Let’s talk through this culture war
As the battle over nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court approaches, a solution to the nation’s battle over church and state seems about as likely as a Sonny and Cher reunion. Noah Feldman, noting that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the swing vote in several Court decisions protecting what he terms “legal secularism,” suggests an answer.
Put simply, it is this: offer greater latitude for religious speech and symbols in public debate, but also impose a stricter ban on state financing of religious institutions and activities. This approach, the mirror image of O’Connor’s compromise, is drawn from the framers’ vision and the historical experience of separating church and state in America. The framers might well have been mystified by courthouse statues depicting the Ten Commandments, but they would not have objected unless the monuments were built with public money. Having made a revolution over unfair taxation, they thought of government support in terms of dollars spent, not abstract symbols.
Feldman, a law professor at NYU, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, known for its innovative take on “The Real State of the Union” in yearly articles in the Atlantic Monthly. In an argument that presumes the existence of an America that is capable of actually conducting a meaningful national conversation and arriving at agreement (rather than leaving it to courts to lurch this way and that), he earnestly sketches a route toward consensus on an issue that bitterly divides us. But is the Christian Coalition really prepared to compromise? Is the ACLU? And–the question of the week–is George Bush?
Feldman’s most resonant point bears underlining: that faith should not be a conversation stopper.