by Sarah Lane

So the City Council of Asheville, North Carolina, wants to keep a man elected to the council, Cecil Bothwell, from being sworn in because he is a nontheist, and the North Carolina Constitution, in direct conflict with the U.S. Constitution, disqualifies for office “First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” At the same time the Rotary Club of Leesburg, Virginia, has been blocked from doing what it has done for 50 years: set up a Christmas tree on the grounds of the Loudon County Courthouse.

These two seemingly opposite responses to the mixing of religion and government (or the separation of church and state) are actually alike in that they both espouse a policy of exclusion. What we teach our children through such exclusion is that there is only one way to think: Either God is the One Way or god cannot have a thing to do with public funds. But universal exclusion is an unusual case of less being in fact less.

Why do we fear the ability of our Constitution to protect the beliefs of all peoples, as long as those beliefs don’t actively promote assault on the beliefs of others? The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of expression. How is a Christmas tree threatening? What do people have to fear from a councilmember who doesn’t believe in  a god?

I want the schools our children go to to teach about Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Bahaullah, Asa Phillip Randolph, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry Cadbury, Ernestine Louise Rose, George S. Schuyler, and all the other courageous people across the ages who whether you agree with them or not you will agree have stood up and declared their beliefs without urging assault on those who opposed them.

I want the schools our children attend to introduce them to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Atheism, Druidism, and Hindusim among many other beliefs in an open way that teaches them the beliefs without giving them the message that one is better than the others or, just as bad, that having none is better than having any of them. I want schools to put up Christmas trees, Hanukkah menoras, Kwanzaa kinaras, and Winter Solstice Yule logs or candles and promote the celebration of light and hope regardless of the form it takes, whether the hope comes from a winged angel or a government employee with a school lunch program.

Rav Kook, the Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (who died in 1935 and was the first Chief Rabbi of Israel before it became a state), eloquently explains why in this case more is in fact more:

True peace . . . comes precisely through the proliferation of divergent views. When all of the various angles and sides of an issue are exposed, and we are able to clarify how each one has its place—that is true peace. The Hebrew word shalom means both “peace”‘ and “completeness.” We will only attain complete knowledge when we are able to accommodate all views—even those that appear contradictory—as partial perceptions of the whole truth. Like an interlocking puzzle, together they present a complete picture. (Psalm 122: The Peace of Torah Scholars)

Certainly our trust in our democracy can support inclusiveness of belief with no fear that our freedoms will be hurt in the process. In fact, it is exclusion that is the danger: Closing the door on all ideologies in the interest of “fairness” leaves our democracy weakened through being unchallenged and untested. And it leaves our nation and its institutions colorless, uninspiring, and uninteresting. Finally, it erodes our loyalty to that democracy: When there’s nothing there, there’s nothing worth defending.

It would be better, like our very own Statue of Liberty, to open our arms to all and give all a chance to be heard, modeling for our children the ideas that (1) our own beliefs are not threatened by divergence of opinion and that (2) the experience of all is enriched by a range of celebrations, customs, and ideologies. For my own kid I would want nothing less.

©2009 ProgressiveKid

Image by Chris Phan, 2005, Creative Commons license.

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