U.S. and Christianityby William Edelen
The Treaty of Tripoli, signed when George Washington was President, begins article XI with these words: "The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." President Washington approved it, and this treaty was ratified by the Senate in 1797 without a single objection. By the time it reached the Senate for ratification John Adams was President, and it was he who presented it to the Senate. President Adams confirmed the Senate's ratification in June 1797. John Adams, in his proclamation of the Treaty, said that he had "seen and considered the said Treaty and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, had agreed to accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof." This has appeared in all treaty collections since SESSION LAWS of the Fifth Congress (1797) and IN THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES, edited by Folwell (1799). Article VI of the United States Constitution made this treaty doubly binding by saying "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." This is a basic document for the American doctrine of the separation of church and state, and it would be good for us all to remember that, now that many candidates favoring church-state mingling have been elected to Congress. We also should remember, when the religious and political "right" mangle history, that all of our major Founding Fathers, our first six Presidents, were Deist and Humanist and passionate in their determination to keep a giant wall of separation between church and state. In 1993, Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition said that "separation of church and state is a lie of the left and the liberals." Either Robertson is religiously and historically illiterate, or worse, does not have an ounce of honesty, integrity or truth in his system of values. There was an Edward Sorel cartoon a number of years ago in The Village Voice making fun of Billy Graham's illiteracy. The cartoon has a protagonist addressing Billy Graham in these words: "Er . . . I'm afraid I have . . . er . . . some disturbing news for you, Billy. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Paine and most of the other signers were either deists, agnostics, or atheists, which explains why we don't find any mention of God in our Constitution." You could substitute the name of Pat Robertson for Billy Graham and use the same cartoon today. I promised several columns ago that I would suggest reading for those who may want to pursue this subject in greater depth. Here's the list:
Well, that should be enough for some light reading, don't you think? The next time you hear or read from some fundamentalist that one of the goals on their agenda is "to defeat humanism," you can remind them that the authors of our Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence were all humanists. Then you can do one of three things: 1. Be embarrassed for them. 2, Feel sorry for them. 3. Or, let go with a giant, Buddha-like, belly laugh into the cosmos. William Edelen is a lecturer and radio talk show host on KPSL in the Palm Springs area .
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