In his "Faith in America" speech, Gov. Mitt Romney said, among other things:
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
Is this true? Over at Balkinization, Jack Balkin says that this statement (and some others) in the speech "strongly identify Americans and Americanism with belief in God." Is this true?
For starters, it is (obviously) not the case that only those persons who believe in God (or who, in Gov. Romney's words, "believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind") are or can be good Americans. It is certainly not the case that only such persons desire, deserve, and sacrifice for "freedom"; or that only a political community consisting primarily of such persons can be "free."
I do not know exactly what Gov. Romney intended to communicate or claim with the statement that "[f]reedom requires religion". If he intended to claim with that statement what (it sounds like) Prof. Balkin understands him to have claimed, he was mistaken. (It seems to me unlikely, though, that Gov. Romney believes that only theists -- or Mormons, for that matter -- are or can be good Americans.)
That said, I believe that it is true -- or, at least, that there is a sense in which it is true -- that political "freedom requires religion." To be clear: It is not true that a political community of religious people will, necessarily, be "free"; or that a political community in which most people do not believe in God cannot be "free"; or that religious believers will always cherish, protect, respect, or even understand political freedom. (I assume that Prof. Balkin and I agree entirely about all this.)
All that said, it seems to me that the existence and maintenance of political freedom does depend on -- i.e., does "require[]" -- "religion" in the sense that political freedom requires not merely constitutional or other legal limits on government power and official action, but also that (and a consensus that) the aims, sphere, authority, purpose, reach, and nature of the state -- of politics -- be limited, by something else. That is, it is crucial to political freedom that -- in Harold Berman's words -- it not be "for the secular authority alone to decide where its boundaries should be fixed" and that -- as John Courtney Murray put it -- there be "room for the independent exercise of an authority which is not that of the state." And, it seems to me that "religion" is best, and perhaps only, able to satisfy (even though, of course, it has often failed badly to satisfy) these requirements. (I tried to flesh out this idea in this short paper.)
What do others think? Is this, or something like this, plausible?
I cannot emphasize this enough: To suggest this is not, at all, to say that only religious people understand the value of, and cherish, freedom-under-and-through-limited-government. None of this is intended to be -- or, objectively, is -- exclusionary, triumphalist, "theocratic", or "Christianist." Nor am I claiming that these thoughts of mine capture or reflect what Gov. Romney intended to say. I do not know, exactly, what he indended to say. (Disclosure: I am a member the Thompson campaign's Law Professors Committee.)
This new book -- by Pepperdine law prof and law-and-religion expert Bob Cochran -- looks good: In "Faith and Law", "legal scholars from sixteen different religious traditions contend that religious discourse has an important function in the making, practice, and adjudication of American law, not least because our laws rest upon a framework of religious values. The book includes faiths that have traditionally had an impact on American law, as well as new immigrant faiths that are likely to have a growing influence. Each contributor describes how his or her tradition views law and addresses one legal issue from that perspective. Topics include abortion, gay rights, euthanasia, immigrant rights, and blasphemy and free speech."
Contributors include our own Patrick Brennan, as well as Bob Tuttle, Tom Shaffer, Brett Scharffs, David Caudill, and many others.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Prof. Doug Kmiec (who is an advisor to Gov. Romney) -- about whose essay I blogged yesterday -- asked me to post the following, and I am delighted to do so:
The speech -- A Reason to Put Faith in Governor Romney
Mitt Romney gave the speech many of us wish John Kennedy had.
John Kennedy is a hero for me. My first foray into politics was as a child with my father campaigning for JFK in Chicago. Sporting a button that said “if I were 21, I’d vote for Kennedy,” I meant it then, and now when so many years have past, it is difficult to remember 21, let alone a younger age.
So to say that Romney did Kennedy one better is not in any way to denigrate the memory of the young, vibrant president whose vision and idealism still inspire.
But Kennedy handled the so-called Catholic issue largely by separating himself from Catholicism. In this, Kennedy would say “the separation of church and state is absolute,” and that the statements of his church were “rarely relevant to any situation in” America. Said Kennedy: I do not consider myself bound by church statements with regard to “my public acts – why should you?”
Kennedy sought acceptance upon the ground of secularism. Romney’s common ground is different, and it is that of America’s founders. What matters is not how a man worships, but that he worships. Said George Washington: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
When Kennedy spoke in Houston, he wanted to change the subject. When Romney returned to Houston, he embraced it. Kennedy began his talk by saying there are far more critical issues to speak of – hungry children, old people who cannot pay their doctors bills, and America with too many slums and too few schools. Sadly, almost a half century later, those critical issues remain with us, but if we are going to meaningfully address them, we cannot separate ourselves from the meaning that faith provides. We need our greatest ingenuity – our reason, but reason and faith are collaborators, not antagonists. As Romney put it, “we can be deeply thankful that we live in a land where reason and religion are friends.”
No doubt some will say that Romney failed to address whatever differences there may be between the Mormon tradition and that of other faiths. But then, exploring those theological questions would have been entirely inappropriate. Kennedy didn’t attempt to justify the unique doctrines of the Catholic Church either. Said JFK it is not my purpose to explain “what kind of church I believe in for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America believe in.” Romney affirmed, noting that to make such explanation would be to contradict the very guarantees of religious freedom and against religious tests for public office. “ No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths,” Romney said eloquently.
Yet, Faith does matter, said Romney, to “those American values ... lived in my religion [and] yours.” Honoring God and love of neighbor prompted, he said, his father to “march with Martin Luther King. . .and provide compassionate care to others . . .” and with humility, guides him and his wife, Ann, in his marriage and family” today.
Inevitably, it will be asked was Romney’s speech as effective as Kennedy’s? Yes, but for different reasons. Kennedy said his faith wouldn’t matter, but then acted as if it did, especially in civil rights. Romney said his faith would “inform [his] presidency” in those subtle ways that every great President from Lincoln to Kennedy would unquestionably affirm. Today’s speech supplied ample reason to entrust him with that office.
I do not know enough to know what the political effects of Gov. Romney's speech will be. I tend to agree with Prof. Kmiec, though, that its content was better than then-Sen. Kennedy's. (Though, to be fair -- as Ken Woodward points out -- the Kennedy speech was given in a dramatically different context.) That said, and all things considered, I think Gov. Romney would have done well to make clear that a crucial dimension of religious liberty is the freedom not to profess a religion at all. (I do not doubt that he believes this.) (Full disclosure: I am a member of Sen. Thompson's "Law Professors Committee.")
A few days ago, we had a discussion about Prof. Stephanie Coontz's op-ed about marriage. I wrote, among other things, that:
[i]t seems to me -- and, certainly, I invite correction by experts -- that if Professor Coontz is suggesting (and perhaps she is not) that, "for most of Western history", marriage was a matter of merely "private" concern, a matter with which the relevant public authorities were not concerned, then her suggestion is not supported by the historical record. It has, it seems to me, "for [all] of Western history", been the case that communities have regarded marriage -- its formation, incidents, nature, dissolution, etc. -- as (among other things) a matter of community concern. The fact that the Church recognized as "licit" marriages contracted in a haystack does not, it seems to me, indicate otherwise.
At the First Things blog, Michael Fragoso -- a medieval studies student at Princeton -- has a long, detailed post responding in detail (and, it seems to me, thoroughly demolishing) to the Coontz op-ed. Here's the intro:
Prof. Stephanie Coontz recently took to the pages of the New York Times to inform us that we do not need marriage as a legal institution. This is not the first time she has ridden rough-shod over marriage in the Times, and I doubt it will be the last. In this instance, Coontz is nothing short of dazzling in how adeptly she manages to misrepresent marriage and marriage law in Western history in order to bolster her destructive arguments.
In her description of premodern marriage law, she leaves a distinct impression that legal interference with marriage tended toward a restriction of individual liberty–preventing marriages when parents disapproved, preventing divorce, and so on. It’s a useful narrative for contemporary radicals who seek to undermine marriage. The trouble is that it has little relation to actual history. Here are some of her claims, and the facts against which they stand opposed.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Yay!
On December 5th, 1933, Utah, the final state needed for a three quarters majority, ratified the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition and restoring the American right to a celebratory drink.
