[Mb-civic] Scalia To Synagogue - Jews Are Safer With Christians In Charge

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Thom Hartmann's Personal and Global Transformation Newsletter 
Scalia To Synagogue - Jews Are Safer With 
Christians In Charge 
by Thom Hartmann 
Antonin Scalia, the man most likely to be our next Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court, turned history on its head recently 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." 
Scalia has an extraordinary way of not letting facts confound his 
arguments, but this time he's gone completely over the top by 
suggesting that a separation of church and state facilitated the 
Holocaust. If his comments had gotten wider coverage (they were 
only noted in one small AP article, and one in the Jerusalem Post), 
they may have brought America's largest religious communities - 
both Christian and Jewish - into the streets. 
Born in 1936, Scalia is old enough to remember the photographs 
that came out of Germany when he was a boy - they were all over 
the newspapers and news magazines at war's end. It's difficult to 
believe he wasn't exposed to them as a teenager, particularly 
having been raised Catholic. And if he missed all that, one would 
think that his son the priest would have told him about them. 
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 Müller, the official Bishop of 
the 1000-Years-Of-Peace Nazi Reich. 
That last photo should be the most problematic for Scalia, because 
Hitler had done exactly what Scalia is recommending - he merged 
church and state. 
Article 1 of the "Decree concerning the Constitution of the German 
Protestant Church, of 14 July 1933," signed by Adolf Hitler himself, 
merged the German Protestant Church into the Reich, and gave the 
Reich the legal authority to ordain priests. 
Article Three provides absolute assurance to the new state church 
that the Reich will fund it, even if that requires going to Hitler's 
cabinet. It opens: "Should the competent agencies of a State 
Church refuse to include assessments of the German Protestant 
Church in their budget, the appropriate State Government will cause 
the expenditures to be included in the budget upon request of the 
Reich Cabinet." 
That new state-sponsored German church's constitution opens: "At 
a time in which our German people are experiencing a great 
historical new era through the grace of God," the new German state 
church "federates into a solemn league all denominations that stem 
from the Reformation and stand equally legitimately side by side, 
and thereby bears witness to: 'One Body and One Spirit, One Lord, 
One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of All of Us, who is 
Above All, and Through All, and In All.'" 
Section Four, Article Five of he new constitution further established 
a head for the new German state-church with the title of Reich 
Bishop. Hitler quickly filled the job with a Lutheran pastor, Ludwig 
Müller, who held the position until he committed suicide at the end 
of the war. 
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." 
Madison also opposed - although he couldn't stop - the appointment 
of chaplains for Congress. "Is the appointment of Chaplains to the 
two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with 
the pure principle of religious freedom?" he asked in 1820. His 
answer: "In the strictness the answer on both points must be in the 
negative. ...The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a 
palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional 
principles." 
Madison went on to suggest that if members of Congress wanted a 
chaplain, they should pay for it themselves. "If Religion consist in 
voluntary acts of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it 
be proper that public functionaries, as well as their Constituents shd 
discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents, do 
so at their own expense. How small a contribution from each 
member of Cong wd suffice for the purpose! How just wd it be in its 
principle! How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the genius of the 
Constitution; and the divine right of conscience! Why should the 
expence of a religious worship be allowed for the Legislature, be 
paid by the public, more than that for the Ex. or Judiciary branch of 
the Gov." 
But always, in Madison's mind, the biggest problem was that religion 
itself showed a long history of becoming corrupt when it had access 
to the levers of governmental power and money. 
In 1832, he wrote a letter to the Reverend Jasper Adams, pointing 
this out. "I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every 
possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of 
religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid 
collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a 
usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or 
alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire 
abstinence of the government from interference in any way 
whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and 
protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by 
others." 
As he wrote to Edward Everett on March 18, 1823, "The settled 
opinion here is, that religion is essentially distinct from civil 
Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection 
between them is injurious to both..." 
Yet now, in 2004, 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 Falwell and 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. 
All of this - the merging of church and state - is now being 
aggressively promoted by no less than Supreme Court Associate 
Justice Antonin Scalia, in no less shocking a venue than the nation's 
oldest Orthodox synagogue. 
In some distant place, Adolf Hitler and Bishop Müller must be 
smiling at 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 (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project 
Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally 
syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann.com 
His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," 
"Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the 
Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back 
America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To 
Democracy." 



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