First of all, “civic religion” is still religion, contrary to Justice Scalia’s spinning. It not only walks, talks and quacks like a duck, it even has a duck’s name. (Oh, and Nino, we have plenty of “unoriginalist” things in America; slavery is over and women can vote today!)
That said, I want to reply to Kevin Drum’s latest post in support of Obama’s “liberals hate religion” straw man. (Note: Kevin’s a self-identified atheist, but pretty much a squish on civil liberties in this area.)
Anyway, here’s what I had to say to him, with some further expansion.
-->I appreciate the social narrative and cohesiveness value religion has for many liberals and conservatives alike.
That said, I’m also a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union and insist on a high church-state wall.
Part of Obama’s argument was trotting out a Democratic Leadership Council version of Constitutional originalism on First Amendment issues. And that just won’t fly. Maybe we still have the Baptists of the 1600s, but the nation's largest Baptist denomination, while still officially wanting a high wall as for state-religious DENOMINATION issues, wants a very low wall for state-religious DOCTRINE issues. It’s an end run around church-state issues.
In fact, if we take Obama to his logical conclusion, it would be OK to teach intelligent design, as long as the science teacher doesn’t identify himself as a Southern Baptist or say he learned about ID in his Sunday School class.
Oh, and while E.J. Dionne’s column on Obama’s speech had some good points, it kind of missed the mark here too.<--
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