First Amendment Lecture on Religion PDF

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Dr. Jeff Mullis; Section 1; Spring Semester 2021...

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SOC 350 Sociology of Law The First Amendment – Religion OVERVIEW: Today’s written lecture draws upon our course packet pages titled “Religion and the First Amendment” and “Quotes from the Kitzmiller versus Dover Decision.” _____________________________________________________________________________________

The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses Please read the course packet page titled “Religion and the First Amendment.” I will wait here while you read it …  … I would like to elaborate on a couple things from this course packet page. First, I refer on the page to the “wall of separation” phrase by Thomas Jefferson. The phrase “wall of separation between church and state” does not actually appear in the First Amendment. This was a phrase that Thomas Jefferson coined when he was summarizing the First Amendment’s purpose in a letter he wrote to the Connecticut Danbury Baptists in 1802. The Danbury Baptists had contacted Jefferson, who at the time was President, because they thought their religious rights were being violated by the state of Connecticut. You can read their original letter to Jefferson and Jefferson’s reply at the below link: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source-documents/danburybaptists/ Second, I would like us to take a closer look at the differences between the three interpretations of the Establishment Clause. This should help clarify the differences between the three schools of thought. Consider the following:

Should these things be allowed according to ...

The Literal View?

Accommodationist View?

Separationist View?

1. The House of Representatives opens each day it is in session with a prayer to God

yes

yes

no

2. “In God We Trust” appears on our money

yes

yes

no

3. Churches, temples, and synagogues (places of religious worship) have tax-exempt status on financial and real estate holdings

yes

yes

no

4. Public high schools have, in the past, placed disclaimers about evolution in biology textbooks, disclaimers that were called for by Christian fundamentalists

yes

no

no

Notice a pattern? The literal view finds all these examples fully acceptable and allowable because none of these examples are explicit state declarations of support for one particular religion over others. This literal view is the least intrusive view, governmentally speaking. It is a hands-off approach. The separationist view, in contrast, finds all these examples objectionable because each one represents

some sort of entanglement between the state and religion, and all such entanglements should be banned. In this sense, the separationist view is the most intrusive view, governmentally-speaking – it calls for the government to step in and say “no” all the time. The accommodationist view is a midpoint between the extremes of the literal and separationist views. Accommodationists would object only when the religious entanglement is clearly specific, favoring one religious group over others. The accommodationist view permits congressional prayer, the reference to a generic God on the money, and to tax-exempt status for houses of worship because none of these things are specific to any one religion. The last example – disclaimers about evolution in public school biology textbooks – leads us straight into the Kitzmiller case. Our assigned reading for today includes excerpts from the Kitzmiller ruling by Judge John Jones. The complete 139-page ruling is posted on reserve, but for our class you only need to read the section titled "Whether ID is science" on pp. 64-89, and then pp. 130-139, starting with the section titled "Defendants presented no convincing evidence ...”

The Kitzmiller Case Some background: Judge John Jones was nominated by President George W. Bush to be a U.S. District Judge in Pennsylvania. The U.S. Senate confirmed Jones in 2002. The Kitzmiller case is from 2005. It has become a very famous case in the perpetual “culture wars” between religion and science (institutional conflict between religion and science goes back a very long way – Galileo anyone?). In the Kitzmiller case, Judge Jones set a definitive precedent with his ruling that is unlikely to ever be overturned successfully. This was a bench trial in which Judge Jones presided and ruled – a civil case where plaintiff Tammy Kitzmiller, together with several other parents of school children, sued the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania. Kitzmiller et al. were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (the ACLU). They argued that the Dover School District was violating their constitutional rights. Specifically, they argued that the Dover School District was violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by promoting the doctrine of intelligent design in public school science classes. Judge Jones ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. At this point, you should watch the video clip below for more background on this case. This video clip is the first 10 minutes of a PBS/Nova documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33k5As89pR4 And then watch this short video about the legacy of the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=F__3yVTUeVQ&feature=emb_logo Judge Jones’ ruling is highly interesting because he writes about several things that we normally don’t see in a legal ruling. He covers the relevant case law in the early part of the ruling (this is expected), but then he goes on to examine the social history of the intelligent design movement, and he also delves into the philosophy of science – his ruling in the Kitzmiller case is both sociological and philosophical and the whole thing makes for fascinating reading! Refer now to the course packet page titled “Quotes from the Kitzmiller versus Dover Decision.” I’ll wait here while you read it…  … You can feel Jones’ anger in some of these quotes. Witnesses in the courtroom said Judge Jones was, at times, visibly angry with the defendants. He was clearly irritated that they so brazenly lied to him (…”It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious

convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy…”). The final thing I would like to add is that Judge Jones – a Republican known to be conservative in his judicial philosophy – reached the right decision, in my personal opinion. He was right to say that intelligent design (ID) is not science. Now let me be clear: There is nothing wrong in believing in ID, a.k.a. “the God hypothesis.” Of course many of us are faithful believers. But believing in an intelligent designer is not the issue. The issue is, is ID a science? And the answer is simple: No. There is a lot of obfuscation coming from ID proponents about what makes something scientific, but we can cut through their obfuscating smokescreen by asking them one simple question: How would you know if you were wrong? In other words, what would the falsifying evidence look like? No ID proponent has ever specified what the falsifying evidence would look like. Now, there may not be any falsifying evidence – there may only be confirming evidence – but in order for ID to be scientific, you need to be able to articulate what the disconfirming/falsifying evidence would look like if it did exist. Again, how would you know if you were wrong? This is the testability criterion from our epistemological checklist. Science depends on it. This is what Karl Popper meant by “testability” – testability is falsifiability. Knowing when you’re wrong is often a fairly straightforward matter in science. A prediction or hypothesis is formulated, and observations are then made to see whether the prediction came true or not. We know what falsifying evidence would look like – it would be a failure of the prediction to come true. We know, in other words, when we’re wrong. It is not enough to take note of only the confirming evidence, but this is exactly what ID proponents do: They only take note of allegedly confirming evidence (the beauty of the mountainscape, the “irreducible complexity” of the eye, the awesome mysteriousness of the universe). Everything suggests an intelligent designer behind it all, according to the ID proponents. And there may well be – but how would you know if you were wrong? Don’t just tell me what the confirming evidence looks like, tell me what the disconfirming evidence would look like if it existed? If you can do that, you are beginning to do science. Science tests claims. It does not take things on faith. --------------------------------...