mtully's blog

Today Romney gave a speech on his Mormonism to squelch the effects of religious bigotry on his chances of receiving the Republican nomination for President. In the speech Glen Johnson of AP cites these three quotes in succession (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/ap_on_el_pr/romney_religion_28;_ylt=...):

"Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."

He assailed "the religion of secularism" he said was creeping into American life, and drew chuckles from his invited audience as he complained that Europe's picturesque cathedrals are largely empty amid societies "too busy or just too `enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer."

Romney said: "We should acknowledge the Creator as did the founders, in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history and, during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places."

So let me get this straight. We should be tolerant of other people’s revelation of the divine.

But if your personal revelation should lead you to a secular worldview, then you should just accept that you are not a citizen. At least that is what I take from his condemnation of the enlightenment (which by the way the founders would have taken a dim view of) and his endorsement of the phrases In God “WE” trust (if you don’t trust God you are not part of WE) and “One nation” under God (if you don’t believe in God you are not part of this “one nation).”

Way to attack religious bigotry Mitt. By perpetuating that a significant percentage of the American public is less American than others because of religious beliefs.

Hypocrisy, thy name is religion.

Tully

Text of Dreisbach's speech can be found at http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/2006/10/

When I read Dreisbach’s speech I was reminded of the words of theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who, after having read a particularly poorly researched and developed paper of a junior colleague said this: "This isn't right. It's not even wrong." So how did Dreisbach reach such a high level of “not rightness” that “wrong” is not a strong enough word? Generally an argument is considered wrong if it is either a, is based on a wrong premise; b, is not supported by the evidence; or c, utilizes fallacious logic to reach it’s conclusion. In Dreisbach’s case he not only hits all three he even manages to combine them by giving red hearing arguments and then unabashedly even failing to support those with evidence.

Dreisbach begins by tracing the origins of the Danbury Baptist letter and does a good job describing the politics of the time and Jefferson’s intentions to alleviate the fears of the Baptists that he would not as Chief Executive attempt to interfere with their religious freedoms. But, he then goes on to make the allusion that because the letter endorsed freedom of conscience that it somehow meant that Jefferson was concerned only with the separation of powers between the state and federal governments rather than the separation between the federal government and religion. To make this grand jump Dreisbach references the Kentucky Resolution. This is interesting in that while the resolution did discuss some of the principles of federalism, it had absolutely nothing to do with church-state entanglements. It was in fact an attempt by Jefferson to pressure Adams into repealing (or at least not enforcing) the Alien and Sedition Acts. You see the Sedition Act offended Jefferson’s sense of freedom of speech. But, why would Dreisbach want to wander into the topic of freedom of speech when the topic was separation of church and state? Well, perhaps if he had probed Jefferson’s views on that topic he wouldn’t have liked the results. Jefferson was a prolific writer on the subject of separation and left a detailed trail of his thoughts on the matter. With respect to the idea that separation was a one-way wall Jefferson made clear that the state had no standing to interfering with ecclesiastic matters and additionally would not allow the clergy assert any privileged influence on the government. These attitudes can be seen in two letters he wrote to his longtime friends Richard and Benjamin Rush: