Santorum on Separation

Santorum on Separation

P. Schultz

March 6, 2012

“[Justice] Stewart was fond of citing Justice William O. Douglas’s pronouncement in Zorach v. Clauson (1952) that “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a supreme being.”

This quote is from a Stanley Fish column in today’s New York Times arguing that Rick Santorum’s views on the separation of church and state are not beyond the pale of our political discourse on the question of the separation of church and state. Fish argues that church and state or religion and politics have always been intertwined in the United States and cities academics and Supreme Court Justices to prove his point, such as the one above from Justice Douglas.

Of course, Fish can cite all the sources he wishes but the issue is not whether church and state have been separated but rather what should be the relation between church and state or religion and politics.  That is, to argue as Fish and others have that this separation has been less than complete or “absolute” as Santorum asserted does not actually address the issue: Which should prevail, religion or politics, when push comes to shove, as it always does? Fish is not the only one who confuses these two issues; in fact, most people on both sides of the issue do so.

The interesting phenomenon during the Founding era was not the degree to which the American people were religiously inclined but rather that some of those who influenced the Founding were of the opinion that religion was dangerous. James Madison in a letter to Jefferson written about the time of the constitutional convention and in the Federalist argued that religion, so far from helping to offset “majority tyranny,” often facilitated such tyranny/oppression. And, of course, Jefferson rewrote the gospels in order to remove what he considered to be the “stuff” that fed religious wars and fanaticism.

See, this is what Santorum does not entertain, the possibility that religion is a source of oppression and fanaticism and that, for this reason, it must be regulated by “the state” and certainly cannot be trusted to regulate “the state.” Stanley Fish argues, based on certain Supreme Court cases, that accommodation is more prevalent than separation, even that separation is a historical myth – citing Chief Justice Rehnquist as one of his sources. He, Fish, is correct about the prevalence of accommodation. But what his column obscures is that it is the Supreme Court, which is after all a part of our civil government, that is doing the accommodating. That is, it is the government that decides how far religion will be accommodated; it is the government that regulates religion and not religion that decides how far government can regulate it. Or to put this differently: Justice Douglas may be correct that our “institutions presuppose a supreme being” – although I doubt this – but it is our civil institutions that decide how far the will of this “supreme being” will impact our society. To be blunt: The separation of church and state means the subordination of religion to politics and not the subordination of politics to religion. And this is where Santorum has it wrong, basically and fundamentally wrong.