John McCain Sucks Up To Special Interest Groups With A Pleasing Inaccuracy

John McCain blatantly sucked up to the Religious Right yesterday, telling a group called Beliefnet that ”the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation".   I wonder, Senator, if you could point me to the section of the Constitution you were thinking of?  I know I’ve read the document once or twice, and I don’t think the word “Christian” appears anywhere in it.  I can, however, think of one provision that looks a whole lot like a prohibition against the establishment of a national religion.  To be fair to the Senator, he made that remark while also stating that although he would prefer to see a President of his own faith, he could also imagine a Muslim President doing a good job.  Nevertheless, this is a meme that needs confronting because it keeps on cropping up everywhere.  McCain’s “clarifying” remark later was “We are a nation that was based on Judeo-Christian values. That means respect for all of human rights and dignity. That’s my principle values and ideas, and that’s what I think motivated our founding fathers," but that’s a) not quite the same thing, and b) that’s still not quite true.

Senator, if you’re saying that America is a “Christian nation” because its founding was based on “respect for all of human rights and dignity,” consider Bhutan.  A man with as much experience on the world stage as you must surely know that this is also a country that has great respect for human rights and dignity both in law and in practice (which is not to say that this nation is beyond criticism in this arena, but no nation on Earth is), but is most assuredly not Judeo-Christian in origin.  You also surely know that Judeo-Christians do not have a monopoly on good moral behavior or on treating people well; those are universal ethics and people of all races, creeds, religions, and beliefs variously fulfill or fall short of realizing those moral goals.  And let’s also not forget that slavery was tolerated and regulated by the original Constitution (and by the Christian Bible) although today we hold slavery to be a gross violation of human rights and dignity – which is to say that reference to Biblical authority does not guarantee moral righteousness.

Now, maybe you could argue that “Judeo-Christian values” are more complex than just treating other people well, and if so, I would agree.  It seems to me that “Judeo-Christian values” by definition involve the mandatory worship of Jehovah.  But it also seems to me that the Constitution is quite clear that no one can make me worship Jehovah if I don’t want to, and that there should be no penalties to my standing as a citizen regardless of my choice.  Thus, the “Judeo-Christian value” of worshipping Jehovah as a moral requirement stands in opposition to at least one of the core principles of America – to wit, religious liberty.  As Americans, we must balance our personal faiths with our acceptance of those who differ from us.

Or maybe, Senator, you’re referring to the ethical, philosophical, intellectual, educational, and religious background of the Founders and the universe in which they operated.  That would be the ethical, philosophical, intellectual, educational, and religious background of the European Age of Enlightenment.  Many of the prominent thinkers and philosophers of that era were Christian, to be sure, but there were also many (including many of the Founders) who were Deists if not outright atheists.  Which most certainly did not make them evil men; quite the contrary, these were intelligent, moral men infused with the spirit of their times (what we today call “liberalism”), a love of learning and morality, and the principles to defend and act on their beliefs.

The meme that America was created to be a “Christian nation” is one that keeps on cropping up (particularly during an election) and continues to be profoundly objectionable to me.  Why?  Saying that this is a “Christian nation” excludes me, a non-Christian, from full participation in the civic life of the country; unlike members of the Christian majority, I am somehow not a “real” American because I refuse to believe in or worship the god of the majority.  I refuse to accept that – particularly when I know that people like me, meaning lawyers who were very skeptical about religion – were present in abundance at the drafting of the Constitution.