Andrew L. Seidel

Guest columnist

There can never be true freedom of religion without a government that is free from religion. The Rev. Clarence Sexton missed this simple yet powerful fact in his recent guest column, “Our first freedom is a gift from God.” In his op-ed, Sexton argues that the organization I represent, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and our local chapter, are denying his God-given right to express his religion with a Bible verse in a police station. He could not be more wrong.

At the outset, Sexton makes two sizable mistakes. The first freedom contained in our Bill of Rights is not the freedom of religion, but freedom from religion — a secular government. This makes sense because a secular government is a prerequisite for genuine religious freedom. “[T]he rights of conscience . . . will little bear the gentlest touch of the governmental hand” said Daniel Carroll, a Catholic representative to the Constitutional Convention from Maryland.

The American Constitution is a beautiful and unique document. It was the first godless national charter, deliberately omitting any mention of gods or the divine. Its only original mention of religion was to exclude religion from all requirements to public office in Article VI: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Guest column:Rev. Clarence Sexton: Our first freedom is a gift from God

The Bill of Rights, later amendments to the Constitution, reinforced this mutual exclusion. Religion was to stay out of government and government out of religion.

The Bill of Rights removes certain rights, which all humans possess, from the jurisdiction of the government: freedom of conscience, thought, speech, press, assembly and more. Though we have a representative government where majority often rules, majority rule is irrelevant when it comes to the above rights. The Bill of Rights exists in part to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Put a bit more simply, America invented the separation of state and church. We ought to be proud of that contribution to the world, not seek to undermine it with pious displays.

This freedom is a product of the human mind, not a gift from a god. If it is a gift, it was bestowed on us by Americans who fought and died to protect this great nation, from the American Revolution up to today, not handed down from on high. Attributing their sacrifice to God cheapens that sacrifice and diminishes the monumental human achievement that is the American experiment.

Not only is our freedom not a gift from God, but that freedom is guaranteed by a godless document: the U.S. Constitution.

Sexton’s biggest mistake is that he conflates his personal faith with our government. He mistakenly believes that his right to “express our faith” includes the right to display that faith in a government building belonging to we the people. It doesn’t. His right to freely express his faith allows him to display any message about his God on his property or in his church, but he has no right to use the machinery of Knox County to impose his religion on all citizens.

Of course, Sexton and Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch and every citizen of this great nation have freedom of religion, but only because we have a government that is free from religion. And that means that citizens cannot use government offices that they temporarily occupy to promote their personal religion.

The Founding Fathers chose to keep state and church separate because religion is divisive and they were seeking to build a pluralistic nation. They didn’t build that nation or secure our freedom with theology or cheap religious slogans, but with a document that puts all power in us, in we the people. Anything less would have been un-American.

Andrew L. Seidel is a constitutional attorney and the director of strategic response at the Freedom From Religion Foundation.