Courts cannot influence religious beliefs

THE EDITOR: I followed with interest the differing views in the media concerning the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama court building. The commercial Christian leaders, both in the USA and Trinidad and Tobago, have been “sounding their trumpets on the street corners,” lauding the stand of Justice Moore. While everyone is entitled to a respected opinion, I feel compelled to respond to the view that the removal of the monument constitutes hostility towards God and a stand for unrighteousness. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. In a plural, democratic society, the Government and courts must be independent of any particular religious beliefs. This independence must be in fact as well as in appearance! Thus, it is neither sacrilegious nor anti-Christian to say that government and courts should stay out of the business of sanctioning religious doctrines and leave that function to the people themselves and to those they choose to look to for guidance. The question is asked, What was this monument doing in a civil court in the first place?

History shows that the practice of establishing “government and court controlled religion” was the major reason which caused many of the Pilgrim Fathers to leave England and seek religious freedom in America. The Book of Common Prayer, created under governmental direction and approved by Acts of Parliament in 1548 and 1549, prescribed the accepted form and content of prayer and other religious ceremonies to be used in the established, tax-supported Church of England. These very pilgrims who had most strenuously opposed the established Church of England, when they found themselves in control of colonial governments in America, passed laws making their own religion the official religion of their respective states. The very thing they had fought against and fled from, they established, with themselves in the driver’s seats. In plural societies, one of the greatest dangers to the freedom of worship lies in the Government or the courts placing their official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of religious services. Anguish, hardship and bitter strife is the usual result when zealous religious groups struggle to obtain approval from each President, Prime Minister or political party that comes to power. The content of prayers and the privilege of praying or worshipping whenever one is pleased, cannot depend upon the rulers or be influenced by the ballot box but by matters of personal conscience. Neither the power nor the prestige of the government or courts should be used to control, support or influence religious beliefs. The people’s religion must not be subjected to the pressures of government nor change each time a new political administration is elected to office. 

It is claimed that perceived government support of a particular form of religious worship do not involve coercion of individuals holding other beliefs. However, when the support of government is thrown behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to this belief is plain. An alliance of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion. The inevitable result is the hatred, disrespect and contempt of those who hold other beliefs. People lose their respect for any religion that relies upon the support of the government or the courts to spread its faith. Government established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand! Only a few years after the creation of the Book of Common Prayer in the established Church of England, an Act of Uniformity was passed to compel all Englishmen to attend this church’s services and to make it a criminal offence to conduct or attend religious gatherings of any other kind; a law which was consistently flouted by the Dissenters and which contributed to widespread persecutions of people like John Bunyan who persisted in holding “unlawful religious meetings...to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom...” Some will certainly say that the presence of the monument in the court is a little matter and presents no danger to religious freedom. I respond in the words of James Madison, the author of the First Amendment: “it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties... who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”

SYLVAN JAMES
Debe