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Thom Hartmann's Newsletter - Oct 12, 2007

Ann Coulter and Justice Antonin Scalia to Synagogue

"Jews Are Safer with Christians in Charge"

by Thom Hartmann

The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) called on media to stop
inviting Ann Coulter as a guest commentator and strongly condemned her
comments that Jews should be "perfected" by accepting the New Testament
and that America would be better off if Judaism were "thrown away" and
all Americans were Christian.

"While Ann Coulter has freedom of speech, news outlets should exercise
their freedom to use better judgment," said NJDC Executive Director Ira
N. Forman. "Just as media outlets don't invite those who believe that
Martians walk the earth to frequently comment on science stories, it's
time they stop inviting Ann Coulter to comment on politics."

Media Matters for America has a complete transcript of Coulter's
comments - and video - available here
.

Similarly, Justice Antonin Scalia turned history on its head several
years ago when he attended an Orthodox synagogue in New York and claimed
that the Founders intended for their Christianity to play a part in
government. Scalia then went so far as to suggest that the reason Hitler
was able to initiate the Holocaust was because of German separation of
church and state.

The Associated Press reported on November 23, 2004, "In the synagogue
that is home to America's oldest Jewish congregation, he [Scalia] noted
that in Europe, religion-neutral leaders almost never publicly use the
word 'God.'"

"Did it turn out that," Scalia asked rhetorically, "by reason of the
separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they
were in the United States of America?" He then answered himself, saying,
"I don't think so."

Justice Scalia and Ann Coulter may well benefit from looking back at the
photographs that came out of Germany that were all over the newspapers
and news magazines at war's end. The photos that can be seen, for
instance, at www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
of the Catholic Bishops giving the
collective Nazi salute. The annual April 20th celebration, declared by
Pope Pius XII, of Hitler's birthday. The belt buckles of the German
army, which declared "Gott Mit Uns" ("God is with us"). The pictures of
the 1933 investiture of Bishop Ludwig M|ller, the official Bishop of the
1000-Years-Of-Peace Nazi Reich. That last photo should be the most
problematic for Ann Coulter and Justice Scalia, because Hitler had done
exactly what Scalia is recommending - he merged church and state.

Which brings up one of the main reasons - almost always overlooked by
modern-day commentators, both left and right - that the Founders and
Framers were so careful to separate church and state: They didn't want
religion to be corrupted by government.

Many of the Founders were people of faith, and even the Deists like
Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson were deeply touched by what Franklin
called "The Mystery." And they'd seen how badly religious bodies became
corrupted when churches acquired power through affiliation with or
participation in government.

The Puritans, for example, passed a law in Plymouth Colony in 1658 that
said, "No Quaker Rantor or any other such corrupt person shall be a
freeman in this Corporation [the state of Massachusetts]." Puritans
banned Quakers from Massachusetts under pain of death, and, as Norman
Cousins notes in his book about the faith of the Founders, "In God We
Trust." "And when Quakers persisted in returning [to Massachusetts] in
defiance of law, and in practicing their religious faith, the Puritans
made good the threat of death; Quaker women were burned at the stake."

Quakers were also officially banned from Virginia prior to the
introduction of the First Amendment to our Constitution. Cousins notes:
"Quakers who fled from England were warned against landing on Virginia
shores. In fact, the captains of sailing ships were put on notice that
they would be severely fined. Any Quaker who was discovered inside the
state was fined without bail."

Throughout most of the 1700s in Virginia, a citizen could be imprisoned
for life for saying that there was no god, or that the Bible wasn't
inerrant. "Little wonder," notes Cousins, "that Virginians like
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison believed the situation to be
intolerable."

Even the oppressed Quakers got into the act in the 1700s. They finally
found a haven in Pennsylvania, where they infiltrated government and
promptly passed a law that levied harsh fines on any person who didn't
show up for church on Sunday or couldn't "prove" that s/he was home
reading scripture on that holy day.

Certainly the Founders wanted to protect government from being hijacked
by the religious, as I noted in a previous article that quotes Jefferson
on this topic. But several of them were even more concerned that the
churches themselves would be corrupted by the lure of government's easy
access to money and power.

Religious leaders in the Founders' day, in defense of church/state
cooperation, pointed out that for centuries kings and queens in England
had said that if the state didn't support the church, the church would
eventually wither and die.

James Madison flatly rejected this argument, noting in a July 10, 1822
letter to Edward Livingston: "We are teaching the world the great truth,
that Governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The
merit will be doubled by the other lesson: the Religion flourishes in
greater purity without, than with the aid of Government."

He added in that same letter, "I have no doubt that every new example
will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and
Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed
together."

Madison even objected to government giving money to churches to care for
the poor. It would be the beginning of a dangerous mixture, he believed
- dangerous both to government and churches alike. Thus, on February 21,
1811, President James Madison vetoed a bill passed by Congress that
authorized government payments to a church in Washington, DC to help the
poor.

In Madison's mind, caring for the poor was a public and civic duty - a
function of government - and must not be allowed to become a hole
through which churches could reach and seize political power or the
taxpayer's purse. Funding a church to provide for the poor would
establish a "legal agency" - a legal precedent - that would break down
the wall of separation the founders had put between church and state to
protect Americans from religious zealots gaining political power.

Thus, Madison said in his veto message to Congress, he was striking down
the proposed law, "Because the bill vests and said incorporated church
an also authority to provide for the support of the poor, and the
education of poor children of the same;." which, Madison said, "would be
a precedent for giving to religious societies, as such, a legal agency
in carrying into effect a public and civil duty."

Yet now, in 2007, the religious appear to be on the verge of both
corrupting government and being corrupted themselves by the power and
influence government can wield.

For example, as Reverend Moon has moved more and more into the political
realm - from funding activities of both George H.W. Bush and his son
George W. Bush, to funding the money-losing but politically activist
Washington Times newspaper, to financially bailing out Jerry Falwell, to
setting up numerous charities that now ask for federal funding - we see
an increasing and ominous participation of legislators and Moonies.
Moon, for example, was crowned by several members of Congress in the
Senate Dirksen Office building on March 23, 2004. As the Washington Post
noted in a July 21 story by Charles Babington, Moon himself proclaimed
to our elected representatives attending the ceremony, "Emperors, kings
and presidents ... have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend
Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning
Lord and True Parent."

Others, like Robertson, who want to use the money and power of
government to promote their religious agendas, are making rapid inroads
with George W. Bush's so-called "faith-based initiatives," which shift
money from government programs for the poor and needy to churches and
religious groups.

In some distant place, Adolf Hitler and Bishop M|ller must be smiling at
Ann Coulter and Justice Scalia's encouragement of the growing conflation
of church and state in America. It's exactly what they worked so hard to
achieve, and what helped make their horrors possible.

And Thomas Jefferson and James Madison must have tears in their eyes.

Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning New York Times
best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily
progressive talk program on the Air America Radio Network. See
http://www.thomhartmann.com. His most recent book is "Cracking
the Code."

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