Bryan Fischer continues his cavalcade of stupid by declaring that individual states are entirely free to impose religious tests for office — like, say, forbidding a Mormon from holding office or requiring that all officials be Christians.
The Religious Test clause in the Constitution (Article VI, Clause 3) reads as follows:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States…
It’s critical to note that states are not restricted in any way by the Religious Test clause, only the federal government. Every public official at both the state and federal level is required to take an oath to support the Constitution, but only the federal government is prohibited from requiring an additional religious oath. States are constitutionally permitted to require any religious test they want. And at the time of the Founding, many did, requiring legislators to swear on oath affirmations of faith and religious conviction of one kind or another.
Wrong. Absolutely wrong. It’s true that as originally written, this clause did not apply to the states. But that hasn’t been true for about 150 years, ever since the passage of the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court upheld this unanimously in Torcaso v Watkins a whopping 50 years ago. Apparently news travels slowly on Planet Wingnuttia.
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fastlane
October 18, 2011 at 1:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Only if it actual, factual news. If it falls under the category of ‘not intended as a factual statement’, news travels very quickly and becomes a talking point in a matter of picoseconds….
Randomfactor
October 18, 2011 at 1:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But remember he doesn’t believe in the 14th Amendment, since it allows non-white babies to have natural-born citizenship status alongside normal ones.
jamesramsey
October 18, 2011 at 1:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Then that means that it is constitutional for the state of Utah to ban all non-Mormons from holding office ?
reverendrodney
October 18, 2011 at 1:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bryant Fischer:
“I wrote yesterday that it would be smart of the American people to insist that our next president fit the profile of the Founders. The first two parts of that profile are a sincere belief in Christian orthodoxy and a sincere belief in a Creator rather than in evolution.”
I don’t believe creationism versus evolution was even a topic of conversation until Darwin, several decades after the Founding. In fact, most of the Founders were probably dead before Darwin published his book.
Randomfactor
October 18, 2011 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I believe slave ownership should be required also, then.
MikeMa
October 18, 2011 at 1:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fischer only says this crap because he’s certain of the religion that would be the basis for the test. I’d laugh if some theocratic bozo tried to get some xian, fundy crap Fischer’s sect (cult) didn’t ascribe to in a test for office. Or better yet, an Islamic or Jewish test. Yeah 14th amendment.
Bronze Dog
October 18, 2011 at 1:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You know, dividing what rights people have based on their geographic coordinates within relatively arbitrary border lines just seems really messed up to me. People are people, and all people should enjoy some common rights.
What’s next? A state-based religious test to determine who can vote? Own property? Marry? Raise children? Hold a paying job? Speak their mind?
I’m not a fan of slippery slope arguments, but when it comes to issues like church and state integration, I see an awful lot of those yellow diamond signs depicting an 18-wheeler swerving and tipping over. History certainly seems to agree with me.
mikeym
October 18, 2011 at 2:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Justice Clarence Thomas agrees, saying that the Supreme Court erred when it said that the 14th Amendment incorporated the Constitutional liberties into restrictions on the States.
lofgren
October 18, 2011 at 2:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The concept of evolution well antedates Darwin. Charles Darwin only proposed the first observable mechanism that was consistent with all relevant data. Others had been proposing evolutionary mechanisms for generations, but none of them fit the facts sufficiently to displace other, simpler theories.
But the idea that the founders considered which of the improbable and entirely academic models for the origin of species that were being discussed in the salons of Europe was favored by their candidate as a prerequisite for office is as absurd as the idea that a newly drafted constitution for some struggling backwater of a country would require that future office holders accept string theory without question. It’s ludicrous to even imagine.
Believers in a written dogma are continually going back to their sourcebook and trying to determine which parts of it are “real.” “Oh, ABC wasn’t in XYZ version of the bible, so you can ignore that.” “Oh, that’s a mistranslation, this earlier manuscript could be translated as 123 instead, so I don’t actually have to stone my children to death.” They have the same attitude towards the Constitution, this weird idea that for somehow the parts that were written earlier trump the parts that were written later. It’s a weird sort of anti-causal way of looking at the universe.
slc1
October 18, 2011 at 2:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Mr. Brayton should understand that conservative nutcases, especially from the South, consider that the 14th amendment was illegally ratified because only the states that did not secede voted on it. Therefore, their position is that it is not really part of the Constitution and is thus inapplicable.
Area Man
October 18, 2011 at 2:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My straight-forward reading of this is that it does indeed apply to the states. Unless one thinks what comes after the semicolon is unrelated to what’s before it, it would seem that no religious test can be required for “state legislatures” or “executive and judicial officers of the several states”. Note also that this clause is immediately preceded by the Supremacy Clause, so one might assume that the last part alone is sufficient.
I realize the 14th amendment made this moot, but I’m curious as to how or why this clause was interpreted such that the states were allowed to have religious tests. It just doesn’t read that way to me.
umlud
October 18, 2011 at 3:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I read the Fischer quote and was saying, “But it says it right in your quote!” So I went to the interwebs to find a copy of the Constitution, and it was written as Fisher had it, and so I was puzzled by how he could be reading the same thing as me, but completely failing to come to the same conclusion as me.
I may be a little bit fuzzy here, but to whom — exactly — did the “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned and the Members of the several State Legislatures” and “both of the United States and of the several States” refer?
I am supposing — perhaps naively — that this referred to representatives and judges that were in federal and state office. Is there some piece of law or amendment that was passed to remove the addition of “Members of the several State Legislatures” from having any constitutional weight?
… or is he using some sort of claptrap that the states are not “under the United States”?
lofgren
October 18, 2011 at 4:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He’s interpreting it to say that the federal government cannot have a religious test, but the states can have them for the same offices. So the federal government can’t say “You must be a Hindu to hold this office,” but the states can say “You must be a Hindu to get on the ballot.”
The notion then is that this would prevent the federal government from telling the citizens of a state that they must elect a governor of a particular religion against the will of the majority of that state. It’s what follows when you assume that the Constitution is meant to protect to rights of states, but not individual people.
jakc
October 18, 2011 at 5:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The lack of Fischer’s understanding shows in his use of the phrase “oath affirmation”. The requirement is for an oath OR an affirmation; I see state legislators repeating the phrase “I swear or affirm” instead of swearing or affirming because they too often do not understand that these are different things. The phrases are mutually exclusive – to swear is to swear before God and to affirm is to affirm that you are telling the truth (that is, that you will live up to your oath.) Affirmations are meant as a means for an atheist, or someone prohibited by their religion from swearing an oath, to take an oath. The existence of swear or affirm oaths in a state shows an intolerance for religious tests. Fischer is either ignorant of the meaning, a not surprising & believable proposition, or simply dishonest in his effort to blur the distinction.