by Mike Gray
In writing about a pending court decision in Ohio (this was eight years ago), Thomas L. Krannawitter at the Claremont Institute analyzed the larger issues dwarfing the proximate one of allocating tax monies for vouchers:
According to the ACLU, the government — that is, the people acting in their public capacity — must avoid practicing, teaching, or supporting religious or moral views of any kind. In its defense, the ACLU claims to be standing by the Constitution. It insists nothing less is required by the Establishment Clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion …”).
Earlier Americans understood that an official national religion is politically dangerous, which is why the First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing one. But the Establishment Clause was never intended to prohibit government from promoting religion and morality. Contrary to the ACLU, the men who framed and ratified the Constitution and Bill of Rights rightly believed political freedom and good government require moral citizens capable of governing themselves. And they thought religion a powerful means of moral education that ought to be promoted by government.
[Personal comment: In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Nancy and Harry wanted to hold a revival meeting (snake handlers optional) in a joint session of Congress, there’s nothing in the Constitution prohibiting it. But I digress.]
Krannawitter obviously holds the ACLU in low regard:
The ACLU clings to its twisted, almost laughable interpretation of the First Amendment because of its devotion to a radical new theory about human beings, the theory of modern liberalism. According to this new view, human freedom means doing whatever feels good, with little regard to the distinction between right and wrong. Right and wrong mean whatever we want them to mean — which means right and wrong cease to have much meaning.
Religion is intrinsically moral. In light of modern liberalism, therefore, religion is nothing but an antiquated restriction of freedom. This explains the ACLU’s historically unsupportable position that “the Constitution commands that public schools may not take sides in matters of religion and may not endorse … any religion at all.”
Krannawitter’s 2002 article (“The ACLU’s Assault on Religion and Morality”) has been archived at the Claremont Institute.
