Article on Paul Cameron:

Brayton tipped me off to this article about Paul Cameron. It's quite good. He is still disseminating false and misleading information about gays in the form of schlock studies. No reputable peer reviewed journals will publish his work so he finds some penny-ante journals or groups with legitimate sounding names (such as "American College of Pediatricians" and "Psychological Reports") but who in reality are the equivalent of what mail-order degree colleges are to real colleges. And gullible members of the religious right then cite his work as if they have "real ammo" against gays.

It boggles the mind. Cite Kinsey and many religious conservatives will shriek about the problems with his work, but then they will suggest replacing Kinsey's work with the "research" of Paul Cameron and Judith Reisman. As I have said, this reminds me of what Jesus said about being concerned with the mote in your neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in your own!

My favorite part of the article:

Cameron's work is controversial even among conservative groups. For example, the Traditional Values Coalition claims to speak for 43,000 churches. For three years, the coalition has quoted Cameron's studies on its website in an article headlined, "Report Shows Homosexual Foster Parents Apt To Molest Children," and has told its membership to "read and distribute Dr. Cameron's report."

But when The Boston Globe asked the Traditional Values Coalition last week about Cameron, the group responded within minutes by removing all references to Cameron from its website. The group's spokeswoman, Daniella Lopez, said Cameron's research had been "mistakenly" put on the website. She would not say why the group thought it was a mistake to publicize Cameron's research.

Linked:

Thanks to Rick Garnett over at Mirror of Justice for the link to my essay post (responding to a post of his) on liberal democracy endorsing the *right* kind of religion.

What kind of religion ought to support liberal democratic government?

Rick Garnett has a pretty profound post on government endorsing the “proper kind of religion.” His post illustrates two competing schools on religion and government in the Enlightenment thought that founded America. On the one hand we have Madison’s ideal view that government in no way should ever take cognizance of religion, a very high and lofty ideal, one in which Madison, as a public official did not always live up to. On the other hand, we have the view posited by Washington and Adams, arguably a more dominant view than Madison’s, that because religion is important for virtue and keeping the civil order, government can be more involved in promoting religion in general, so long as government endorses “the right kind” of religion.

Here is Garnett:

On the one hand, it seems hard to deny that liberal governments have a strong interest in the content and development of religious traditions and doctrines. (I wrote an article about this interest a few years ago). In fact, it seems to me that liberal governments have an interest in convincing people -- whether they belong to the religion in question or not -- that the religion in question really teaches in accord with liberal values. After all, religion matters to many people, and it shapes the citizens on whose judgment democratic governments purport to rely. It is better, then, that religions inculcate some values, commitments, and loyalties rather than others. As I wrote in my article,"Governments like ours are not and cannot be 'neutral' with respect to religion’s claims and content. [T]he content, meaning, and implications of religious doctrine are and have long been the subjects of government power and policy. Secular, liberal, democratic governments like ours not only take cognizance of, but also and in many ways seek to assimilate—that is, to transform—religion and religious teaching." On the other hand, there's the longstanding maxim that governments like ours should not -- and perhaps even may not -- take "cognizance" of religion, or "entangle" themselves with religion.

The context of Garnett’s post is the claim that we commonly hear from Western pols like Bush and Blair that Islamo-theocracy (Bin Laden et al.) does not represent, “the real Islam.”

Our founders dealt with a similar “religious problem.” On the one hand many versions of Christianity were quite illiberal and did not believe in tolerating the other sects. But as many of our Founders argued, Christianity, “properly understood” was perfectly compatible, complementary even with our liberal democratic order. And according to Adams, Washington et al., if government should be in the business of taking sides and supporting one religious view over another (but while never denying the basic free exercise rights and equal government privileges to any sect, no matter how illiberal), it should promote this “right kind” of Christianity.

But this is not necessary “good news” for the religious right – the “Christian Nation” crowd – because arguably, their kind of Christianity is not “Christianity, properly understood.” In other words, they may be better off endorsing the Madisonian-Jeffersonian view of complete Separation, or government doing its best to never involve itself with religion in any way.

Interestingly, when the “Christian Nation” crowd offers their “proof quotes,” often they cite an out of context quote by a founder talking up religion in general or Christianity in particular. But as the deeper context reveals, our Founders don’t assert that our public order is based on fundamentalism or revelation, but rather “the right kind” of Christianity – one consistent with and complementary towards the Enlightenment teachings which truly found our public order. For instance, this quote by John Adams (from a letter to Jefferson, dated June 28, 1813) is commonly cited by the “Christian Nation” crowd:

“The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were...the general principles of Christianity….”

But what we don’t see is what Adams goes on to say:

Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System. I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present Information, that I believed they would never make Discoveries in contradiction to these general Principles. In favour of these general Principles in Phylosophy, Religion and Government, I could fill Sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Reausseau and Voltaire, as well as Neuton and Locke: not to mention thousands of Divines and Philosophers of inferiour Fame.

In other words, these “general principles of Christianity” are completely consistent with and affirm the teachings of Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Newton, Hume, Rousseau, and Voltaire.

Anyone interested in what our Founders, particularly Jefferson and Adams, really thought about religion must read Jefferson's and Adams's correspondence with one another. You will see that they did not believe what came from the Calvinist, fundamentalist clerics of the founding era was “Christianity, properly understood.” Don’t get me wrong, they believed that all Christian sects, no matter how illiberal and irrational their teachings, should be guaranteed basic free exercise rights and equal access to government privileges. John Adams's quote (again in correspondence with Jefferson) on the Roman Catholic Church is quite apt:

I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits.... Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola's. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.

Roman Catholicism, along with Trinitarian Calvinistic Christianity (which was far more dominant in American than Catholicism) were two illiberal forms of Christianity in which our key founders arguably did not think good for society or should receive support from government. In other words, this was not the type of Christianity to which our founders referred when they talked up religion in general or Christianity in particular.

Therefore, I completely disagree with Thomas West when he writes:

First, it is a good rule of historical interpretation to distinguish between the private thoughts of a man and his public works. Jefferson believed a great many things that never found their way into his public life. His private rants against priests, Calvinists, and some of the more obscure doctrines of Christian faith tell us very little about the principles of the founding or even of Jefferson's own public actions.

The “private thoughts” of Jefferson to which West primarily refers are taken mainly from his correspondence with Adams, and some others. Jefferson’s and Adams’s correspondence with one another were not some obscure rants, but rather explications of their ideals which they intended to be absorbed by future generations. They privately wrote things that they could not publicly utter, given the historical context of the times in which they lived. Jefferson was nearly ruined as a public man for his public candor on religion, and Paine was absolutely ruined for his.

And that historical context guaranteed a “public life” that in many ways failed to live up to the philosophical ideals of our founding principles.

Therefore, the “private thoughts” of Jefferson, Adams, et al., arguably shed more light on the “principles of the founding” than their actions in public life. For instance, our Founders, as public officials, preserved the legality of slavery when founding this nation, even though in their private writings and thoughts, they excoriated the institution and knew it violated natural right.

So when Jefferson and Adams railed against Roman Catholicism and Calvinistic Christianity, they were stating, quite frankly, that these sects did not represent “Christianity, properly understood,” that they were not the types of Christianity that provided the good support that government needed from religion.

Jefferson went so far as to state (to Adams) that Calvin’s god was a “false god,” “a daemon of malignant spirit” and that “his religion was Daemonism.” Jefferson even held that, "It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin."Adams similarly wrote to Jefferson that “The Calvinist, the Athanasian divines [Trinitarian Christians]... will say I am no Christian. I say they are no Christians, and there the account is balanced.”

As Mark Lilla wrote in the NYT, the type of Christianity that our Founders endorsed – the one in which they desired to dominate the citizenry’s religious conscience – was one that was far more “sober and rational” than the Calvinistic fundamentalism that was quite influential in the day (as it is today).

Jefferson’s and Adams's understanding of Christianity was a far more benevolent version than what we see coming from today’s fundies. When Jefferson spoke of an America “enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them including honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence," he certainly was not referring to the Calvinistic fundamentalist versions of Christianity which he and Adams personally loathed, but rather those attributes of Christianity that complemented the Enlightenment values in which he believed. Jefferson’s ideal version of Christianity was theologically Unitarian, denied the doctrine of eternal damnation, and held man’s reason – as opposed to Biblical revelation – to be the ultimate arbiter of what is Truth. Moreover, Jefferson’s and Adams's ideal Christianity had no qualms about rejecting traditional, orthodox Christian doctrines, or cutting out entire parts of the Bible which did not comport with notions of “reason” or otherwise represented “defective” or “doubtful” accounts of history.

Is this the kind of Christianity which the religious right endorses? I don’t think so. If we can properly call Jefferson’s and Adams's personal beliefs “Christian,” then they are closer to the “Cafeteria Christianity” of today that uses reason and contemporary notions of morality – as opposed to literal accounts recorded in the Bible – to decide the ultimate nature of morality and Truth.

So – to tie things back to Garnett’s original point – are religious conservatives better off with Adams's notion of an accommodation between liberal government and the right kind of religion or Madison’s notion of government that may not, of right, take cognizance of religion? Arguably, they are better off with Madison’s version of strict separation. If government is in the business of deciding what is the proper kind of religion that liberal government should endorse, in many circumstances government will endorse a version of Christianity that contradicts the tenets of Christian fundamentalism. If as Garnett notes, “liberal governments have an interest in convincing people -- whether they belong to the religion in question or not -- that the religion in question really teaches in accord with liberal values…” then perhaps government has an interest in endorsing that Christianity, properly understood, teaches that homosexuality is not a sin, and that God made gay people as gays and wants Christian churches to marry them. After all, some Christian Churches really do teach this. And doesn’t this represent the cutting edge of contemporary “liberal values?”

If the religious right fully understood the implications of Adams's notion of government endorsing “the right kind” of Christianity, they’d probably jump on board with the ALCU in calling for a complete “Separation of Church and State.”

There he goes again....

Here is a new article by D. James Kennedy, featured by of course WorldNutDaily, on our Christian Nation founding.

Kennedy is promoting his special on the matter that airs this weekend on The Coral Ridge Hour, and in August, nationally on different "secular" stations.

Note that Kennedy goes far beyond the mere (legitimate) argument that modern court Establishment Clause cases or the ACLU's ideal vision of Separation of Church & State are not consistent with original intent. Rather Kennedy argues that America was founded to be a "Christian Nation" in a public/governmental sense (the exact opposite of what the Treaty of Tripoli states), and that the principles that found our public order -- those in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence -- are taken straight from the Bible. Anyone familiar with the real history of our Founding knows this to be utter nonsense.

I've dealt with Kennedy and his nonsense on my blog here, here, here and here. And look for an essay refuting his weekend special next week on this blog.

Kinsey: Who is the Real Fraud?

Check out this post by our own Ed Brayton about Judith Reisman and her latest hair-brained idea.

Reisman, if you do not know, is probably the most vocal critic of Alfred Kinsey. It's a mantra among many religious conservatives that Kinsey's studies are flawed, if not complete junk. I'm completely open minded to fair criticisms of Kinsey (for instance, I don't think that a full 10% of society are gay; though I'm not sure if Kinsey claimed that either).

But when you look at most (nearly all?) criticisms of Kinsey from social and religious conservatives, they inevitably seem to rely on Reisman's work as a primary source. The problem is that her work is inherently incredible. She's a complete wacko and a crank. Whatever the problems with Kinsey's work, I guarantee you the problems with her work are far worse. Criticizing Kinsey by relying on Reisman's work...it reminds me of what Jesus said about being concerned with the mote in your neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in your own.

So how bad is Reisman's work? Check out this link that Aaron left in the comments section at Dispatches.

Change, Courts & Legislatures

Earlier on my site I noted a theory by Mark Tushnet, a lefty-law professor at Georgetown University (and Eve's Dad), where he seems to side with Bork, Graglia and the hard right, arguing that judicial review should be abolished and questions of ultimate constitutionality should be left with legislatures. But, ironically, he argues that this move would be good for the progressive left's political interests.

Tushnet's stance flies in the face of the commonly accepted wisdom of the hard right that it is the courts who are the agents of the Left's policies, and of cultural change.

Another distinguished lefty-law professor, Columbia's Jeremy Waldron, more or less supports Tushnet's point of view. He notes that in many other Western nations (most?) such controversial policy issues -- the cultural issues and the more liberal stance that Western nations have taken towards them in modern history -- have been decided by legislatures.

The British legalized abortion, prostitution, and homosexuality and abolished capital punishment, all by legislation, all without the assistance of the judiciary -- or sometimes over its expressed opposition -- in the 1960s.

I think what we need to keep in mind is, despite our differences on which we tend to overly focus, America is a Western nation and Western nations are all specifically different forms of the generic liberal democracy. It's not the courts that have come in hand-in-hand with the ACLU and foisted some subversive cultural agenda on America. Rather the cultural changes that have occurred in America in recent modernity -- things like abortion, homosexuality, sexual permissiveness, the end of racial privileges, gender equality -- are really just part and parcel of a larger pattern that we see running throughout all Western nations generally.

And in many of these nations, the legislatures (what the social cons love to refer to as "the will of the people") have gladly been the final arbiters in favor of such change. There is a myth among such members of the right that if we abolished judicial review and left everything up to the legislatures, we could take America back to the days of Leave it to Beaver. I don't think so.

Culturally and geographically, which nation is closest to the US? Why Canada. And gay marriage is coming to Canada, nationally. How did that happen? Well, it wasn't through a court decision. Now don't get me wrong. I have no problem with courts, through judicial review, striking down acts of legislatures in order to protect minority liberty and equality interests. I'm simply writing this to refute what I see as the ridiculous notion that the courts are to blame for delivering to us a culturally liberal social policy.

Scalia & Monotheism:

I'm glad Sandefur brought up Scalia's dissent in McCreary v. ACLU. I think Scalia was actually onto something but ultimately missed, getting it only half-right. Scalia looked to the acknowledgments of a generic, undefined Deity that our early Founder/Presidents made in their public statements and concluded (wrongly) that they were drawing a lowest common denominator between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, all of which as Abrahamic religions believe that God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses.

This is wrong for a number of reasons, primarily because back then Jews and Muslims (and Catholics) were, for the most part, put into the same box with Hindoos, Pagans and Infidels. Some of our Founders -- the most important ones -- wanted to grant rights of conscience universally to all. Others probably wanted such rights to belong only to the Protestant sects.

What those Founder-Presidents of whom Scalia referenced were actually doing was drawing a lowest common denominator between orthodox Christianity (which was probably dominant among the population) and the Deistic-unitarian philosophy in which each of them -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison -- believed.

Therefore they spoke of an undefined generic, monotheistic, rights-granting Deity. He could be the trinitarian God of the Bible or the very unorthodox, non-miracle performing unitarian God in which they believed. But if we had to form a LCD God out of that, we wouldn't conclude that He was the God who revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses because that was something of which these Deistic-unitarian Founders were highly skeptical.

I made a similar post in more detail, here.

Major Update:

Ed Brayton, Timothy Sandefur, Jason Kuznicki, and I have agreed to do a group blog. Jason's Positive Liberty is going to be transformed into our group blog. I think the name will remain the same (I'm not entirely sure yet). I plan on continuing to post here; but I haven't yet decided whether to turn this into more of a personal blog or to cross-post everything.

I am happy for this opportunity to be formally associated with such distinguished fellows. And I am sure, because of our consolidated effort, my ideas will be disseminated to a far wider audience.

Anyway, check it out.

Ozzy v. McCartney:

Why has Ozzy Osbourne, in the long run, produced consistently better material than Paul McCartney? This question is especially ironic given that McCartney is a better musician and has a creative genius that Ozzy could never approach. Also, Ozzy counts Paul as a seminal influence. Well, it's precisely because Ozzy is not the creative talent that McCartney is that Osbourne has produced better material.

There is an interesting observable pattern among many great songwriters: They only have so many good songs in them and at some point dry up and start putting out bad or mediocre material. This is arguably more of a rule than an exception. And the exceptions are few; Elton John may be one. Neil Young too. Perhaps Bob Dylan, but given that Dylan's voice has deteriorated so badly I really can't judge whether some of his recent material is good or not because I don't have much of an interest in listening to it. McCartney however is typical of the many figures of a bygone era whose greatest material is long past. Think about how great the second half of Abbey Road was, how great it would be if Paul could churn out an Abbey Road every four years or so.

Ozzy Osbourne on the other hand, I don't think ever wrote an entire song by himself. And there are many songs in which he didn't write at all but still received a co-writer credit. He has, to his credit, legitimately co-written many good songs, but needs to collaborate with better musicians who can fully develop his ideas. And if an artist -- especially a big name -- always relies on other talented songwriters for his material, then he can pretty much assure not running out of good material. You do need an ear for good songs and Ozzy has that.

I think Frank Sinatra too primarily relied on others for his material. I distinctly remember Simon from American Idol talking about this phenomenon on Bill O'Reilly. They didn't mention Ozzy, but rather Sinatra; I thought to myself this describes Ozzy to a "T."

All in all, Ozzy has produced good music, sometimes great, over the long run. While not a great singer in a technical sense, you don't need to be a great singer to rock, just have a cool sounding voice, be able to carry a tune (no one wants to listen to someone who can't hit the right notes) and be able to put a lot of emotion into it. And Ozzy can do that. More importantly, Ozzy has always surrounded himself with great musicians and great writers. First with Black Sabbath where Tony Iommi (guitar) and Geezer Butler (bass) were the primary songwriters. And then with many greats in his solo career.

Right off the bat after being kicked out of Black Sabbath, Ozzy assembled a studio team of phenomenal musicians and writers for his first two solo albums (metal classics). The late great Randy Rhodes on guitar, Lee Kerslake on drums, Bob Daisley on bass, and Don Airey on keys. And yes, Rhodes, Daisley, Airey, and Kerslake were responsible for writing most of that material.

Now he plays with Zakk Wylde on guitar, another phenom on guitar. Ozzy and Sharon really do have a talent for picking the right people to prop Ozzy up and that's probably why he's been so successful in his solo career.

Some interesting occurrences over the years: His relationship with Daisley, Kerslake and Airey didn't last long. They were Class A musicians and felt short shrifted in terms of their contributions and Ozzy taking the credit. They split acrimoniously and Daisley and Kerslake sued Ozzy for unpaid royalties.

So when it came time to remastering those two classic albums, Ozzy had Kerslake's and Daisley's drum and bass tracks removed and replayed and rerecorded by his current musicians. This was a shitty thing to do. He essentially ruined the CDs and screwed Daisley and Kerslake who, creatively, were every bit as important to those albums as he. It also prompted a class action lawsuit. (See Daisley talking about it, part 5).

Currently Bob Daisley, Lee Kerslake and Don Airey are playing in a band, Living Loud, with guitar great (my favorite) Steve Morse, and Austrian singer Jimmy Barnes, of whom I've never heard until now, but apparently is pretty big in Australia.

I'd like to get their DVD and CD but they are only available through Australia and payable in Australian dollars. I think I'll wait till Jan 06, which is the expected release date of their stuff in America on EMI/Capital.

Many of the tunes they do are straight from those two Ozzy CDs, and this is understandable given how much Airey, Daisley and Kerslake contributed to the writing of those songs. For me, I can't wait to hear Steve Morse's interpretation of those Randy Rhodes guitar parts.

The Living Loud website has some brief audio and video clips.

The Evil of Islamofascism:

It can be summed up in this story and pic. We really need to put Islam through an Enlightenment, whether it be done by force or persuasion.

Taking the Constitution away from the Courts:

My Dad once observed that the extreme left and the extreme right sometimes go so far to the extreme that they meet and agree on a number of points. This notion, posited by Mark Tushnet, law professor at Georgetown University, and who is pretty far to the left, may be one such example. Like Robert Bork, he's for abolishing judicial review -- Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts as he puts it -- and leaving ultimate questions of constitutionality up to the legislatures.

Of course I think this is a terrible idea...but, as Tushnet demonstrates, there are good reasons why "Progressives" might support such an idea. Many progressive gains (arguably more of the economic gains, than the cultural ones) have been made by the legislatures.

The democratic belief in the people's judgment is confirmed by the important legislative achievements of modern democracy. One T-shirt sold after the 2004 election listed what the Democratic Party has accomplished: "Equal Pay. Equal Rights. 40 Hour Work Week. Social Security. Medicare. Clean Water. Clean Air. Safe Food. Freedom of Speech. Voting Rights." All but the last two were achieved primarily through legislation, and some-the social welfare achievements of the modern state-had little connection to the Supreme Court, except when it obstructed them.

Also, if the Court becomes more in sync with the original meaning of the Commerce Clause and the Constitution's doctrine of enumerated powers, many of these progressive gains are ripe to be struck down by an active albeit originalist Court.

Ha, I love it:

This post from Positive Liberty.

The Perfect Souter:

Giving my obligatory 2 cents on the John Roberts matter, I think he may turn out to be for Bush II what Bush I hoped Souter to be. Roberts not only has perfect credentials for the position, but he is also a "stealth candidate" in that he, as far as we know, has never spoken in his own voice on any controversial constitutional issues. Thus, he hasn't produced any rope with which the other side can use to hang him.

After he is confirmed, I have the feeling that he will be a pretty solid conservative on the bench; certainly I think he will be anti-Roe v. Wade (his wife was Executive VP of this group).

BTW: I'm more concerned with the Griswold line of privacy/liberty cases in general than Roe in particular. Abortion deals with the moral question of whether and when a fetus is a human being with civil rights, and obviously government has a legitimate interest in protecting the life of innocent human beings.

Lawrence and Griswold, on the other hand, deal with what consenting adults do behind closed doors. And that certainly is none of government's business and proscribing such is not a legitimate function of government.

I give an exercise to my Business Law students every semester on Roe and Casey and I can attest that many ordinary, average folks don't understand these cases; they think that if Roe were overruled, automatically all abortions would be illegal. No, it just means that states would decide the issue and certainly many states would indeed illegalize abortion (Alabama, and a few other southern and Midwestern states). But many states, particularly in the Northeast, would retain the legality of abortion. If someone from one of the illegal states were really desperate for an abortion, all they'd have to do is travel to one of the many states, like NJ, Mass, Conn., where abortion would remain legal.

Finally, I'm not saying that I'm in favor of overturning Roe or Casey; I'm just noting that if Roe were overturned, it wouldn't mean the end of all abortions in the US and that in many states, probably most, abortion would remain legal.

Holy Trinity Case and Ten Years:

An anonymous commenter did some research and made this point regarding D. James Kennedy's assertion that the Supreme Court spent ten years researching the Holy Trinity decision to come to the conclusion that "America is a Christian Nation."

If the Supreme Court spent 10 years researching this issue, it wasn't in connection with this case. The first paragraph of the court's opinion states that Holy Trinty and Walpole entered into the contract in Sept. 1887. The Supreme Court issued its opinion on Feb. 29, 1892. Thus, less than 5 years passed from the time of the contract until the court issued this opinion.

In the last sentence of the first paragraph, the court cites the decision of the Circuit Court (36 Fed. Rep. 303) that was appealed to the Supreme Court. The Circuit Court's opinion was issued on March 21, 1888. The appeal to the Supreme Court would have been filed after that date, so the Supreme Court's decision was issued slightly less than 4 years later.

Finally, according to the opinion of the Circuit Court, the statute in question was enacted on Feb. 26, 1885, only 7 years before to the Supreme Court's decision.

If somebody spent 10 years of meticulous research on this question, it wasn't the Supreme Court.

Yes, and also keep in mind that the "America is a Christian Nation" utterance by Justice Brewer was simply dicta, not the issue in the case which the Court decided. It doesn't really make sense that the Court researches for ten years to make a rhetorical point in its dicta. So I guess Kennedy, like David Barton whom he often cites, is full of it.

Linked:

Thanks to Julian Sanchez of Reason's Hit and Run for linking to my post on The Question and the Justice League Unlimited TV series.

Also check out Dan Quattrone's post from Doing Things With Words on the same issue.

Holy Trinity Decision:

Another favorite of Jim Kennedy and the "Christian Nation" crowd is the 1892 Holy Trinity decision in which Justice Brewer declared "this is a Christian nation." The first way in which Kennedy misrepresents this case (he's done so in a number of his sermons and will likely do so again in his forthcoming special) is that he acts as though whether America is a "Christian Nation" was the matter in legal dispute in that case; it wasn't.

This link provides a good summary of the specific issues involved:

The facts of Holy Trinity concerned the application of an Act of Congress titled "An act to prohibit the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor in the United States, its Territories and the District of Columbia." Holy Trinity Church, a church located in the city of New York, contracted with a minister in England to perform services as rector and pastor at its church. At issue in the case was whether or not the church's action violated the Act which prohibited "any person, company, partnership, or corporation ... to assist or encourage the importation or migration of any alien ... under contract or agreement ... to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States."

The holding of Holy Trinity was based on an interpretation of the purpose of the Act. The Court concluded that the purpose of the Act was to prohibit the importation of foreign unskilled persons to perform manual labor and manual services. A christian minister, the Court reasoned, is a "toiler of the brain," not a manual laborer; Holy Trinity Church, therefore, was found not to have violated the Act when it secured a contract for the holy man's employment.

That, and not "America is a Christian Nation" is the holding of the case. The "Christian Nation" quote was just dicta.

And keep in mind that Supreme Court dicta is just that; it isn't the immutable Truth. If it were then we'd also have to say that Justice Kennedy's (no relation to D. James I presume) dicta in Lawrence is also the Gospel Truth.

More importantly, I'd like to get to the bottom of D. James Kennedy's assertion that the Court spent ten years researching the case. From what we know about the case already, Kennedy is misleading the public: Kennedy asserts that the court spent ten years of meticulous research, going over document by document, in order to conclude that "America is a Christian Nation." But that can't be true because even if they did spend ten years pouring over documents, as we've already learned, whether America was founded as a Christian Nation wasn't at issue in the case; they would actually have been spending all of that time in order to answer "whether or not the church's action violated the Act which prohibited 'any person, company, partnership, or corporation ... to assist or encourage the importation or migration of any alien ... under contract or agreement ... to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States.'"

But even still I strongly doubt that they spent ten years on the matter. It smells a like a phony David Barton fact. Or if they did, there likely is some context behind all of this that hasn't been divulged. Can any of my readers shed light on this?

Luthor is Luthor:



Justice League Unlimited on the Cartoon Network just keeps getting better. I think the main reason is that they get writers from the comic book industry who, for the most part, stay true to the original characters and attempt to integrate what's best about the comics into the series.

Alan Moore and Frank Miller changed the landscape of comics by injecting some postmodern realism into the mix. For instance, if there really were heroes who were that powerful, do you think everything would be just hunky-dory between them and the governments, especially the superpowers like the US?

And that is one of the themes that they've been playing upon this season. They've also been using many other of the DC Universe's characters. They've made especially good use of the "Charlton" heroes, (those characters which were created by Charlton Comics, were subsequently bought by DC and integrated into the DC Universe).

Steve Ditko, a Randite, created two characters -- The Question and Mr. A -- as Rand inspired superhereos (arguably, these two are the same character, just variations on a theme).

Alan Moore, when he did his groundbreaking Watchmen actually had the Charlton characters in mind. But DC (who published both Watchmen and owns the Charlton characters) wouldn't let him use the characters because they were then integrating them into regular DC continuity after the Crisis on Infinite Earths. So he changed them; Captain Atom became Dr. Manhattan; Blue Beetle became Nightowl, and The Question/Mr. A became Rorschach.

Rorschach was still portrayed as having far-right (near anarchist) politics; but Moore made him into more of a John-Birch type crackpot than a Randite. Recently Frank Miller featured The Question prominently in his sequel to The Dark Knight Returns (not as good as the first, but still worth the read) at his Rand-quoting finest.

Anyway Justice League Unlimited is doing a great job of presenting a Miller/Moore inspired Question. He quotes Ayn Rand, and is also a right-wing conspiracy buff. From their episode "Question Authority," The Question actually gives the "A is A" speech to Lex Luthor.

The Question: Everything that exists has a specific nature. Each entity exists as something in particular and has characteristics that are part of what it is. A is A, and no matter what reality he calls home, Luthor is Luthor.

Great stuff.

Leiter outs Burton:

I obviously respect Brian Leiter's intelligence, academic accomplishments and prestigious place that he holds in the law & philosophy interdisciplinary field. As an academic myself, I'm clearly not in his league, and doubt I ever will be. That said, I don't too much care for the rhetorical style he uses on his blog and think, in the long run, it will hurt him by making him look like "the bad guy." (Unless he's trying to become the Ann Coulter [Leiter's fellow Michigan law alum] of the left-blogsphere).

Well something interesting has occurred with another alum of Leiter's: Steve Burton, a former friend and fellow student with Leiter in University of Michigan's PhD in philosophy program. Burton blogs at Right Reason, a conservative blog with a socially conservative bent.

You may remember when I linked to a piece by Ed Feser, one of their contributors, where he defended a Thomistic understanding of natural sex. Feser argued that natural sex is "procreative sex." Francis Beckwith, another RR contributor wondered if contracepted sex between married couples could be understood as "natural," to which Max Goss, editor of the site, responded, "no," because, "It would justify sodomy."

Anyway Burton wrote a post attacking Leiter's blogsphere conduct, Burton trying to give Leiter a taste of his own medicine by using an especially harsh and insulting tone. Leiter responded in the comments section by "outing" his former friend. And an interesting dialogue continued from there.

For my comments section: Was Leiter's outing justified?

More nonsense from Coral Ridge:

Another example of an article of theirs that distorts America's History.

This time their foil is Isaac Kramnick's and R. Laurence Moore's, The Godless Constitution, which by the way is an outstanding book written by two scholars from Cornell University who also happen to be two of the most distinguished scholars of founding era political philosophy.

The article starts off by noting the obvious fact that early colonial settlers were religious folk who explicitly founded colonial orders on the Christian religion. As on of their "scholars" puts it: "The colonists 'didn't come over with John Locke in hand,' said Lutz. 'They came over with the Bible in hand.'" Duh. That's because Locke wasn't born until 1632, years after the early colonial settlements.

And that speaks to the "newness" of the case of America's founding (the novus ordo seclorum). The political science upon which we were founded is oft-referred to as "the new science of man" (a term Michael McConnell used when I saw him speak at Princeton University). The central ideas upon which we were founded had not even been formulated when the colonies were first settled. It's true that the colonial settlers covenanted with the Christian God while founding their colonies; they also covenanted with the King of England under the doctrine of Divine Right of Kings! -- a doctrine explicitly refuted by the Declaration of Independence, America's true birth certificate.

What was unique about America's national founding by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is the way in which it clearly differed from the colonial foundings of the earlier era, which were theocratic "Biblical" foundings. Whereas the colonies explicitly covenanted with the Christian God (along with the "Christian King") in their charters, there was no such thing in the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Whereas the colonies mandated religious tests, most of them requiring belief in Protestant Trinitarian Christianity (in which our key founders disbelieved) in order to hold public office, Art. VI of the US Constitution declares, "but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

What about the political principles upon which we were founded? From where did they derive? The articles states:

Dr. Donald S. Lutz, a professor of political philosophy at the University of Houston, conducted a massive groundbreaking study in which he examined some 15,000 documents written during America's founding era. He and his research associate, Dr. Charles Hyneman, found that a third of the quotations in these documents were from the Bible. 'Deuteronomy is cited more than John Locke or anyone else,' said Lutz, who is featured on the upcoming Coral Ridge Hour special, One Nation Under God, which airs July 30 and 31.

If our founding public principles -- those found in the Declaration and the Constitution -- truly did come from the Bible, one would think that these two documents would reference such verses and chapters of scripture. In the earlier colonial era, many of the colonies (Massachusetts being the most notable case) incorporated much of the Bible in their civil codes and explicitly cited verses and chapters of scripture. But there are no such references in the Declaration or the Constitution.

I have no idea about Mr. Lutz's study; it's smells to me like a David Barton/ Paul Cameron schlock concoction, or at the very least it reaches a schlock conclusion. If one wanted ascertain the meaning of the Declaration and Constitution, the first place to look is the text of those documents. Not seeing any references to Christianity or the Bible in there, the next most logical place to look would be the Federalist Papers. So where the Declaration and the Constitution are relatively brief documents -- perhaps they didn't have the space to explain exactly where the principles originate -- the Federalist Papers are quite voluminous; they do explain in great detail from where our foundational principles come and cite sources. And if "political discourse was permeated with Biblical references" as Lutz argues, certainly, we'd see all of those citations to Deuteronomy in there. But guess what? They aren't in there either. They don't cite the Bible at all, but rather Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, Cicero. But supposedly, according to Kennedy, et al. we were founded (in a public/governmental sense) on "The Bible" not "The Enlightenment."

No one should deny the cultural influence of the Christian religion and the Bible on this nation. Even today, in our "secular" culture, many of the phrases used in our language derive in some way, back to the Bible. I would imagine that it was even more so back in the founding era. One can also imagine looking back to some of the documents and papers of the founding era and "finding" language that ultimately traces back to the Bible. And then drawing the unwarranted conclusion that our principles of political philosophy derive from the Bible. We see these same folks doing the exact same thing with the phrase "In the Year of Our Lord" in the Constitution (which was the customary way of stating the date back then, and to a large extent still is). That nominal, customary, religious reference in the Constitution magically transforms it into an entire document that was taken right out of the pages of the Bible. As Gary North says in his ebook, which despite its flaws, is closer to the Truth about our founding than what comes from the likes of Kennedy and Barton, "If this is the sole judicial basis of the Christian American national civil covenant, then the case for America as a Christian civil order rests on a very weak reed." Yes, a very weak reed indeed.

Sean Kinsell:

Thanks to Sean Kinsell and his discussion of my post on Japan and Relativism.

He knows more about Japan than I do. So it's nice to see his further elaborations and perspective.