congress and the people to update it, not the responsibility of the Supreme Court to interpret it differently from how it was intended.  This was a deliberate check and balance included in the system, and Supreme Court interpretations that are not what was intended is a usurpation of legislative power exclusively given to Congress, not the Supreme Court.

The majority opinion also included this text, "Montana’s no-aid provision bars religious schools from public benefits solely because of the religious character of the schools. The provision also bars parents who wish to send their children to a religious school from those same benefits, again solely because of the religious character of the school."  In my personal opinion, this wasn't so much discrimination against public schools as discrimination against individuals.  The schools are not barred from public benefits.  The students are barred from spending public benefits on education from religious schools.  This isn't about discrimination against schools.  It is about religious discrimination against individuals.  It is worth noting here that Montana's no-aid provision actually doesn't apply.  Scholarships are not aid for schools and should not be regarded as such.  They are aid for individuals, which ends up being paid to whatever schools those individuals choose to attend.  The wording of this provision is this, "The legislature, counties, cities, towns, school districts, and public corporations shall not make any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies, or any grant of lands or other property for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, ..."  Again, the scholarships are not aid to schools, thus thus law does not apply, and the Montana supreme court was entirely out of line in its ruling.  Montana needs to replace its supreme court with justices of sufficient competence to tell the difference between aid to individuals and aid to organizations.  On top of that, even if this provision did prohibit public money from ever making its way to religious organizations, it would be unenforceable.  Does the state of Montana pay wages to religious employees that pay some portion of those wages as a tithe to their churches?  The way the Montana supreme court ruled on this issue, it would be illegal for the state to pay wages to religious employees, and note that this includes elected officials, and that would constitute a religious test for public office which is explicitly unconstitutional.  Thus, the Montana supreme court ruling actually does constitute an unconstitutional religious test for public office, though admittedly very indirectly.  The law itself, however, does not actually prohibit state scholarships as aid to students to be used as tuition for religious schools.  It is not the U.S. Supreme Court's job to interpret state laws though, so instead it was forced to consider a much deeper question, which revealed that Montana's law is just straight up unconstitutional, not just misinterpreted.

The four dissenting Justices had their own opinion of the case.  Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, "The majority’s approach and its conclusion in this case, I fear, risk the kind of entanglement and conflict that the (Constitution’s) religion clauses are intended to prevent."  Notice that Breyer admits that what is important here is the intent of the Constitution, not the "modernized" interpretation of activist Justices who want to change the law without the consent of the people.  Also note that Breyer is totally wrong.  Again, Breyer is clearly no Constitutional historian and thus has no clue at all what the actual intent of those clauses was.  He is pulling intent out of his [donkey], instead of consulting with historical records to determine what the actual intent was.  There is also a problem here of building a hedge around the law.  He has not said that this ruling is unconstitutional or otherwise wrong.  He says he fears it will lead to actual violations of the Constitution.  If you know much about Jewish history, you will know that they also had a problem with building hedges around the law that lead to rather extreme oppression in some cases.  If something illegal happens, we can deal with it when it happens.  We don't need to engage in blatant religious discrimination, to reduce the risk that other kinds of religious discrimination could happen.  Of course, none of that is really relevant to Breyer's argument, because the risks he is speaking of don't actually conflict with the Constitution's religious clauses, and he is merely echoing the concerns of other historically uneducated Justices who were and are in no way qualified to be interpreting the Constitution.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed the opinion that the state supreme court's ruling and order to dismantle the scholarship program was sufficient resolution to the problem, because it eliminated the program that produced the legal ambiguity.  We've already discussed Ginsburg's incorrect definition of "interpret" designed to let the Supreme Court usurp legislative power with neither the consent nor the representation of the people.  She clearly does not understand he job, and this highlights that again.  The job of the Supreme Court is the interpret the law, not to give opinions on how states try to resolve their legal problems.  This is about the Constitution and a specific state law.  The state supreme court ruled that the state law was Constitutional, and it ruled that a particular interpretation of the law was valid.  The consequent order to dismantle the scholarship program was completely irrelevant to the case, and Ginsburg was wasting the Court's time bringing it up.  The conservative Justices and some of the other liberal Justices understood this clearly enough to continue the case, ultimately collectively rule mostly correctly, and write opinions that did not waste space on this completely irrelevant information.  (Justice Elena Kagan joined Ginsburg's worthless position.)

Justice Roberts also wrote, "Any establishment clause objection to the scholarship program here is particularly unavailing because the government support makes its way to religious schools only as a result of Montanans independently choosing to spend their scholarships at such schools."  Aside from the fact that the establishment clause would only apply if the law was attempting to establish a state religion, Roberts was perfectly correct here.  As I have said before, the scholarships were given to students, not to religious organizations.  The choice of the student to spend the money on education from a religious school is no different from a government employee choosing to donate a portion of wages to his or her church.  If the Montana supreme court ruling was allowed to stand, that would justify religious testing as a condition of holding public office, to prevent government paid wages of elected officials from being donated to their churches as tithes or other donations.  Breyer was concerned that this ruling would make it easier for states to violate a false interpretation of the establishment clause.  However any ruling upholding the ruling would have straight up made it illegal for religious people to hold public office in Montana (and many other states with similar laws), because paying them wages would likely end up supporting religious organizations.

A number of advocacy groups were unhappy with the ruling on the grounds that the ruling was a violation of longstanding funding rules.  It's nice to see that the current Supreme Court is more interested in upholding the Constitution and protecting Constitutional rights than adhering to "longstanding funding rules" that were clearly unconstitutional.  The only failure here is the travesty that unconstitutional rules were upheld for long enough to called "longstanding".

Maggie Siddiqi, the director of the ironically named Center for American Progress said, "Today’s ruling erodes the constitutional separation of church and state that has long prevented government from funding the exercise of religion. This is a clear violation of the religious freedom of all taxpayers, who may now be compelled to support religious schools with traditions they do not follow."  The irony in the name, is of course, the word "progress", when the director of the organization is clearly more interested in regression of the progress in religious freedom that is one of the cornerstones of the U.S..  That aside, this quote is also proof that Siddiqi, someone who professes to be a protector of Constitutional rights, is just as uneducated in Constitutional history as the entire Supreme Court.  No where in the Constitution is separation of church as state mentioned.  The establishment clause forbids the government from establishing a state religion, not from providing scholarships to individuals who want to attend religious schools.  There is no separation of church and state issue, and there is no establishment issue here.  What there is, is egregious religious discrimination, justified by gross misinterpretations of the Constitution, due to lack of education.  This is not a violation of religious freedom for taxpayers, anymore than spending government money on providing abortions and birth control to women is a violation of religious freedom for taxpayers who are opposed to those things.  (Note that the Center for American Progress advocates in favor of Medcaid and other U.S. healthcare programs using taxpayer money to pay for elective abortions, despite the fact that a significant number of Americans are religiously opposed to most elective abortions.)

Holly Hollman, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, pointed out that religious organizations often benefit from being treated differently, and she suggests that this opens the doors to government having greater influence in employment decisions within religious organizations.  Honestly, this sounds to me more like a threat than a legitimate concern.  It sounds like a threat to push for fewer accommodations and exemptions for religious organizations.  This, of course, would be a massive violation of the establishment clause.  Recall one of the hallmarks of establishments of religions is state influence in hiring and firing decisions.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued this statement, "This decision means that religious persons and organizations can, like everyone else, participate in government programs that are open to all. This is good news, not only for people of faith, but for our country, by ensuring the rights of faith-based organizations’ freedom to serve, the court is also promoting the common good."  And interesting historical fact is that most Islamic countries were not forced on pain of death to accept Islam.  The Islamic jihads/violent expansion that lead to the ubiquity of Islam in the Middle East, Western Asia, and parts of Northern Africa weren't blood baths of infidels who wouldn't convert.  They were merely wars for territory and control.  The conversion of the indigenous populations occurred over many generations.  The method used to encourage conversion was simple, non-violent government discrimination against all undesirable religions.  Infidels (non-Muslims) had fewer rights and were not allowed to hold government office (textbook establishment of religion).  That's it.  Infidels were denied access to certain kinds of government aid and services.  In some countries, they were denied access to education.  In some, businesses owned by infidels were denied access to government contracts and were limited in who they were allowed to serve.  They basically made it inconvenient to not be Muslim.  Within less than a generation, more than half of the populations in most of these countries had converted to Islam, not because they actually believed, but because non-Muslims were second class citizens, without access to a lot of protections and benefits that all Muslims enjoyed.  Within three generations, very few non-Muslims remained.  Now days, very few Zoroastrians (the original dominant religion in many modern Islamic countries captured during the early violent expansion) remain, though as religious freedom is slowly increasing, Zoroastrianism is seeing a revival.  Anyhow, the point is, mild religious discrimination of the sort perpetrated by Montana can have a huge impact on religion.  This strategy has been used in the past, most notably by Islam but also by Catholicism in parts of South America, to change or establish a dominant religion in a region, but it can also be used to discourage religion and establish a form of secularism as the dominant religion, which is exactly how it was being used by Montana's government and other governments in the U.S., in the (ironic) name of religious freedom.

Obviously many religious organizations are quite pleased with this ruling, as it prohibits state and Federal governments from discriminating against religious individuals on grounds that treating them the same as others might benefit religious organizations.  Sadly, even they don't understand the real Constitutional reason Montana's behavior was illegal, nor do they understand that upholding such laws would technically require states to discriminate even more against religious people, potentially even to the point of denying people who would spend government wages on donations to religious organizations any form of government employment to the point of requiring religious tests even for elected officials.  This was actually a much more significant case than perhaps anyone realizes, as precedent from this case could have ended up supporting far more oppressive religious discrimination.

Hobby Lobby and Mandatory Benefits

The Hobby Lobby case was an extravagant law suit.  Of course religious freedom should have won.  There should never have been any question.  The problem was not with Hobby Lobby, and it was certainly not about human rights.  The problem is with who carries the obligation to enforce those rights.

Consider how this would play out: The government decides to enforce the right to own property by putting businesses in charge of it.  Now, businesses are legally required to handle things like evictions and property deeds for their employees.  If an employee is robbed, the employer is required to investigate and bring the thief to justice.  Oh yeah, and this only applies to full time employees.

Now, considering the following: The government and the majority of Americans establish that adequate medical care is a fundamental human right.  The government comes up with a list of medical care related things that every person should have free access to.  Now, to enforce this the government does two things.  First, it puts enforcement in the charge of for-profit businesses.  Businesses are now required to provide their employees with the list of things that every person should have free access to.  Now, we cannot forget though, this only applies to full time employees.  The second thing the government does is to mandate that anyone who is not a full time employee must pay, out of their own pockets, for insurance.  This is great.  Now, the government says that adequate medical care is a fundamental human right, so we are forced to enforce this right ourselves on an individual basis.  That makes perfect sense.  Imagine if this was applied to freedom of speech.  If the government tries to shut us up, our only recourse is to fight the government as an individual.  Appealing to the law would not be an option, because it is our own problem, not the government's.  This applies equally to medical care.  The government is pretending to provide what has been established as a fundamental human right by saying that for-profit businesses and individuals have to enforce this right.

The Hobby Lobby case should not have been about religious freedom.  That should have been a given.  The Hobby Lobby case should have been about responsibility.  If the government is not responsible for enforcing human rights, then no one is.  Enforcing rights is the purpose of the government.  The reason health care has become a problem in the first place is that the existing system, including mandatory benefits and health insurance, is entirely inadequate.  Forcing people to subscribe to the current system can hardly be considered enforcing a fundamental human right to adequate medical care.  In fact, it is little more than another way for the government to control us and subject us.

The big problem with requiring businesses to enforce human rights is that it forces people to work for them.  This is a rather foul case of discrimination against freelancers and business owners.  Human rights do not just apply to those who work for someone else.  If something is a right, then, by definition, it applies to everybody.  Further, allowing businesses to get out of this obligation for part time employees is even worse discrimination against the poor.  Clearly, the American lower class does not have the right to adequate health care, based on the precedents set by the law.  This also gives businesses far too much power.  A business can decide who has the right to adequate medical care merely by setting schedules and employee classification.  If my employer does not like my religion, my political ideology, my race, or even my hair color, a simple reduction in hours can change my classification to part time, exempting me from the right to adequate medical care.  Even worse, now I am legally required to go buy insurance (which, just for the record, does not provide adequate medical care), even though my pay check just got substantially reduced.  Choosing who human rights apply to is not the responsibility of for-profit businesses.  In fact, even governments have no business discriminating in this area. 

Enforcement of human rights is the job of the government.  It is not the job of businesses, and it certainly is not the job of the individual.  If individuals have to enforce their own fundamental rights, then the government is obsolete.  A government that puts the burden of enforcing human rights on businesses and individuals is lazy and corrupt.  If adequate health care is truly a fundamental human right, the government needs to get off of its lazy butt and take care of the problem.  This is the government's job.  It is not the job of businesses or individuals.  Further, if adequate heath care is a human right, it should apply to everyone, not just those who work full time and not just those who are willing and can afford to buy into the system.

Hobby Lobby should never have needed to defend its religious rights.  The government never had any business placing the burden of providing a fundamental human right on the business in the first place.  There are certainly cases where religious freedom must be balanced with other human rights, but it was entirely wrong of the government to place Hobby Lobby, or any other business, in this position in the first place.  Not only could this pitting of religious freedom against the right to adequate health care have easily been avoided, it should have.  If the government had done the right thing in the first place, this issue would never have arisen.

Religion is Government

Throughout history, religion has played a major role in how people act.  In many cases, religion is better at controlling how people act than law is.  Historically, many nations that recognized this co-opted religion as an additional method of control, creating or adopting state religions that encouraged people to act how the government wanted them to.  Religion has always been more personal than government though.  Even within one religion, members understand doctrines differently from one another.  Because religion is about personal belief, it should not be forced on someone, and as the American Revolution approached, this started to become far more obvious.  This fact was ultimately one of the driving factors in that revolution.  If you ignore the aspect of personal belief though, you may notice that religion has a lot in common with government.

First, to be completely blunt, religions are governments.  They are not secular governments, but they do govern their members.  The most important difference between religion and secular government is free will, and this is why government and religions have no business being legally connected.  When a state religion is created, it becomes an arm of the government, and the free will that makes religions what they are is lost.  This even applies to nations that adopt atheism as the state religion, banning any other religions.  As micro governments, religions actually play some very useful roles.

Religions have some power over the behavior of their members.  Now, some people perceive this as a bad thing, but it is not actually.  The reason is that participation is entirely voluntary.  Where religion is free from the influence of secular government, it encourages people to be civilized of their own free will.  Religions to do wield legal power to punish their members in any universally meaningful way.  They might excommunicate members who do not follow the tenants of the religion, but in most cases, members who are expelled from a religion have shown either through their words or actions that they do not actually believe the doctrine of that religion (there are occasional exceptions), and thus, no serious harm is done to them.  Religions are more or less social institutions that impose social rules and punish deviation through entirely social means.  People are free to choose their social rules by choosing which religion they are a member of.  This is unique, because people have little power over their secular government beyond relocating to the realm of a different government.  Even in a democratic government, those who do not agree with the majority have little control over how they are governed.  When religion is free, each person can choose his or her own social rules, and if there is not a religion that fits, it is always possible to create a new one.  Overall, religions help keep civilization civilized, and more effectively than government can.

Religions act as an additional check and balance to secular government.  Religions help unify people.  Groups of people who choose to have similar beliefs is far more united than the people of a nation that is forced to follow only one religion.  Religions can unite against unjust government actions.  Religions can help encourage political dialog that can drive positive change.  Religions give the people more power and ability to unite against the government when necessary (religions even played an integral role in starting the American Revolution).  When governments choose to work with religions, the voice of the people can be better heard by the government, without the need for the people to unite against the government.  Viewed as independent governing entities who represent their followers, religions can work with secular governments to enhance communication between the government and the people it represents.

Religions also tend to be better at social welfare than governments.  Because religions cannot impose mandatory taxes, they are limited to the voluntary donations of their members, which is why some forms of welfare must be handled by secular governments, however, religions can often get into places that secular governments cannot.  This does not just include countries in need of foreign aid that doubt the motives of secular governments.  It also includes homeless people, who do not have permanent addresses or even identification.  Secular governments just cannot afford the man power required to effectively distribute all needed welfare, even in their own regions.  Religions often have plenty of members willing to spend some time on charity work, who can distribute welfare with less concern for accountability.  Because the funds are donated voluntarily, religions do not have to worry so much about abuse of the system.  Also, because religions typically have more limited funds, abuse of religious social welfare is rarely very profitable.  In addition, because religions are autonomous and have less accountability, they can be more flexible.  In the effort to enforce fairness and accountability, government often inadvertently leave gaps in their social welfare programs.  Religions can fill those gaps, though perhaps no so well as the government could by analyzing the system and making adjustments.  Without religions helping with social welfare, much of the world would be doing far less well than they are.

The most unique thing about religions is that participation is voluntary.  This is very useful.  First, it encourages each person to choose a religion.  Most people in the U.S. are members of some religion or other.  Of those that have no official membership, many still identify with some religion, even if it is just a generic version of some category of religions (for instance, non-denominational Christian).  Those who do not identify with any religion often still have some personal religious ideology that guides they actions.  This means that most Americans subscribe to some religious ideology that encourages them to get along with others.  Further, because religion is voluntary, people feel compelled to keep the tenets of their religions, because they made a personal choice to do so.  There is a great deal of work that government does not need to do, because religions do it for them.  Integrity is only legally enforced when legal contracts are involved, however, most people are honest most of the time, even when it may not benefit them.  Most people don't steal, even when they know they will not get caught.  Most people overlook minor harm that was unintentional.  There are no laws enforcing most of this good behavior, and in the cases where there are, they are not reliable.  People choose to be civilized anyway, and in a large part, religions are responsible.  Religions encourage civilization and making wise choices, and because participation is voluntary, members are more likely to follow the commandments and recommendations, because they chose them of their own free will.

Secular governments have a monopoly on violence, and perhaps that is for the best.  In the past, religions that have been permitted to use violence have abused that authority a majority of the time.  Even limiting religions to using violence only on their own members is probably a bad idea.  Likewise, religions have something of a monopoly on personal belief.  Again, this is probably for the best.  Allowing secular governments to control the beliefs of people has almost always ended in disaster in the past, and forcing a large group of people to have the same beliefs has never turned out well.  Government and religion complement each other in very important ways, when they are autonomous from each other.  When they are combined, however, a major conflict of interests almost always arises, and one or the other is assimilated and becomes an engine of tyranny.

Religion in Politics

Around 49% of Americans seem to believe that it is not only appropriate, but obligatory for churches to be involved in politics.  While it is illegal, according to IRS restrictions for non-profit tax status, for churches designated as non-profit organizations to support specific political candidates, it is not illegal for churches to support specific ballot measures, initiatives, or even political movements.  While there has been some resistance to churches having any involvement in politics, the percentage of Americans opposed to church involvement in politics is far lower than the percentage for.  In fact, the percentage of Americans who support removing the non-profit restriction for supporting specific candidates is even growing.

Mixing politics with religion has been a controversial topic for almost a century, however, there was a time when few questioned it.  The American Revolution was driven, in a very large part, by Protestant preachers in the colonies.  The religious view at the time was that government was ordained of God, and only He had the right to change it.  There are even Bible passages that lend a good deal of support to this argument.  Many preachers, however, carefully studied the passages often quoted to support this idea, and they found an interesting loophole.  Most of the passages stated or implied that government was ordained of God to serve the people.  They reasoned that a government that does not effectively serve the people is not a legitimate government, by that standard.  By refusing to give the colonies representation in Parliament, the British government was not doing its job by serving its citizens in it colonies.  Many preachers explained this to their congregations, showing that even God could support a revolution against a tyrannical government, because, by His standards, a government that does not properly serve its people is not a legitimate government.  The British government did serve the people of England properly, however, it did not serve its citizens in the colonies properly, thus it was not a legitimate government over the colonies.  Ultimately, this broke down the barriers preventing the people from rebelling against Britain, and the result is that the U.S.A. is now a sovereign nation in its own right.

Our Founding Fathers were very wary of religious influence in government and government influence in religion.  Some groups of colonists had come to the Americas specifically to escape religious persecution, and even much the majority that came primarily for economic freedom and opportunity also had religious freedom in mind.  At the time (and even today), Britain had a state religion, which certain government officials were required to be members of.  The Church of England was literally owned and controlled by the British government.  Certain other religions were banned in Britain (often depending on the mood of the current monarch).  Many other European countries also had state religions as well as specific religious bans.  Punishments for violating bans or even being a member of a religion not endorsed by the state ranged from public persecution to death, depending on the religion and the current ruler.  While Protestantism was the dominant religion in the colonies, there were still some Catholics and Anglicans.  In addition, Protestantism was fractured into a large number of different denominations.  Almost without fail, any state religion would reduce a significant portion of the population to second class citizens.  This did not fit well at all with the philosophy that people should be allowed to worship as they saw fit.  The result of this was strict protections for religious freedom, along with strict condemnation of any laws that might favor one religion over the other.

So now we get to a modern application of this knowledge.  The first important thing to remember is that religion and politics are strongly related.  Government is expected by the people to enforce certain moral expectations.  In a large degree, these moral expectation come directly from religion.  Rights that are supported by all religions are often called "human rights" and are frequently turned into laws called "civil rights."  Even entirely secular laws designed to improve the national economy (including tariffs and such) are based in the Biblical principal that government is ordained of God to serve the people.  This "separation of church and state" idea that religion and government should have nothing to do with each other is both wrong and impossible.  So long as religion is common in the U.S., it will and must have an impact on government.  Likewise, government will always have an impact on religions within the region it governs.  The Constitutional protections necessary to ensure religious freedom make these influences largely indirect, but they cannot be reasonably prevented.

Back to the question: Should churches be involved in politics?  Separation of church and state as an argument against it is not valid.  While direct influence can be eliminated to a large degree, indirect influence cannot.  Churches in the U.S. have a historical precedent of political involvement.  Our Founding Fathers, who drafted the Constitution never spoke out against this practice, though they were fully aware that it existed.  It would thus be unreasonable to assume that they believed churches should not be involved in politics.  Perhaps they were wrong though, and maybe we are more enlightened.  Of course, this attitude of assuming that past generations were stupider than we are is a strong red flag.  This is an egotistical assumption that is often wrong and will cause more trouble than it is worth.  Instead we should look at the relationship between government and religion.

What is the appropriate relationship between government and religion?  Many people would say that no relationship between the two is appropriate.  This argument is impossible to support though.  There is no way the government can interact with religious without becoming involved with it.  Even wide spread prohibition of religion is a government relationship with religion (and in fact, it is the equivalent of establishing a mandatory state religion).  If the government ignores religion entirely, its relationship with religion will come through the people.  For example, despite the fact that it is unconstitutional to restrict public official to those of a specific religion, Kennedy's opponents used his Roman Catholic religion against him in their campaigns.  So long as religion exists, there will be a relationship between religion and government, and if it is eliminated by government edict, that is, in and of itself, a relationship between religion and government.  It is almost pointless to discuss the question of whether such a relationship should exist, because it is impossibly for it not to exist.  That said, in a democratic government where some of the citizens have religious beliefs, it is entirely appropriate for such a relationship to exist, because the people the government represents include religious people.

Government involvement of the general public is all about beliefs.  A person who supports unregulated abortion typically does so out of a belief that the woman should be free to choose.  A person against unregulated abortion may chose to be against it out of a belief that killing even an unborn child is murder.  One of the most controversial topics that churches have gotten involved in is same sex marriage.  Those who support it believe that homosexuals are otherwise being deprived of rights that are freely available to heterosexual Americans, while those against typically believe that homosexual acts are sinful and may ultimately result in the wrath of God.  It does not matter whether the belief comes from religion or supposed logic; neither position really has a strong argument, and it all comes down to opinion and personal beliefs.  One group may choose to subscribe to a specific set of beliefs will the other may choose beliefs ala-carte, but ultimately it does not matter.  An American citizen has the right to representation, regardless of where they choose to get their beliefs.  So long as some of those beliefs may be obtained from religion, religion is an integral part of government.  Now, this does not mean that we should strip the Constitution of its protections for religion, but it is something that anyone arguing about the propriety of religious influence in government should be aware of.

During this election season, a much larger number of churches supported specific political candidates than in the past.  While this is stated to be illegal, it is technically not.  What is illegal is for a non-profit organization to support a specific candidate, and since most churches in the U.S. are registered as non-profits, it is illegal for them to support specific political candidates.  Of course, this is actually far more complicated than it seems.  This particular law is part of IRS policy for non-profit organizations.  It is also legally questionable.  While it is not addressed specifically in the Constitution, many believe that it could qualify as persecuting churches to prohibit them from supporting specific political candidates, and the specific argument is that it infringes on freedom of speech.  While this argument does seem rather sound, it still has a great deal of opposition.  The opposition's primary argument is the "separation of church and state" argument, which we have already established does not apply to this kind of situation.  Ultimately though, it may not matter.  The 1,600 preachers that have supported specific candidates from the pulpit will likely not face any trouble from the IRS.  The IRS policy is primarily in place to prevent attempts to create non-profits designed as campaign engines for specific candidates.  Churches, even when supporting specific candidates, are not specifically designed to do this.  Churches typically support candidates that agree with their beliefs and that will support their morals in government.  This is little different from supporting specific legislation on a state level ballot (which is entirely legal).  Further though, the primary goal of these preachers is to gain the ire of the IRS, so they can push a case through to the Supreme Court, in hopes that the IRS non-profit policy will be overturned, at least with reference to religious organizations.  So far, the IRS is not biting, and they may never bite, given that these churches are not violating the purpose of the policy.

My opinion on this is simple.  I believe that churches have every right, and in fact, they may sometimes even have a moral obligation, to support or oppose specific legislation according to the beliefs they teach.  I am ambivalent about the issue of churches supporting or opposing specific political candidates, however, I have a hard time seeing any difference if a church is consistently supporting candidates that will represent their moral beliefs.  I do think that churches with non-profit status should not be allowed to make monetary campaign contributions for specific candidates.  This could easily be seen as a misuse of tax exempt non-profit funds.  I suppose, however, I would not be opposed to a specific exception allowing campaign contributions, so long as they are reported and taxes are paid on the money contributed, but these contributions should be entirely transparent, so their followers know what is going on.  (Or, perhaps even better, they could organize a contribution event, where a church official collects and contributes funds for specific campaigns, but where the funds never become the legal property of the church.  This would be sort of like how for-profit businesses have charity events, soliciting and collecting contributions for some charity.)

Overall, trying to separate politics from religion is a fruitless task.  Religion defines the beliefs of many people, and the people are supposed to define the government.  This means, in a large part, religion defines government.  Attempting to completely eliminate the influence of religion on government is impossible, and if history is a good indicator, even trying is a prediction that the government is starting to crumble.  Democratic politics and religion are both belief based things.  This is, in a large part, why religious freedom needs protection from the government.  Trying to take the religion out of politics is essentially saying that a majority of the population is not qualified to take part in government, because they are "tainted" by their religious beliefs.  This is just not how a democratic government operates.

Economic Value of Religious Freedom

A few years ago, I wrote an article on religious freedom, where I suggested that even atheists should support religious freedom, because it is the root of all of our freedoms.  Ultimately, if there was no belief in God, there would be no justification for the idea of human rights.  Survival of the fittest would be the only real law, and freedom would only exist so far as the fittest permitted.  Unsurprisingly, it goes further than this though.  I just read an article discussing recent research showing that religious freedom also impact economic well being.  The study found that religious freedom is one of only three variables that are reliable predictors of economic growth (measured by GDP).

There are several explanations for this impact of religious freedom on economic growth.  The first is that political and religious tension make the business environment of a country unpredictable.  Entrepreneurs do not want to try to start a new business in a political environment that may eventually damage, destroy, or even seize the business.  Existing businesses may choose to relocate or even shut down, as the risk of losses increase with religious tension and hostilities.  In short, hostilities over religious freedom will drive profitable businesses to leave or close.  The second (which is closely related to the first) is that tension or hostilities over religious freedom will tend to reduce government stability.  Besides the obvious affect on businesses, this also causes fears that reduce tourism.  According to the Deseret News article, this problem has been seen over the last few years in Egypt.  Besides these, it would also be reasonable to assume that hostilities against certain religions will cause immigration out of the country.  Since many of those leaving are obviously those wealthy enough to afford the costs, this will result in a exodus of wealth, leaving the country poor.  I can see more in the underlying causes than just the economic harm caused by lack of religious freedom.

In nearly all of the cases discussed in the article, the lack of religious freedom has caused significant internal unrest.  Freedom of religion has great economic value, but I think it also has significant political value.  Governments discussed in the article that limit religious freedom seem to all be unstable.  Also, we have seen over the last few decades, as the U.S. government has reduced religious freedom, increased political unrest and even some threats of rebellion (mostly in the form of states threatening to secede).  Religious freedom also seems to be a predictor of government stability, not just economic growth.

There are many things we can take away from this.  Probably the most important is that strong religious freedom is the road to economic success.  The second is that religious freedom is important to government stability.  I want to stress this second one a bit, because it appears to be counter intuitive to politicians.  Over the last few decades, politicians have repeatedly tried to limit religious freedom, because they believe it will solidify their political position and power.  This has become especially common during times of economic hardships, because it becomes harder to get votes when the economy has done poorly while a politician is in power.  It turns out that this creates a feedback loop that hinders the ability of the economy to recover, at the same time as reducing political stability.  Maybe this will get the politician needed votes, but if the economy does not recover, eventually it will not be enough, and if the government fails, those politicians will loose all of their power (and, they may get lynched for limiting religious freedom).

My point here is not that we should give unlimited religious freedom.  Some religious practices, for instance human sacrifice, should be prohibited by law.  There are also some places where limiting religious observances may be appropriate.  Schools should not be allowed to encourage or enforce the worship of a specific deity, or any deity for that matter.  On the other side though, forcing people to do things that violate their religions is unethical and unwise, in most situations.  There are cases where this cannot be avoided (for instance, I should not be able to avoid paying taxes by claiming it is against my religion), but there are many where it can.  When considering laws that would limit religious freedom, the value of the law needs to be carefully weighed against the costs of not enacting it.  If a specific minority group feels insulted that not all businesses will serve them, but there are plenty of reasonable alternatives, the economic harm of restricting religious freedom may be far greater than the harm caused by insulting a minority group.  On the other side, if a minority group will be significantly harmed by this, without anywhere to turn for relief, it may be better to restrict religious freedom a bit (as little as reasonably possible) to maintain freedom for the minority.  Minorities should not be allowed to leverage restrictions to religious freedom to harass others, but at the same time, religious freedom should not be a valid excuse to deny anyone a good quality of life.  If there are 5 good quality wedding shops in a town, it would be a travesty of justice to allow a gay couple to deliberately harass the one that is religiously opposed to serving homosexual weddings.  On the other hand, if there is limited housing, food, or clothing availability, religious freedom should not be a valid excuse to refuse to serve a homosexual couple.  If all 5 wedding had religious objections to serving a gay couple (and no others were available nearby), I could see limiting religious freedom to ensure economic fairness.  In fact, this had to be done in the South to stifle the rampant racism (some parts of the KKK did try to claim that requiring them to serve black people was a violation of their religious freedom).  The problem in the South was that a vast majority of businesses refused to serve black people, which was severely limiting the quality of life for black people.  Even if it is a limitation of religious freedom, it was necessary to restrict racial discrimination to ensure the continued freedom of the black population.  (In my opinion, any American has the right to hate someone for race or religion, but they do not have the right to harm or limit the freedom of others based on those beliefs.  Note that I do not hate anyone for race or religion.  I just recognize that freedom of thought, conscience, and religion includes the right to hate people of a certain race or religion, though not necessarily the right to act on those feelings.)

Anyhow, it turns out there is reasonable evidence to the effect that religious freedom is important to economic well being and government stability.  The idea that an atheist world where religion has been exterminated would be an ideal world has more or less been proven false on multiple occasions (the USSR provided one occasion), and now we have even more evidence that religious freedom is an important part of a strong economy.  Now when we consider restricting religious freedom to get the votes of a disgruntled minority group, we should seriously consider the harm it will do to our economy.