Talk:Separation of church and state

Reference 51

The link given under number 51 does not work. I guess this is because I don't have access to the library. I doubt the usefulnes of a link that cannot be used by the majority of users... Bromatom (talk) 11:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

1. 51 (Payne) works fine Rjensen (talk) 04:50, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

antiquity

In the ancient societies familiar to me, Egypt, Greece and Rome, there is no concept of a separation of religious and secular, so to speak of 'melding' etc. is nonsensical. Socrates was put to death because he was accused of trying to introduce a new cult (his 'daimonion') without permission. I suspect that the separation concept became an acute reality with Jews under Greco-Roman rule. Pamour (talk) 15:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Material going in and out of the first paragraph

We might not have a difference of opinion here. I am concerned about wrong/unsourced implied statements, not the main material. "Separation of Church and State" is a very broad, wide reaching and undefined term. Although certain aspects that fall under it are mandated by US and state constitutions, federal and state laws, and implemented / clarified by court decisions, overall "Separation of Church and State" is not mandated by or included in any of those. And so the inference that it is is incorrect. North8000 (talk) 15:19, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I tried looking at it for a minor re-write but as written it is deeply scrambled. The sentence basically says that the US constitution was changed by the court, which is obviously false. The parts of the constitution which adress this have been there from the start. The 14th amendment (late 1800's) though general is also considered relevant. As did a long line of folks starting with Thomas Jefferson. the 1947 decision used the term in its discussions on it's actual rulings, it did not have a ruling that mandated this broad vague terms as even law, much less modify the constitution. North8000 (talk) 16:19, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Rjensen, your edit summary is accurate, but it is different than what you put in which is inaccurate. Do you want to try to fix? North8000 (talk) 16:24, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

"Advocates of a Christian America ..." moved here for discussion

I've moved the following here for discussion:

Advocates of a Christian America insist that treaties only apply to the federal government, and that individual states retain the power to reject a treaty's declarations about the country if an individual state does not agree. However, because of the fact that America is a group of united States - and not separate from a central form of government - the argument that a national treaty does not apply to state members of the nation is null.

The version of this quoted above is the version after this edit, which added the words "because of". The original addition seems to have come from this edit, which said that the group being characterized here "argue variously", not "insist".

Re this attribution of the point said to be either argued or insisted upon to a vaguely defined interest group, see WP:WEASEL.

The attribution is supported by a cite of this article by David Barton (author). Leaving aside here the implication making him out to be a spokesperson for that vaguely defined interest group, as far as I can see, the cited article does not support the assertion that he argues or insists that "... that treaties only apply to the federal government, and that individual states retain the power to reject a treaty's declarations about the country if an individual state does not agree." The relevant portion of the cited article seems to be the following paragraph:

Recall that while the Founders themselves openly described America as a Christian nation (demonstrated in chapter 2 of Original Intent), they did include a constitutional prohibition against a federal establishment; religion was a matter left solely to the individual States. Therefore, if the article is read as a declaration that the federal government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, such a statement is not a repudiation of the fact that America was considered a Christian nation.

Reading that as asserting that that treaties only apply to the federal government and that individual states today retain the power to reject a treaty's declarations (either this particular treaty or any other treaty) if an individual state does not agree is, I think, a real stretch. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

I think that the preponderance of evidence is that US was founded as a very slightly christian nation, with strong limitations put in place on the establishment of a religion by the Constitution. The linked article (asserting a more deeply christian nation) has a logical flaw in that it has a premise that the only governmental mechanism refuting a broader "christian nation" statement is that particular treaty.

That opinion aside, I think that a condensed version (a few sentences) material, with a proper contex statement, .... might be appropriate for the article. North8000 (talk) 00:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection to such a statement but, whatever the statement says, it should be supported by cited sources which directly support whatever is being asserted. Any context statement should be clear, and that context should be obvious from a look at the cited supporting sources (for example, the text under discussion might have said something like "David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, an organization with a goal of exposing the claimed US constitutional separation of church and state as a myth, has written that ..." rather than, "Advocates of a Christian America insist that ..."). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:14, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it should be brief/condensed to avoid wp:undue.....this is a top level article. North8000 (talk) 01:37, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Which America?

Some, but not all, of the States were officially Christian in 1787; two of them had an established church, but New Hampshire abandoned it three years after joining the Union, and Connecticut in 1818.

But the Federal Government was not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Truthiness

But I see this article is engaging in truthiness in a rather more serious fashion.

This is supposedly an article of world-wide scope, yet we have the following lengthy passage in the intro:

Prior to 1947, however, these provisions were not considered to apply at the state level; indeed in the 1870s and 1890s unsuccessful attempts were made to amend the constitution to accomplish this, but it was accomplished by judicial decision in 1947.

More important, what are the sources?

• William M. Wiecek, The birth of the modern Constitution: the United States Supreme Court, 1941-1953 (Cambridge U.P., 2006) pp 261-4

  A decent book; but the passage cited does not discuss the 1870s at all, and makes clear that the question in Everson, the 1947 case, had never come before the Supreme Court, so the first two clauses are unsupported from this source.

• Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State. pp. 287-334, 342, Harvard University Press, 2004</ref>

  Doubtless a fascinating book; but its publisher describes it as follows: "In a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom, Philip Hamburger argues that the separation of church and state has no historical foundation in the First Amendment" That is not the language in which one describes consensus writing.

In short, let us have a real source, representing the consensus of scholarship; but it would be preferable to leave this doubtful tidbit to articles on the United States - which should in turn mention the state Constitutions, most, if not all, of which, contain much the same language as the Federal Constitution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Doubtful is right. Needing a source that might satisfy WP:RS, where Barton does not, Hamburger is just the latest love child of the religious right. Didn't you know the decision in Everson was based on the court's anti-catholic bigotry? Shot me. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 06:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

And any real discussion should include the 1921 decision which applied the Establishment Clause to the states, when Oregon outlawed parochial schools. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Hamburger is the leading scholar of the subject (and most reviews of his book have been very favorable). Hugo Black was elected to the Senate after campaigning as an anti-Catholic KKK activist, say his biographers. Rjensen (talk) 07:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Tha-at's right; when the law and the facts are against you, abuse the plaintiff's attorney; when abusing the plaintiff's attorney doesn't work, throw mud at the judge. Some minor details omitted here; Black left the Klan before entering the Senate, and Everson was twenty years later. Also, Black's decision permitted the aid to parochial students involved in the case; the dissent, by Robert H. Jackson. built the same wall, and would have denied the aid. Was he an agent of the KKK too? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

If you mean Hamburger is the only scholar of this opinion then leading comes pretty easy. See WP:UNDUE, again. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 13:21, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Along those lines, it seems really clear that the Philip Hamburger article deserves a careful look - some of the sources are questionable and the article is dominated by a single quotation. All the praise in that article comes from partisan religious or political sources. eldamorie (talk) 15:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Five bucks says the quote is Dreisbach quoting Hamburger. Makes it more RSy if there are two. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 15:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

As I remember I may have put that first part in there, but that it was a "dialing back" of an even worse (farther-reaching unsourced and implausible) statement which had been put in there prior to that. (I think to the effect that the phrase "separation of church and state" (or all ramifications contained by it) was itself decided by courts to considered to be a part of the constitution) I have no objections to an overall deletion or major repair of it. North8000 (talk) 10:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The lede is not controversial at all--it summarizes the application of Separation to the states, from the late 19th century to 1940s, citing standard scholarly sources. All constitutional history texts cover this point. Rjensen (talk) 18:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)]]

No, it uses one source. Not even its publisher thinks it uncontroversial. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

• And he has added another source; The Oxford Compagnion to the Supreme Court of the United States, The%20Oxford%20companion%20to%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20of%20the%20United%20States&pg=PA262#v=onepage&q=Separation&f=false pp. 262-3, which does not discuss church and state at all; it's an article about judicial disability. I have added what the book does say about Everson. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

So when Congress wrote what became the religion clauses of the First Amendment, it meant to do much more than leave religion to the states. It intended to enshrine in the federal Constitution the protections against religious coercion that Americans had learned to think of as natural rights.  — Divided by God, Feldman, 2005

I raise your Hamburger one Feldman. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 01:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that that quote is accurate, not that that matters. North8000 (talk) 01:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)