Sunday, June 11, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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We live in interesting times.
That statement, by itself, is not news. It is both a blessing and a curse for civilizations over the centuries, which, I should think, would much prefer the uninteresting, the boring, the calming sense people around the world get from a world at peace and a nation full of tranquility.
Alas, that is not the world in which we live where even relative calm seems to be as elusive as Mike Pence’s ability to square an orange. (I refer you to his most recent interview in which he tried to explain without any success whatsoever the most basic tenet of American jurisprudence that “no man is above the law” unless that man is a former president.)
As we approach Father’s Day next week, it dawned on me that among the fathers we should be celebrating most are those who founded this democracy, the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution, which created this great experiment in self-governance, almost two and a half centuries ago.
I am going to focus on the First Amendment to the Constitution and the incredible wisdom the framers had when they wrote it — not the part about freedom of the press and speech, which would be a natural place for me to weigh in, but the part about religion, which is a place far away from my comfort zone.
But, I do notice things. And what I see portends some very interesting times ahead.
We can start right here in Nevada where our governor, Joe Lombardo, recently tried to force the Legislature to approve his plan to use the public’s money to fund nonpublic education. He thinks it is OK to use our tax dollars to pay forreligious school education.
That’s right, if the governor had his way, our taxes — the money most Nevadans willingly pay to improvepublic education — would have been used to fund students who want to receive a religious education. And it doesn’t matter if that religious school may not be the one other taxpayers are interested in supporting — people may differ about which of their own favorite religious educations they want to promote — butthe government would say, “Too bad, your dollars are going to that other church or synagogue or mosque.”
I realize that, by itself, doesn’t sound too dangerous unless you read the First Amendment which says very clearly that Congress (you should read that to mean a state legislative body) “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”
You see, the Founding Fathers and every other colonist back in the day were keenly aware of the government forcing them to follow a state’s preferred religion over one they preferred for themselves. They didn’t like that idea.
That’s why all those Pilgrims showed up at Plymouth Rock in the first place, way back in 1620! And ever since then this country has done all it can to keep government at any level far away from our religions.
But that didn’t stop Nevada’s governor from trying to use our tax money to establish or support religious schools. He tried to use our government to disrespect our freedom of religion.
But, that’s not the worst of this story by any means. Let’s go east a bit to Oklahoma where the legislature in that state just created the first Catholic charter school to be funded by — you guessed it — taxpayer dollars. I guess the part about “no law respecting … religion” escaped the good folks pushing the Good Book in Okie country.
By contrast — admittedly far away from America but close to the seat of the three great religions — Saudi Arabia, a place not particularly known for religious freedom, is making significant strides in unshackling the people of that country from religious zealotry in order to grow its people into the modern world where both men and women have a place and a future.
And, just around the corner in Israel, a place where religious freedom is the essence of its existence, the government is doing all it can to look and act more like the religious autocrats in neighboring lands than the place where God gave the laws to his people so they would be a “light unto the nations.”
My memory of religious history may not be perfect but it is perfectly clear to anyone paying attention that we are moving in a direction away from religious freedom while those we have loathed for so long because of their religious intolerance are moving to fill the void we are creating through our own action.
By the way, this isn’t happening just in the realm of religion. Autocrats the world over are raising their heads and challenging individual freedom and liberty across the globe.
It just baffles me how we can forget the very essence of America in order to create some political advantage.
When people have never had or enjoyed religious freedom, they don’t necessarily know what to do with it when it comes. But once we have enjoyed the freedom to worship as we please while respecting our neighbor’s right to do the same, it strikes me as unthinkable to believe that we would give that up to chase the false god of political opportunism.
And, yet, here we find ourselves in the United States of America willingly following those who claim to support our freedom to worship while they do their little-bit-at-a-time thing to strip us of our God- and Founding Father-given right to worship as we please.
Those who were here at the very beginning would not recognize the mess we are making for ourselves in 2023. Our mess is leading to some very interesting times.
Personally, I could use boring just about now.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun
