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Tolerance and Intolerance
By William T. Barrante, Watertown
One of the hallmarks of American democracy is freedom of religion. The men who put the Constitution together in the late 1780s understood this very well. It was only 100 years after the last big religious conflict in Great Britain when James II, a secret Catholic, was forced from the throne and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Protestant husband, King William of the Netherlands. Several decades earlier there was the English Civil War, which was not only a political contest but a fight between High Church and Low Church. In 1648, the year before Charles I was beheaded, the Thirty Years War in Germany ended, a war between Protestants and Catholics. In the early 1700s, the British Parliament passed a law that, to this day, prohibits a Catholic from sitting on the British throne. That is one reason why Prince Charles was discouraged from marrying an Austrian princess.
The United States Constitution, in Article VI, provides that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to an Office or public Trust under the United States." In 1791, the First Amendment was added to the Constitution, and this prohibits Congress from establishing any church or penalizing people for their religious views. Religious tolerance is written into our Constitution.
This brings me to the June 26 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it contains the words ''under God." The California man who brought the suit is an atheist who did not want his daughter to have to listen to her second grade classmates say "under God" every morning in class. This man, believing he was protecting First Amendment values, actually was displaying the type of intolerance that violates our constitutional principles. His daughter was not required to recite the Pledge. In 1943 the Supreme Court secured her freedom to remain silent while her teachers and classmates pledged their allegiance to our flag. Standing there silent would show tolerance of other people's views. But Mr. Atheist is intolerant. He does not believe in God, but being allowed to hold his own beliefs is not enough. He wants to make sure that nobody else is allowed to indicate a belief in God in the presence of his daughter. After all, she might start wondering and perhaps start thinking for herself.
Perhaps one or more of the classmates of this man's daughter like to say Grace before eating lunch in the school cafeteria. Should those children be disciplined because Mr. Atheist's daughter might hear them? If Mr. Atheist's daughter coughs, should the teacher or a classmate be prohibited from saying, "God bless you"? How does Mr. Atheist think he is promoting tolerance by trying to stamp on the religious freedom and free speech rights of other people?
Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools is not a religious ceremony. It is a patriotic ceremony. The insertion of "under God" into the Pledge may teach children that, unlike the Nazi swastika, the Stars and Stripes are not a symbol of the highest authority in the universe. It is more than coincidental that Communist regimes are atheistic and that fascist regimes order churches under their jurisdiction to stay in line or else.
One of the great things about living in the United States is that religious groups are not afraid to take part in our politics. The anti-slavery movement, led by Quakers and pastors like Lyman Beecher, had a religious foundation. In the last century, the civil rights movement was led by preachers. Many leaders of the anti-war movement with respect to Vietnam were members of the clergy.
Mr. Atheist should recall a statement made more than a century ago by the Russian novelist Dostoevski, that without God, everything is allowed. And this "everything" includes the Nazi gas chambers, the Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.
Tolerance is not keeping your mouth shut. It's allowing other people to open theirs.
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