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Islam in
America: Separation of Church and State
by Ameen Izzadeen
(Deputy Editor The Sunday Times and Daily Mirror-Sri Lanka)
In 2003 Ameen Izzadeen spent nearly a month in the United States
as a guest of the US State Department. This is part one of a series of
observations penned after his visit.
As an outside observer Mr. Izzadeens insights are both enlightening and squarely
on the mark. Mr. Izzadeen addresses the concerns of Post 9-11 Muslims in
America and the campaign to vilify the American Muslims. We present
the series in its entirety.
Separation of Church and State: (P-7)
Is America a Christian nation?
Friday November 21st 2003
Early this month, the United States Supreme Court rejected
an appeal from suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore who wanted to place a
monument depicting the Ten Commandments in the state Supreme Court building.
The highest court, apparently unwilling to enter
into a major controversy, quietly rejected the appeal, thus upholding an Alabama
Court verdict, which ordered Chief Justice Moore to remove the monument on the
grounds that it was in conflict with the principles enshrined in the First
Amendment.
The First Amendment calls for separation between
the State and the Church - meaning that the government will not actively endorse
religion in general or favor one faith over another - while it also guarantees
the religious freedom of an individual.
Another case that has been listed for hearing by
the federal Supreme Court is a petition by a Californian atheist who objects to
the phrase "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, which is a
national event.
I cite these two cases to show the seriousness
with which the US body politic upholds the principle of Separation of State and
Church - a principle that forms one of the cornerstones of the United States,
underscoring the importance of liberty, equality and justice for all. However,
the unbridled capitalism and hegemonic designs of the present administration
have unfortunately undermined these principles to a large extent not only in
foreign policy making but also by
enacting certain domestic legislation such as
the US Patriot Act.
The two cases cited here are some of the recent
ones that have come into the public domain for debate and discussion. The
struggle to protect freedom of worship and uphold the principle of separation of
State and Church is older than the federation itself. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison and their allies in the state's religious groups ended Virginia's
established church and helped pass the Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty, a
1786 law guaranteeing
religious freedom to all.
Underscoring their belief that the separation of
the State and the Church would be good for all faiths, including Christianity,
the US founding fathers, though devout Christians made sure that the
Constitution they were framing did not favor one religion. Even the language
used in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, was generic in
nature, thus avoiding the institutionalized bias in the unwritten constitution
of Britain and state policies of Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia or even
in Sri Lanka's present and the previous constitutions where Buddhism has been
granted special status while recognizing the religious freedom of all.
Rejoicing over the Virginia legislation,
Jefferson noted that it would ensure religious freedom for "the Jew and the
Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan {Muslims}, the Hindoo (sic), the infidel of
every denomination".
George Washington's administration even
negotiated a treaty with the Muslim rulers of north Africa - a pact known as the
Treaty with Tripoli and adopted by the Senate in 1797 - that stated explicitly
that the United States was not founded on Christianity. To assuage fears that
the new nation would be hostile to Islam, Article 11 of the treaty states, "the
government of the United States is not, in
any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
In spite of historic evidence and traditions
that uphold the separation between the Church and the State and early assurances
especially aimed at Jews and Muslims, opinion is divided still on the question
'Is the United States a Christian nation?'
Efforts were made in 1864 and again as late as
1950s to give a Christian flavor to the Constitution. A group called the
National Reform Association (NRA) pushed a Christian Nation Amendment Bill in
the belief that the civil war was divine punishment for the exclusion of 'God'
from the Constitution. The NRA amendment called for the "humble" acknowledgement
of God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord
Jesus Christ as the ruler
among the nations and his revealed will as the
supreme law of the land in order to constitute a Christian nation.
Similar attempts were made in the 1950s but they
too failed like the NRA amendments in the face of intense campaigning by civil
rights groups in the United States where some estimates say half the Christian
population consider themselves to be religious while the other half also
includes, among others, atheists, humanists and agnostics.
"Religious right activists and right-wing
television preachers often claim that the United States was founded to be a
Christian nation. Even some politicians agree. If the people who make this
assertion are merely saying that most Americans are Christians, they might have
a point. But those who argue that America is a Christian nation usually mean
something more, insisting that the country should be officially Christian. The
very character of our country is at stake in the outcome of this debate," says a
powerful Washington-based
activist group calling itself 'Americans
United For Separation of Church and State'.
Rena Levin, an official of this group, which
is, incidentally, one of the petitioners in the Alabama case, told us that
there were 2,000 different religions or sects in the United States and if the
laws were to enforce the doctrines of one version of Christianity, then it
violated the founding principles of equality and justice.
President George W.
Bush's State of the Union address and other public speeches are marked by the
liberal use of the word 'God' while Attorney General John Ashcroft holds daily
prayer sessions in his department. Besides, the Bush administration has launched
a Faith- Based Initiative program to dole out public funds to churches and other
houses of worship to perform government-sponsored social services.
Commenting on this
initiative, Ms. Levin said her group was alarmed over these developments and
added that her group believed that these actions were a sweeping assault on the
First Amendment's separation of Church and State.
In the context of the
doctrine of separation between Church and State, Islam in America flourishes and
even is practiced in an intellectual light rather than being dogmatic. If this
is so, why are there efforts in Muslim countries to establish governments based
on Islam? This is one of the questions that were fired at us during our dialogue
with the US intelligentsia.
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