Grim:
Thanks for your message.
Respecting your question, “No do you?”: I believe that question is unresponsive to my question. Since you appear to be arguing in favor of a position, you have the obligation to proffer persuasive arguments and evidence in support of that position. I believe that you are advocating the policy position that national governments, including the U.S. federal government, should ban all religious groups and prohibit the practice of all forms of religion. In support of this position, you argue that the U.S. government is violating the U.S. constitutional prohibition against establishment of religion. To support that argument, you adduced two claims: that the Internal Revenue Code and the existence of the executive branch office of faith-based initiatives violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In the U.S., constitutional law is determined by the text of the U.S. Constitution and the rulings of the U.S. federal courts, including the Lemon v. Kurtzman and Engel v. Vitale cases that you cited. Neither claim that you adduced has been accepted by any U.S. federal court, to my knowledge; that is, no U.S. federal court has ruled in an actual case that the Internal Revenue Code’s religious tax exemption provisions or the existence of the executive branch’s office of faith-based initiatives violates the Establishment Clause. And the assertion that the existence of the executive branch office of faith-based initiatives violates the Establishment Clause seems inconsistent with the text of the Establishment Clause, which facially applies only to Congress, although I acknowledge that the U.S. Supreme Court has extended the application of the Clause’s restrictions to conduct of the federal executive and judicial branches and to state governments. Accordingly, both claims you adduce to support your argument that the U.S. government is violating the Establishment Clause seem unpersuasive, because they are unsupported by any judicial decision or constitutional text. Since I disagree with the position that the U.S. government is violating the Establishment Clause, I have no obligation to adduce arguments or evidence in support of that position.
Respecting your statements that “I'll assume that my contention to your understanding is that the best form of government is an atheist one, that the government has a social and political responsibility to limit the influence of religious institutions of all denominations. In doing this the freedoms of the citizens must be maintained at all costs else the formation of an authoritarian state.” I respect that view, but I believe that view is inconsistent with the policy of the U.S. government. To my knowledge, the policy of the U.S. government, as expressed in the Establishment Clause and in federal court opinions interpreting it, is (1) that neither the federal nor any state government may create an official religion, and (2) that neither the federal nor any state government may prohibit any religion from being practiced in the U.S. I support this policy of the U.S. government, and believe it should not be changed, because it fosters socially beneficial religious activity, safeguards the liberty of nonreligious people, and embodies fairness.
I agree with Justice O’Connor’s concurrence in the McCreary County case,
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/case ... yvaclu.pdf , that the policy of the Establishment clause is rooted in “respect for religion’s special role in society. Our Founders conceived of a Republic receptive to voluntary religious expression, and provided for the possibility of judicial intervention when government action threatens or impedes such expression. Voluntary religious belief and expression may be as threatened when government takes the mantle of religion upon itself as when government directly interferes with private religious practices. When the government associates one set of religious beliefs with the state and identifies nonadherents as outsiders, it encroaches upon the individual's decision about whether and how to worship. In the marketplace of
ideas, the government has vast resources and special status. Government religious expression therefore risks crowding out private observance and distorting the natural interplay between competing beliefs. Allowing government to be a potential mouthpiece for competing religious ideas risks the sort of division that might easily spill over into suppression of rival beliefs. Tying secular and religious authority together poses risks to both.”
I disagree with the view that all religious groups should be banned and the practice of all forms of religion prohibited, because such a view would violate basic norms of human rights, including the right to religious freedom guaranteed by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” I also disagree with the view that banning all religious groups and prohibiting the practice of all forms of religion is justified on the basis that some, but not all, religious persons support particular policies (such as a ban on fetal stem cell research), because the bases for such policies include credible nonreligious arguments, and because proponents of such policies include nonreligious persons.
Respecting your statement “yet there remains a significant gray area somewhere between the Establishment Clause and the First Amendment”: I don’t understand this statement. The Establishment Clause is a component of the First Amendment. How can there be a “gray area” between them?
Respecting your statement: “It is obvious that there are currently in place restrictions on the role of church, unfortunately these seem ambiguous or outright ignored”: In the U.S., I believe there is no restriction on the role of “church.” Rather, there are restrictions on the ability of government to designate an official religion and to prohibit the practice of any religion. Those restrictions are designed to foster religious activity and protect the rights of nonreligious people. A policy of restricting the role of religion in society is contrary to well established U.S. law and public policy, and is, in my view, unlikely to prevail. I support the current U.S. policy on this issue, for the reasons stated above.
Respecting your statement that “once religion could be countered by the common sense of an integrated majority”: would you please cite a particular example of such conduct by a group, and would you please define “integrated majority”? I’m unfamiliar with that term.
Respecting your statement that “the majority of people have become seduced by theistic agendas or atheist apathy”: I don’t know what you mean by “theistic agendas” or “atheistic apathy”. Would you please define these terms and give examples?
Respecting your citing a link to a Catholic World News story,
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/fea ... cnum=41403 , I believe this refers to the 6th Circuit’s opinion in the Mercer County case, full text of which is at
http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-app ... 24/602889/ . As I stated above, the U.S. constitutional law respecting the Establishment Clause is quite limited, and the 6th Circuit’s opinion in Mercer County seems consistent with that law. As I understand it, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the McCreary County case,
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/case ... yvaclu.pdf , that a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments violates the Establishment Clause to the extent that “the predominate purpose for the display[] [is] religious.” Since the Ten Commandments, apart from being a religious text, are a very important collection of ancient laws (along with other ancient laws such as the Code of Hammurabi), and play an important role in the development of U.S. law (particularly the criminal law), one can plausibly argue that the image of the Ten Commandments, as a respected symbol of nonreligious law, can be displayed in a courthouse for a primarily nonreligious purpose. I believe that is the argument that Mercer County made in the 6th Circuit case, and the court agreed. That ruling is, in my view, consistent with the Establishment Clause. It also seems consistent with Justice O’Connor’s concurrence in McCreary County. I note that in that concurrence, Justice O’Connor stated that “[r]easonable minds can disagree about how to apply the Religion Clauses in a given case,” and she based her concurrence on “the history of this particular display of the Ten Commandments” and the “purpose behind the counties' display.” These statements appear to imply that in a different case, where the history of the display evidenced a secular purpose on the part of government, such a display could comport with the Establishment Clause. The 6th Circuit held that Mercer County was such a display.