Louisiana just mandated the posting of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms.
The left erupted in fury. Well.
The very first sentence of the Bill of Rights, the first clause of the First Amendment (which "progressives" pretend to revere) says straightforwardly: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
There's no issue with the extension of constitutional protections of our right to religious freedom from Congress to the states. However, I dispute the convoluted narrative replacing "no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" with a "wall of separation between church and state."
No such wall appears anywhere in the Constitution — originally or as amended.
The "wall" came from a letter by President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Connecticut Baptists in 1802:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
The metaphorical wall, per Jefferson himself, was intended to protect the church from the state, not the state from the church — and certainly not Americans from religion.
The left has made Jefferson's dictum into a dogma that, perversely, does exactly the opposite of what Jefferson intended. The left's revisionism affected the de facto deportation of religion from the public square.
It worked. Badly.
The narrative that this is done out of concern for the potential of majoritarian abuse of minority faiths runs contrary to the historical facts. America leans tolerant.
Live and let live.
Back in 1984, I was tapped by the Reagan reelection campaign as a surrogate speaker. The venue assigned to me was one that the pols considered too hot to handle.
That was debating Maura Moynihan, the daughter of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at Albany, New York's largest conservative Jewish synagogue, Temple Israel — a hotbed of center-left sentiment.
Temple Israel's congregants were firmly in the Democratic camp, wary of President Ronald Reagan on many issues. Of course, I enthusiastically accepted.
Rather than picking a "safe space," I decided to tackle the wariness head on. I chose the hottest potato: restoring prayer in public schools, which Reagan actively supported.
I assured my audience that prayer in public schools was not just constitutionally justified but actively good for us Jews.
I didn't change a single vote.
That said, the audience appreciated my taking the issue head-on. My view was unconventional but well argued.
After recounting the literal text of the First Amendment and of Jefferson's letter, I revealed the runaway-progressive Warren Court's Supreme Court case, Engel v. Vitale, which effectively banished prayer from public schools.
America had managed to survive centuries of nearly ubiquitous prayer in public schools without fomenting a culture of persecution. President George Washington said to the Hebrew congregation of Newport Rhode Island: "to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."
What was the text of the New York Regents' prayer banished by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren? "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."
That might offend a few militant atheists. But there's absolutely nothing in the least bit offensive, much less hostile, to us Jews or to any religious establishment I know.
Thus was the Bill of Rights, through mutilation by reinterpretation, revised to inhibit, and in practice prohibit, prayer in public schools.
But wait. There's more.
In 1962, the year in which the maverick Warren Court took prayer out of the public schools, America's Jewish population peaked as a percent of the U.S. population and began to decline directly thereafter. Prayer in the public schools in practice had supported, not inhibited, the flourishing of minority faiths.
As I then said, "the wall of separation between church and state" was turned into a Maginot line around which the forces of atheism, communism, and nihilism swept, thereafter eroding the tolerant religious culture that helped make America great.
Pew now documents the dwindling religiosity in America. This was and is the desired outcome of secular progressives.
Note: "Freedom from religion" is not the same as "freedom of religion."
Louisiana now leads America in appropriately, constitutionally, and sensitively promoting religious-rooted values in schools: Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, honor thy father and mother — you know them.
Let us praise Louisiana's leaders for their determination to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms. And thank them for exemplifying a sane interpretation of the Bill of Rights.
Mr. Biden, tear down this wall!
Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of the 200,000+ follower "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $104T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.
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