A few days ago the Boston Globe ran an interesting article about a large meeting of lefty law professors, lawyers, and activists who gathered
>to imagine the day when Democrats and liberals emerge from the wilderness. The Yale confab, organized under the (optimistic) title ”The Constitution in 2020,” was sponsored by key elements in the not-so-vast left-wing conspiracy: the Yale Law School, the Center for American Progress, the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute, and the American Constitution Society (ACS), a fast-growing organization set up four years ago to counter the work of the influential Federalist Society, which has been at the forefront of the push for a more conservative judiciary since its launch in 1982.
What fun. The ambivalence on the left these days about the role of courts is interesting, and the whole article (which requires free registration) is worth reading. I was particularly struck by the following paragraph, towards the end:
William P. Marshall, a law professor at University of North Carolina, says conservatives may have had an easier time taking their ideas about the Constitution to a wider public ”because they appeal to majoritarian interests.” Yet Marshall believes there are ways for liberals to tap into the American attachment to pure constitutional principles such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Even in a nation with a vast majority telling pollsters they believe in God, he says, there are good reasons to argue that the First Amendment requires the separation of church and state. The Framers believed not in protecting the nation from religion, says Marshall, but in protecting religion from state intrusion – or from government favoritism of one religion over another. One of the ”talking points” Marshall recommends is to insist that keeping government disentangled from religion is not ”anti-religious.”
Long-time readers (at least ones with good memories) will not be surprised to hear that I agree with Prof. Marshall. Separation of church and state is not anti-religious (just as allowing religious activity in the public sphere is not pro-religious).
Now, if only Prof. Marshall and his lefty colleagues would agree that preventing governmental favoritism of one race over another is not anti-minority perhaps they too would have an easier time appealing to a public that, unlike lefty law professors, continues to believe in the core value of treating people without regard not only to their religion but also to their race and ethnicity.
I agree with the statement of Prof. Marshall as well. It’s interesting to note that this is the stance of the Catholic Church as well, as stated in the section on religious freedom of the Vatican II council. The Catholic Church states in there that separation of church and state is the best way to ensure the preservation of the church. It also notes that people must freely choose God and therefore must be free from state coercion.