In Everson, the plaintiff (Everson) and the ACLU objected to the state of New Jersey using tax dollars to support school bus transportation for parochial students. While the court ruled in favor of the state’s funding, Associate Justice Hugo Black inserted the following words in the opinion: “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.”
Never underestimate the power of just a few words, especially when placed in the wrong hands. Those who sought to remove America’s Christian heritage used this assertion as a blank check to claim that the so-called “wall of separation” does not allow any public expression of faith, since any such expression would be a breach, regardless what the founding fathers intended!
Joseph Story (1779-1845) a former U.S. Supreme Court justice and Harvard Law professor, wrote in his 1833 volume, Commentaries on the U.S. Constitution: “...The duty of supporting religion, and especially the Christian religion, is very different from the right to force the consciences of other men, or to punish them for worshipping God in the matter, which, they believe, their accountability to Him requires... The rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the just reach of human power.”
The last sentence is particularly instructive, as groups such as the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State have gone out of their way, through the courts, to violate the rights of conscience of sincere religious believers.
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, expressed its frustration over the misuse of this metaphor. Ruling on the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments display in Kentucky, the court wrote, “This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.”
It’s about time that a court recognized that this wall is just part of a house of cards, ready to fall at any minute. Hopefully, as more and more truth shines down on the true meaning of Jefferson’s words, the ACLU’s house of cards will come toppling down, and our First Liberty — religious freedom — will thrive once again.
Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor who held various posts in the departments of Justice and Interior during the Reagan Administration, is president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation. He is co-author with Craig Osten of the book The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values.