| | Issue #21.19 :: 05/07/2008 - 05/13/2008 | New Group to Focus on Church-State Issues
Move Comes as Legislators Consider Religious-Based Proposals
| BY RON AIKEN
| With three bills pending in the General Assembly that push the limits of the First Amendment, a new watchdog group has formed in Columbia to focus on the issue.
On May 3, the Columbia chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State held its first organizational meeting at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, electing officers and setting an agenda.
The chapter plans to meet the first Sunday of each month at 7 p.m. at the UU, at Heyward and Woodrow streets in Shandon.
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| Awash in specialty license plates, like these at the state Department of Motor Vehicles office on Shop Road in Columbia, South Carolina might create yet another. Legislation is pending in the General Assembly that would allow for the creation of a Christian license plate. Photo by Jonathan Sharpe |
Chapter founder the Rev. Neal Jones of the UU says South Carolina is at the forefront of states most guilty of violating the separation of church and state mandated in the First Amendment.
As evidence that state legislators are moving toward First Amendment violations, Jones points to the three bills, which would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public places, motorists to purchase a Christian license plate and prayer before public meetings.
If passed, the legislation will only invite expensive, losing, lawsuits, Jones says. “That’s what no one seems to get about all this,” he says. “These laws, if passed, are unconstitutional and will be challenged in court.”
Yet, when people oppose such measures they are typically branded anti-religion or anti-Christian, Jones says. But in reality, he says of separation of church and state supporters, “We’re trying to protect the Constitution and an amendment that’s meant to protect religion, not hurt it.”
Jones says his group has identified two priorities: educate the public and Legislature about the First Amendment and campaign against bills that push one version of religion over another.
“It’s obvious that politicians are playing on religious sympathies, and in our state that’s Christianity, mostly Baptist,” he says of the three bills. “They win votes by doing that, by turning religion into a political football.”
Neil Caesar, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, agrees. “Unfortunately, what you have in South Carolina is a determined, relentless effort by a very small number of legislators who are influenced by specific Christian lobbying groups to push an agenda that tears at the Bill of Rights and insinuates one version of Christianity above all others,” Caesar says.
All three bills could pass this session. The Ten Commandments bill would require that they appear with 11 other documents believed to have influenced U.S. law, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the Mayflower Compact of 1620, the national motto “In God We Trust,” the preamble to the S.C. Constitution, the Magna Carta, “The Star Spangled Banner” and others.
As for the Christian license plates, which would include a cross, stained glass and the phrase “I Believe,” a similar effort in Florida failed last month after complaints from the ACLU, which argued that the plates would give the appearance that Florida is a Christian state.
In Indiana, however, a Christian plate was approved, is available to motorists and so far has survived legal challenges from the ACLU.
The public prayer bill would allow state and local governing bodies to adopt policies for an invocation to begin their meetings.
Neal says the bills exemplify how one of the nation’s founding principles has been turned on its head. “This country was founded on religious freedom,” he says, “and now the same groups who were the original architects of the separation of church and state, the ones fleeing religious persecution, are the ones pushing these laws through.” | |
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