Tuesday, March 31, 2020
The Establishment Clause in the 21st Century
This week for class, we read the Snyder v. Phelps case of 2011, concerning the picketing of military funerals done conducted by members of the Westboro Baptist Church. Specifically protesting the military's tolerance of homosexuality, members of the church held signs that read sentiments such as "Thank God for Dead Soldiers". The Supreme Court ruled that their speech was protected under the First Amendment because their statements "were on matters of public concern, were not provably false, and were expressed solely through hyperbolic rhetoric," (2011). As I did more research on this case, I found that both conservative and liberal Americans were angered by the result, especially in regard to Snyder's monetary gain, or rather, loss. While the Supreme Court first decided to award Snyder with 10.9 million dollars, the judge decided to reduce it down to 5 million. Later on, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that judgment, citing protection under the First Amendment. I will be the first to say that I am not an expert on how court cases get decided, but I find this puzzling. The Westboro Baptist Church had been protesting funerals for 20 years at the time of this case. Nine years ago, America was fairly polarized political climate. While it could be argued that the political climate is even more polarized today, it is difficult to find an issue that both the right and the left find problematic in 2011, keeping in mind the political climate under Obama's presidency. However, this court ruling was one that ideologists across the political spectrum disagreed with, which is something that stands out to me. I am left to wonder, why do church's have so much power in America? Part of the First Amendment is the Establishment Clause, ultimately outlining America's belief in the separation between church and state. Ultimately, this clause was included in the Bill of Rights to promote freedom of religion in the United States. On this, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison said that "compelling citizens to support through taxation a faith they did not follow violated their natural right to religious liberty." This sounds good on paper, but has this clause actually given churches more power within the political system? For instance, churches in the United States are tax exempt, meaning that the government provides financial benefit to religious institutions. In the 1970 case, Walz v. Tax Commission of City of New York, William Douglas concluded that the tax exemption of churches was unconstitutional. With these laws in place, cases like Snyder v. Phelps are complicated. Does the United States give too much power to churches? Do we truly value the separation between church and state? How can we hold churches accountable for the actions of the church members?
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I'm not too well-versed in the rights and abilities of churches in the US. However, I do know there is a lot of controversy and confusion currently (and that has been present for a long time) about what religious institutions are allowed to do and what they should be allowed to do. Part of the reason I believe this is such a controversial topic that has such a difficulty being approached, criticized, and changed is that religion and the freedom of religion is what our country was founded on. Thus, I believe this is why so many people have trouble being able to see its flaws. Either way you look at it, though, in this case in particular, I think it is apparent that there is something that needs to be looked at when people on both sides of the political spectrum find this case very troubling.
ReplyDeleteI agree 100% that the Court’s re-ruling of the Synder v Phelps case of 2011 is puzzling. However, I do not find it puzzling that both liberals and conservatives were both angered by the protesting of American soldier’s funerals. There are some topics that the larger population seems to band together on no matter what the political sphere, and respect for soldiers of any branch is one of those topics. As for your question of “Does the US give too much power to churches?” I would argue that the US does give Churches a little too much attention in the political world. Look at past Presidential candidates, in the beginning of the Presidential race there are many candidates that represent their religion or their Church and have the people backing them solely because of this fact. Not to be rude, but most of them do not make it far either. I think that our government tries to separate the politics from the laws but since the people who make the laws may be involved in religions too there is no perfect separation. There can never be a law saying “You may practice politics OR religion, but not both!” because that would be a violation of our rights. As for your last question, I really don’t know if we can hold the Churches responsible for the actions of their members. As you stated earlier, Churches are exempt from taxes and hold rights, therefore the government treats like any other organization in the eyes of the government. That whole part of politics can become really tricky to navigate. For example, if a priest is using his Catholic Church’s funds to pay for his protest of an abortion clinic, would the government punish the priest for leading or the Church for funding the priest? Like I said, it’s tricky.
ReplyDeleteI would say that no, we do not have a separation of Church and State here in the USA, and I think it played a large part in this court case. But I think one of the main issues here is not necessarily the fact that we don't observe this separation but claim to have it, but rather the fact that people can seemingly say whatever they want on public property. That was one of the main reasons that this court ruled in favor of the WBC, was due to the fact that they were on public property. There are a lot of issues surrounding the use of sidewalks/ public property when it comes to specific organizations spouting hate speech. For example, every semester here at BSU there is also a "hate preacher" that pops up either by Bracken or by the scramble light with the same messages as the WBC. I have heard from so many students that seeing this person causes a lot of anxiety and emotional distress to them (particularly queer students), but since the preacher is on the sidewalk they are allowed to be there. In accordance to what we read from Mill at the beginning of the semester, the preacher seems to be causing harm towards others with his freedom of speech, but he is not limited. I guess this is all to say that I find "being on public property" a really flimsy loophole in issues regarding freedom of speech, especially in the Snyder v Phelps case, and while I realistically know that not much can be done to change it, I wish there was.
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