Religious right targets church-state separation

PHILADELPHIA — Religious conservatives, emboldened by President Bush's re-election and confident of their political clout, are not interested in merely overhauling the judiciary. Ideally, they are seeking a judiciary that would remove the wall of separation between church and state.

This ambition is stated clearly in numerous legal briefs on file at the Supreme Court in connection with a pending case; they seek removal of "a Berlin wall" that is "out of step with this nation's religious heritage." Their leaders argue in interviews that the church-state barrier is a "myth" invented by the high court in 1947, thanks to a twisted interpretation of our founding documents.

Matthew Staver, a religious-right lawyer who recently argued a church-state case in front of the Supreme Court, said Friday, "The term 'separation of church and state' is an easy hook. People hear it, they think of the First Amendment. It's like the line 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,' and you think of Muhammad Ali.

"But there's no 'separation' phrase in the First Amendment. ... Interpreting it that way is laughable."

At the same time, he and others are eager to assure skeptical Americans that their dream of a barrier-free America is benign.

"No way I want America to head toward a theocracy," said Staver, who has ties to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. "I don't know anybody interested in that; it's not on our radar screen."

Yet their desire to breach the church-state wall — coupled with their incessant attacks on "liberal activist" judges and their success in prodding Republicans to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case — is sparking a backlash that threatens to sow new divisions. As Carlton Veazy, a Baptist leader in Washington, charged the other day, "We are being led to this theocracy by the Christian right, who will not stop until they take over the government."

Critics believe the church-state barrier is being breached already: A Justice Department guidebook on treating rape victims excised draft language that touted emergency contraception; Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., wants to enact a federal "conscience" law to protect pharmacists who refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions on moral grounds; and some Christian agencies may be using taxpayer money to proselytize and practice what critics call job discrimination.

One Christian program in northeastern Pennsylvania, financed by Bush's faith-based initiative, requires each worker to be "a believer in Christ and Christian life today" and has spent taxpayer money on construction of church property. The sponsoring Firm Foundation is being sued by six local residents who say they don't want government to promote Christianity with their taxes.

All told, there is a growing concern, even among conservative analysts, that the religious right's Republican allies might pay a political price for their collaboration. These analysts, for example, cite an April 14 remark by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who assailed the judiciary for trying "to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution."

Glenn Simpson, a Tennessee law professor who runs the conservative Instapundit blog, wrote recently: "The Republicans' weakness is that people worry that they're the party of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. They tried, successfully, to convince people otherwise in the last election, but they're now acting in ways that are giving those fears new life."

Those fears are reflected in the latest Gallup poll, which reports that, by a 2-to-1 ratio, Americans say that the religious right has too much influence on the Bush administration.

Christian leaders do expect fealty from the GOP.

"They feel that the political circumstances won't be this good again — a strongly conservative Congress, a religiously conservative president," said Mark Rozell, a George Mason University political analyst. "They've toiled for nearly 30 years, and the Republicans always said, 'Wait your turn.' They believe the time is now."

And that means it's time to convince Americans that Thomas Jefferson, in a famous 1802 letter, was not really trying to curb religion when he endorsed "building a wall of separation between church and state." The high court invoked the phrase when it formally erected the wall in 1947.

In legal briefs filed in a pending Supreme Court case on the posting of the Ten Commandments, religious-right groups note (accurately) that Jefferson's phrase appears nowhere in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution and that Jefferson wrote the phrase merely as a show of support for Connecticut's Baptists, who were upset that the state government was officially favoring the Congregationalists. Independent scholars say the religious right also is correct about this.

But the briefs don't mention 1786, when young Jefferson authored a Virginia law separating church from state. This law is cited on his grave, at his request.

"The religious right would love the court to say, 'We've been wrong since the '40s, so now you can do whatever you want,' " said Barry Lynn, who directs the Washington-based Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "Failing that, it'll push for 'theocracy lite' — to make sure that you're a second-class citizen if you have different beliefs."