Individual Liberty & Freedom of Conscience

The legacy of Thomas Jefferson lives on

    When Lincoln talked of “a new birth of freedom” in his Gettysburg Address and made the case for Emancipation and preserving a government “of, by and for the people,” he referenced the nation’s founding to a certain date. But that founding was not the ratification of the Constitution under which he served as president, had sworn to protect and defend, and under whose authority he was waging a war. Rather it was the Declaration of Independence.

    Lincoln was a man who chose his words carefully when making public proclamations. As such, he began his speech by noting that the new nation brought forth by this Declaration had been “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

    Freedom—what sort and to what degree—had been the question asked in 1776, it was the question Lincoln asked in 1863, and one we still deal with.

   Thomas Jefferson was, of course, the main author of this founding document. He regarded it among his major accomplishments and wanted the words “author of the Declaration of American Independence” inscribed on his tombstone.

   There were two other inscriptions he requested for his marker as well.

    A man of the Enlightenment, possessed with a restless and inquisitive mind, he valued the pursuit of knowledge and thought education a necessity for the dispelling of ignorance and superstition and for the citizens of the new republic to be able to effectively and prudently govern themselves. To that end he had founded the University of Virginia and wanted this achievement (“father of the University of Virginia”) included.

   The other epitaph, the middle one, was his authoring of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.

   Most of us know that the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or  abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

    What precisely each of those rights entails—since no right is absolute—has kept commentators, lawyers, Supreme Court justices, and politicians catering to a constituency—busy since its passage in 1791.

Religious symbols or displays in public buildings or on public land has been an ongoing and heated legal dispute over the past half century or so, with the cases often reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier rulings had prohibited the practice, but the more conservative court majority of recent years has been more liberal in allowing this practice. School prayer has been part of this debate. 

     Jefferson had a hand in getting the Bill of Rights included in the new federal constitution, working with his associate James Madison even though he was in Paris at the time, serving as the American envoy to France. Madison, as you may recall is regarded as the Father of the Constitution.

   As an historical footnote, the idea of a Bill of Rights was first proposed by George Mason, another man of Virginia, during the Constitutional Convention a couple of years earlier.

    The part of the First Amendment dealing with religion is known as the Establishment Clause, and understanding its background and context, how it came to be included, would seem instructive for current and future discussions.

   The historical accounts indicate that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom “was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause.”

    “The Statute would go on to play a critical role in the development of American freedom and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” one of those accounts stated.  

    As for how the Statute came into being, according to information from the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, “After the American colonies declared independence from the United Kingdom, the Virginia General Assembly recognized that many of the laws that operated in King George’s loyal colony of Virginia would not work well in a newly independent state. Thus, in October 1776, the first General Assembly appointed a five-man Committee of Revisers to review the existing laws and redraft them.”

    There were three lawyers on the committee who were given the primary responsibility of doing this task, but of the three, only one of them—Thomas Jefferson—“assumed the responsibility for the greater part of drafting.”

    All told, 126 bills were presented to the General Assembly for consideration. “Many of the proposed laws (however) were not adopted or even seriously considered,” the article noted. For a time it appeared this legislation on religious freedom would suffer the same fate.

      Initially known as Bill No. 82, “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” it called for disestablishing the Church of England as the official state religion, created a separation of church and state, affirmed the rights of Virginians to choose their faiths without coercion or civic punishment and extended this freedom to include Christians of all denominations as well as Jews, Muslims, and Hindus.

      While Jefferson had drafted the bill in 1777, not long after his famous Declaration of American Independence,  he did not introduce it for consideration by the Assembly until 1779. And,  once introduced, it “was tabled in the face of opposition from powerful members of the established Church of England.” They understandably did not wish to relinquish the power that came with a monopoly of a government-backed religion.

    But the political and ecclesiastical winds eventually changed, and the bill was enacted into law on Jan. 16, 1786—seven years later.

    “It was a statement about both freedom of conscience and the principle of separation of church and state,” noted the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in an article.

    The beliefs conveyed in the Statute were rooted in Jefferson’s philosophy, according to the article, but the proposed law had support from “dissenting religious sects (particularly Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists) who had petitioned strongly during the preceding decade for religious liberty and a separation between church and state.”      

    That support was crucial, but what finally got it passed was the “excited opposition” that occurred when a resolution  was introduced, calling for a tax to support all Christian sects.

     Madison, seeing an opportunity presented by this outcry, reintroduced the bill and it “passed both houses of the General Assembly with minimal changes to the text.” Jefferson, upon receiving the news in Paris, had copies of the text translated into French and Italian, and circulated it “as widely as possible.”

    Madison would go on to say that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom “is a true standard of Religious liberty; its principle the great barrier against usurpations on the rights of conscience. As long as it is respected… these will be safe.”

    THE ACT WAS WRITTEN IN THREE PARTS. Given its 18^th century prose and long, run-on sentences, it’s not easy to summarize.

    In the first section, Jefferson sets out a lengthy argument on behalf of religious freedom (and freedom of thought) as a natural right.   

    Here are a few excerpts:

   “Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment of burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy or meanness…”

   “…that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking  as the only true and infallible.

      “…that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.”

    “Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions…”

      Given some of the sentiments expressed in these excerpts, along other points made in the Statute, it appears Jefferson was no more a fan of living under the rule of religious authority than he was the British king, nor did he believe in the divine right of either to rule.

   Section 2, much briefer, is the actual law. It states:

  “That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no way diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capabilities.”

    In Section 3, the Act noted that since the legislation was passed by an assembly elected by the people, it had no power over what future legislators might choose to do. But in a sort of defiance to this possibility, Jefferson ended by stating “…yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that, if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operations, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.”

* * *

    There have always been—and I’m sure will always be—those who put forth a litmus test on what constitutes a ‘true believer’… be it religious or political.

      It’s understandable that people, possessing deeply-held convictions, would seek to have those views reflected in law or custom. Yet, conversely, a person’s belief should not be such that another person suffers.

    The inclination—a human trait if you will—is to seek conformity and uniformity, to prefer associating with ‘birds of a feather’, and to take offense with those who disagree, choose a different path or have a contrary view.  On too many occasions, though, this inclination has led to coercion,  oppression, and even violence. The reflex, it seems, is to impose rather than live-and-let-live.

     To brand someone as a non-conformist, an outsider, an agitator, a deviant, or a heretic has been, and still is, an effective means of intimidation; a  means of marginalizing, ostracizing, or condemning them.

    Yet, despite this all-too-human tendency, we still celebrate the notion of self-evident truths and inalienable rights; the belief that each of us possess certain natural rights regardless of who we are, our circumstances, our viewpoints, or our choices on how to live our lives or who to share our lives with… and the corresponding notion that these rights guarantee us equal treatment under the law.

     Individual liberty and freedom of conscience. They are, as Jefferson proclaimed, our birthright—a birthright we have as Americans and as human beings.

* * *

So what happens when these two concepts, often coupled together as I’ve done, seem to clash? Or do?

Case in point is the current push by the LGBTQ+ community for both social acceptance and to have their civil rights legally protected. Countering this effort has been the claim by individuals and groups—the latter including churches—that such acceptance and the passage of these laws violates their religious views and traditions concerning homosexuality and that marriage is limited to a man and woman.

The opposition has also been framed as a free speech issue, which was the case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last Friday when the 6-3 ruling sided with a Christian web designer in Colorado who refuses to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings out of religious objections. An important qualifier is that the designer claimed the web-site design is an artistic expression, akin to writing a book or penning a Letter to the Editor.

The state of Colorado, under its public accommodations law, said that this practice is illegal since—in serving the general public—a business cannot be discriminatory based on sexual preference.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion that “the First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands.” He said Colorado sought to “deny that promise.”

“All manner of speech – from ‘pictures, films, paintings, drawings, and engravings,’ to ‘oral utterance and the printed word’ – qualify for the First Amendment’s protections; no less can hold true when it comes to speech like Ms. Smith’s conveyed over the Internet,” Gorsuch said.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision will undermine the government’s compelling interest in ensuring that all Americans have equal access to the public marketplace.

“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” she wrote.

“Specifically, the Court holds that the First Amendment exempts a website design company from a state law that prohibits the company from denying wedding websites to same-sex couples if the company chooses to sell those websites to the public,” she wrote.

Sotomayor called this a “sad day in American constitutional law and the lives of LGBTQ people.”

“By issuing this new license to discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to deny same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of its services, the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status,” she wrote in dissent.

She said the “decision itself inflicts a kind of stigmatic harm, on top of any harm caused by denials of service.”

“The opinion of the Court is, quite literally, a notice that reads: ‘Some services may be denied to same-sex couples.’”

She suggested that decision would be more far-reaching. “The decision’s logic cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

* * *

So what we have is an ironic situation. . . individual liberty and freedom of conscience clashing with the notion of fair and equal treatment, and the former being invoked to the detriment of the latter.

The legacy of Thomas Jefferson, never that simplistic, has become even more complicated, given our clashing views and evolving social norms. But then, perhaps that is his legacy, that we’re able to have such disputes and use them on our path forward as individuals, a society, and a nation.

Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and editor-publisher of the Fowlerville News & Views—a weekly newspaper.