Bryan Fischer is a Dolt (Constitution for Me but Not for Thee Edition)

Dagnabbit, Bryan — it would have been nice to have been able to retire the whole BFiaD category, but in your unhinged hatred for the things you hate (for which I at least applaud your unwavering dedication), you keep providing targets that simply cannot be ignored.

To wit, your latest screed: Islam and the First Amendment: Privileges But Not Rights.

Because the Constitution is all about which Americans get rights and which Americans don’t.

You start off, like all good essayists, by clearly stating your thesis.  I will give this to you, Bryan — you never leave anyone in doubt as to how you feel about something.

The First Amendment  was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam. Quite the contrary.

I’ll hit up the rest of the essay in its Islamaphobic glory in a bit.  But let’s talk about whether the Founders were out just to protect the free exercise of Christianity.

Short answer: No.

Part of is is that the understanding of what “Christianity” meant to the Founders was something quite different from what we think of it today.

Most folks today would consider “Christian” anyone who more or less believes in Jesus Christ and goes to a “church.” Sure, you get some folks on the edges not sure whether to include Mormons in that.  Or Unitarian/Universalists.  Or (and this is still in fact around) Catholics. And you get some folks (glances over at Bryan) who spend a lot of time parsing out who is a True Christian — what particular creed they have to profess, what particular magical words or actions they have to have gone through, what particular doctrines they must (or must not) agree to.

But even there, in the modern world, that division is still about “True” Christians and “False” Christians.  They’re all more or less Christians, there’s just some debate about who gets admitted into the final members-only show.

That’s small beer compared to the world of the Founders.  They had centuries of European history — English in particular — where the definition of a Christian was writ in flaming letters, and anyone who disagreed with that definition (which varied, of course, from place to place and time to time) would be subject to torture and death.

Even in the American colonies, the track record was appalling. Individual colonies were founded in favor of one religion or another — they didn’t consider it denominational differences, or sectarian ones, but profound We-Are-Christians / You-Are-Not kind of establishments.  And if you weren’t of the local flavor, then you were a second-class citizen at best, or maybe an exile into the Wilderness (see Roger Williams and the founding of Rhode Island), or maybe you’d just be jailed, or exiled, or even executed if you came back.

Quakers were favorite targets, outside of Pennsylvania.  But Catholics were Papist idolators whose Jesuitical agents were out to expand the Pope’s unholy empire.  And James Madison got to see first-hand the beating and jailing of Baptists in Virginia as a young man.

And, then, of course, there were Deists, Unitarians, and even Atheists, not to mention the rare Mohammedans … and, of course, the Jews.

The US Constitution mentions religion only once in its original writing.  Article 6, para. 3, states:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

This was meant to counter Test Acts that appeared in England in the 17th and 18th Centuries — mostly requiring oaths affirming that one was a member of the Church of England (as opposed to, most commonly, a Catholic or a Dissenter/Non-Conformist).  But during the debates over the Constitution (both at the Constitutional Convention and in the various states ratifying it), the argument was brought forth again and again that without such Religious Tests — well, then, anyone could become a government official, even (gasp) “papists … deists, atheists, &c” or “pagans, deists, and Mahometans.”

Nobody denied that.  Nobody said, “Well, yeah, we see what you mean, but, really, we just meant that clause to apply to Christians — you know, not just Episcopalians and Presbyterians and Congregationalists (as much as you all disagree with each other), but even Quakers and Baptists — heck, maybe even (if the wind is blowing in the right direction) Catholics.  But certainly not pagans or deists or atheists or Muslims or Jews.”

In fact, they said just the opposite.  Like James Iredell in North Carolina during the ratification debate there (he would eventually go on to be a Justice of the US Supreme Court):

But it is objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for? This is the foundation on which persecution has been raised in every part of the world. The people in power were always right, and every body else wrong. If you admit the least difference, the door to persecution is opened. […] It would be happy for mankind if religion was permitted to take its own course, and maintain itself by the excellence of its own doctrines. The divine Author of our religion never wished for its support by worldly authority. Has he not said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it? It made much greater progress for itself, than when supported by the greatest authority upon earth.

Governor Johnston of North Carolina similarly discussed such concerns:

When I heard there were apprehensions that the pope of Rome could be the President of the United States, I was greatly astonished. It might as well be said that the king of England or France, or the Grand Turk, could be chosen to that office. It would have been as good an argument. It is apprehended that Jews, Mahometans, pagans, &c., may be elected to high offices under the government of the United States. Those who are Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian religion, can never be elected to the office of President, or other high office, but in one of two cases. First, if the people of America lay aside the Christian religion altogether, it may happen. Should this unfortunately take place, the people will choose such men as think as they do themselves. Another case is, if any persons of such descriptions should, notwithstanding their religion, acquire the confidence and esteem of the people of America by their good conduct and practice of virtue, they may be chosen. I leave it to gentlemen’s candor to judge what probability there is of the people’s choosing men of different sentiments from themselves.

Wow. Belief in democracy at its finest.  Kinda makes you choke up, doesn’t it, Bryan?

Now, Bryan, I understand, that’s actually about the religious test clause of the Constitution, not the First Amendment.  But this was a debate that was already had when the new debate over the First Amendment came up. This was what the Founders had already discussed and what, as a young nation, had been accepted.

So, the Constitution (including Article 6, clause 3) was accepted by the states. Then came the discussion over the First Amendment and the clauses there over establishment and free practice of religion.

There’s much to say that, to some degree, that amendment as written was a compromise by the individual states (and their predominantly sectarian populations) to ensure that, on a federal level, no single denomination (presumably Christian) would take over.

But to think that the Founders only debated about whether different Christian churches should be given equal rights, with nary a thought about other faiths (or lack thereof) is silly. That debate had already occurred over the No Religious Tests clause. And it had been around in many of the Founders’ thoughts for years.

Thomas Jefferson, in 1776, co-sponsored a bill in the Virginia legislature to allow Jews, Catholics, and other non-Protestants to become citizens of Virginia.  He quoted John Locke (Locke was a huge influence on the Founders) in saying “neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion.”

Later, in discussing his more successful Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779) Jefferson noted:

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.

Richard Henry Lee, who proposed the Declaration of Independence, wrote in 1784:

I fully agree with the presbyterians, that true freedom embraces the Mahomitan and the Gentoo [Hindu] as well as the Xn religion.

Theophilus Parsons — later a state supreme court jurist — was one of the drafters, along with John Adams, of the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution.  He said that document was meant, among other things, to ensure “the most ample of liberty of conscience” for even “Deists, Mahometans, Jews and Christians.”

A group of citizens of Chesterfield Co., Virginia, petitioned the state assembly in 1785:

Let Jews, Mehometans and Christians of every denomination enjoy religious liberty … thrust them not out now by establishing the Christian religion lest thereby we become our own enemys and weaken this infant state. It is mens labour in our Manufactories, their services by sea and land that aggrandize our Country and not their creeds. Chain your citizens to the state by their Interest. Let Jews, Mehometans, and Christians of every denomination find their advantage in living under your laws.

Jefferson and Adams, of course, eventually had to deal with, as Presidents, Islamic states.  Adams signed a famous treaty with Tripoli, noting the United States was “not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion” and therefore had “no character of enmity against the laws, religion and tranquility of Mussulmen.”

Now, there’s no question that most of the Christians of early America preferred their own faith to that of Islam, or that rumors and memories of Muslim conquest in Europe (or of pirates in Islamic North Africa) colored perception of Islam.  But enough of the Founding generation understood how religious freedom was rendered weaker and less meaningful the more boundaries you placed around it. Thus, they rejected explicitly stating — even when the possibility was raised — that the First Amendment (or Article 6) only applied to Christians.

It was suggested.  And it was rejected.

And now, with that history lesson … back to you, Bryan!

We actually at the time were dealing with our first encounters with jihad in the form of the Barbary Pirates, which is why Jefferson bought a copy of the Koran.

Jihad — in its one sense of holy war for the advance of Islam — has nothing to do with piracy.  The Barbary Pirates by the 18th Century had pretty much nothing to do with killing infidels for Allah, or advancing the world-conquering role of Islam. It was slaving and riches, plain and simple, a way of seizing wealth to the benefit of the Beys of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. Any religio-political aspect to their founding (after the reconquista of Spain) had long since faded — as demonstrated by the participation of European corsairs in their number.

He was told by the Bey of Tripoli that Islam requires Muslims to rob, kill and pillage infidel Christians wherever they find them. Jefferson naturally found that hard to believe, so he bought a copy of the Koran to read it for himself. Sure enough, it’s right in there, in the 109 verses of the Koran that call for violence against the infidels.

Actually, he was told something along those lines by Abd Al-Rahman, ambassador from Tripoli, in London in 1785, alongside John Adams.  Of course, he was also told that tribute would buy off such a “requirement,” and, indeed, that’s what the US did for many years, through Adams’ presidency (under which that above-quoted tribute-promising treaty with Tripoli was signed) and into Jefferson’s. That such piracy (and the “indulgence” of tribute) were given a patina of religious motivation by the governments in question showed the same sincerity as that of the slavers of Africa claiming  to work on behalf of converting the heathens to Christianity.

One problem, though, Bryan, is that your timeline is kind of askew.  While Jefferson encountered Al-Rahman in 1785, Jefferson’s Qur’an (the one that Rep. Keith Ellison swore his oath of office upon) was purchased in 1765, as part of his research into natural law and religious history.

Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam.

(Indefinite antecedent there, Bryan.  Check with your editor.)

While the First Amendement was not primarily written to protect Islam (or Hinduism, or Judaism), that it would do so was recognized in the debates of the time.

Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy.

Because the majority only ever grants rights to the minority out of courtesy.  That’s what the Constitution’s all about, right?

While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, …

Sounds pretty presumptive of you, Bryan.

… the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.

That’s doggone gracious of you, Bryan.  What you are proposing, extending a “privilege” of religious liberty out of “courtesty,” sounds like, is tolerance by the majority and empowered, as opposed to inherent equality under the law. Which, interestingly enough, is something that many of the Founders explicitly rejected.

George Washington wrote to a Jewish congregation in 1790 (during the debate over the Bill of Rights):

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

(He also ended the note with the hope that “the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”  Washington was as aware as any other of the educated Founders that “the Stock of Abraham” included Muslims.)

Thomas Paine wrote, in 1791 (the year the Bill of Rights was approved by the states):

Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the Pope, armed with fire and faggot, and the other is the Pope selling or granting indulgences. The former is church and state, and the latter is church and traffic.[…] Toleration therefore, places itself not between man and man, nor between church and church, nor between one denomination of religion and another, but between God and man; between the being who worships, and the being who is worshipped; and by the same act of assumed authority by which it tolerates man to pay his worship, it presumptuously and blasphemously sets up itself to tolerate the Almighty to receive it. Were a bill brought into Parliament, entitled, “An act to tolerate or grant liberty to the Almighty to receive the worship of a Jew or a Turk,” or “to prohibit the Almighty from receiving it,” all men would startle, and call it blasphemy.

St George Tucker in 1803 wrote, as commentaries on Blackstone’s Law and its application within America:

Jesus Christ has established a perfect equality among his followers. His command is, that they shall assume no jurisdiction over one another, and acknowledge no master besides himself. It is, therefore, presumption in any of them to claim a right to any superiority or pre-eminence over their bretheren. Such a claim is implied, whenever any of them pretend to tolerate the rest. Not only all christians, but all men of all religions, ought to be considered by a state as equally entitled to it’s protection, as far as they demean themselves honestly and peaceably. Toleration can take place only where there is a civil establishment of a particular mode of religion; that is, where a predominant sect enjoys exclusive advantages, and makes the encouragement of it’s own mode of faith and worship a part of the constitution of the state; but at the same time thinks fit to suffer the exercise of other modes of faith and worship. Thanks be to God, the new American states are at present strangers to such establishments. In this respect, as well as many others, they have shewn in framing their constitutions, a degree of wisdom and liberality which is above all praise.

The Bill of Rights — and the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence — are not written about Christians.  It’s not We the Christian People.  The rights promulgated in those documents were recognized, by the Founders, as universal rights, inalienable, belonging to all mankind, and certainly to all those within the United States.

Back to you, Bryan!

Our government has no obligation to allow a treasonous ideology to receive special protections in America, but this is exactly what the Democrats are trying to do right now with Islam.

I concur that a “treasonous ideology” — in terms of an ideology looking to overthrow the United States government by unlawful means — receives no special  protection as such.  But Islam, per se, does not call for the overthrow of the US, any more than, say, Christianity does. (Looking at the rhetoric of some Christianists about taking over the nation and recrafting its laws and Constitution to reflect their image of Christianity seems to me at least as “treasonous” as anything I’ve heard any American Muslim say.)

From a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America.

From a constitutional point of view, Bryan, do you believe that Hindus have a First Amendment right to build temples in America?

From a constitutional point of view, Bryan, do you believe that Jews have a First Amendment right to build synagogues in America?

From a constitutional point of view, Bryan, do you believe that Mormons have a First Amendment right to build temples in America?

From a constitutional point of view, Bryan, do you believe that Catholics have a First Amendment right to build churches in America?

Who do you actually include under the Constitution, Bryan?  Who gets those “inalienable rights” inherently, and who is merely “privileged” to be granted tolerance?

Which Constitution are you actually reading, Bryan?

They have that privilege at the moment,…

You’re a real sweetheart, Bryan.

… but it is a privilege that can be revoked if, as is in fact the case, Islam is a totalitarian ideology dedicated to the destruction of the United States.

Which sounds like they not only have no inherent rights as part of “we the people,” but are, in fact, not deserving of the “privilege” they have been so graciously (or, perhaps you would say, stupidly) been granted by their dupes in government.

What other rights don’t Muslims get in your world, Bryan?  Freedom of speech?  Fair and speedy trial?  Protection from self-incrimination?  Protection from unreasonable search and seizure?  Protection from cruel and unusual punishment?

I am reminded of those who believe that Jews are out to control the world. Are they protected by the Constitution, Bryan, or only graciously granted “privileges” by a duped government?

How about those Catholics, Bryan — you know, the not-really-Christian idolators, the ones whose first loyalty is to the Pope and the Vatican, those idolators and indulgence-peddlers and Jesuitical fiends and all that jazz.  Are they protected by the Constitution, Bryan, or only graciously granted “privileges” by a duped government?

The Constitution, it bears repeating, is not a suicide pact.

Yes, you keep repeating that.  Yet, somehow, it’s magically a protection for anything believed by your brand of conservative Christianity.

For Muslims, patriotism is not the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the First Amendment is.

Ah. all Muslims are scoundrels.  Sweet.

As Joseph Story, a long-serving Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said:

“Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation…

Well, not quite universal.  Several of the Founders (Jefferson, Madison, Adams, perhaps Washington, come to mind) would have been fine with that.

“The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.”

Yup, that was certainly one of the motivations.  Yet, at the in the same essay, Story also writes:

It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject. […] Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions; and the Catholic and Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.

Except by you, Bryan, of course.

Story, writing as a constitutional historian, is quite clear. The purpose of the First Amendment was not “to advance Mohametanism” but to “exclude all rivalry among Christian sects.”

… and to allow even “the Jew and the Infidel” to “sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.”

Sounds damned suicidal and un-American to me, Bryan.  What do you think?