Christine O’Donnell is getting lambasted by the press for her failure to know that the First Amendment prohibits the United States from having an established religion. But, as Jesus said, he who is without sin cast the first stone.
I wonder how many others did not realize the nature of this basic First Amendment right? Steven Prothero, who in the past couple years has become ubiquitous in his commentary on religion in America, offers his take on the O’Donnell First Amendment ignorance at CNN’s Belief Blog. He writes:
As the author of Religious Literacy and adviser to the recent Pew Forum U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, each of which demonstrated the ignorance of Americans about most things religious, I am not surprised that candidates for the U.S. Senate seem as surprised to learn about the Bill of Rights as I am by the latest plot turns in “Glee.” (Emma? With John Stamos? Really?)
In fact, in a quiz I gave Boston University students a few years ago, only 41 percent were able to name the free exercise clause, only 23 percent the establishment clause.
And in the recent Pew Forum religious literacy survey, American adults demonstrated that they had about as much of a grip on what the Supreme Court has said about religious establishment as does O’Donnell. Only 36 percent knew that public schools could offer comparative religion courses and only 23 percent knew that public school teachers could read from the Bible as an example of literature.
A few years ago, as I was traveling around the country arguing for religious studies courses in the public schools, I challenged journalists to start asking political candidates basic questions about religion. I don’t care whether Mitt Romney is a Mormon, I said, but I do care whether he knows which religion predominates in Indonesia, and in India.
I also said that, if politicians are going to invoke Christianity and the Bible to support their positions on abortion and immigration and stem-cell research, then voters have the right to know whether they know anything about that tradition and that scripture.
Far less controversial than that stance is this: voters have a right to know whether candidates for the U.S. Congress have even a passing acquaintance with the Constitution.
“That’s in the First Amendment?” She Who Would Be Senator asked. Yes it is, O’Donnell, yes it is.
I'm underwhelmed by the brouhaha over O'Donnell's comments. I suspect that reporters and her critics are purposefully reading the exchange as evidence of her ignorance. Here's an alternative reading:
In his initial response, Coons included the word “separation” in connection with the First Amendment. That's a loaded word among conservatives who love to point out that the First Amendment does not use the phrase “separation of church and state” (that phrase had to wait until Jefferson used it in a letter in 1802). So O'Donnell's surprise could be understood as a reaction to Coons's use of the word “separation” in his explanation of the First Amendment.
It is arguable that Jefferson believed that the First Amendment implied the separation of church and state (though whether he meant the same thing by that as contemporary groups such as the ACLU is questionable). But plenty of Jefferson's contemporaries did not interpret the First Amendment in like fashion. It was strictly limited to the actions of the federal government (individual states could still have established churches) and was not directed against religious symbolism or practice in the public sphere (thus the Congressional chaplains, national days of prayer, etc.).
So, the phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the First Amendment and the implications of the separation of church and state were different in the past than they are today.
I suggest that both Coons and O'Donnell were representing opposing conceptions of the First Amendment that have existed since the Constitution was written. Nothing in their exchange proves otherwise.
COONS: The government shall make no establishment of religion.
O'DONNELL: That's in the First Amendment?
I'm not convinced O'Donnell was responding directly to Coons here. It was getting rather heated and cacophonous. She could still have been on the [rather sophistic] point that “separation” doesn't appear in the Constitution.
She did later ask Coons to name the five freedoms in the First Amendment, suggesting she knows something about it after all. [He did not reply.]
I'll be glad when this election's over. I'm amazed we ever get any history done atall; we can't even agree about what happened yesterday.