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“Mr. Steube, what any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress,” he said.
What’s your opinion on his comment?He is correct. There has to be a separation of religion and state.
I would have put it differently and would have said
“Mr. Steube, Congress can not create the secular law in this country based on religious or anti religious viewpoints ”
The separation of religion and state is maybe the most important law in the US as it protects religion from any instituted state or central laws.
He is correct and given that we are very much a minority religion we benefit immensely from that attitude.
If you asked 3 frum yidden, you would get 4 inyanim as to what is “hashem’s will”. While we are fortunate to have some CR posters with nevius and always ready to tell us why the Ebeshter did ABC or XYZ, members of congress are not elected because of either their intellect or nevius.
New Englanders, like John Adams, felt that State should care about religion and religious education, requiring towns in MA to pay salaries to preachers. He, and others, felt that society needs morality. So, it was not about having trees or menorahs at town halls, but about having middos.
The controversy was whether they should all be from the most popular sect, or could local hasidim redirect payments to their own shtibles. Interesting, this is about the times of Vilna Gaon and Chasidism controversy. Adams was definitely a Litvak….
I think we all agree that we benefit from US gov not running a church, but does it mean that we support excluding G-d from public sphere? “Sorry, G-d, we find it easier to do Your Will if we keep it quiet somewhat”? This seems like throwing the baby with the water.
Health,
I’m as far from a liberal as you can get.
Even so I don’t think anyone should make claims of “will of g-d” in relation to a congressional proposal.
Had Mr. Stueben argued either (1)that the bill is inherently anti-religion as opposed to a neutral secular law or (2)even in a secular society the bill is objectionable then I would be a lot more sympathetic to what he was saying.
(To be clear the liberal argument that the opposition to things like gay pride and abortion etc. is all religious based is baloney. Even the genocidal anti religious communist governments didn’t recognize gay marriage and opposed abortion when it suited their purposes)
“New Englanders, like John Adams, felt that State should care about religion and religious education, requiring towns in MA to pay salaries to preachers.”
Adams wrote Massachusetts’s Constitution of 1780. But there were test oaths mandated that effectively limited some public offices to Protestant Christians. (The amount of anti-Catholic bigotry in the US back then is shocking to modern sensibilities today and Adams was one of he bigots.)
Furthermore the religious education you mentioned was Puritan. Had their been any Jews in Massachusetts back then, we would have had to pay taxes to support the Puritan religious schools, as were Christian minorities.
Adams would die in 1826 and Massachusetts would finally distablish its Puritan Church (by then, largely Unitarian in the eastern part of the state) in 1833. The first Jewish religious congregation would not be started until 1842. Like every other Ashkenazi congreatation in existence in the US at that time that has survived, it is not orthodox.
Health
“most Americans don’t feel that way … Nadler should never have said what he did!.”
This is a complete non-sequitur.
Laws, interpretations of laws , interpretation of the constitution, has exactly zero to do with how “most Americans feel”
If you think American law should reflect biblical law or “God’s will” (presumably as defined by you) say so and make the case for the argument
There is no constitutional provision for “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion… unless a PEw research poll shows most Americans want it”
So while interesting. It in no way is related to “Nadler should never have said what he did”
Also
Most does not equal half
The poll you cited does NOT show “most Americans” don’t agree.
In response to the question “The bible should have xxxx influence on laws of U.S. ”preference for “not much /not at all” 50% vs “A great deal/none ” 49%
“They don’t have to, but there’s nothing wrong if they do.”
assuming that’s correct.
Its also true that there’s noting wrong if they don’t . Which is what Nadler said .you can of course disagree with him, but your statement “Nadler should never have said what he did!” is puzzling. why shouldn’t he say what he believes
Charlie:
[Adams] Furthermore the religious education you mentioned was Puritan. Had their been any Jews in Massachusetts back then, we would have had to pay taxes to support the Puritan religious schools, as were Christian minorities .. Adams would die in 1826 and Massachusetts would finally distablish its Puritan Church (by then, largely Unitarian in the eastern part of the state) in 1833.Their logic was that religion is required to teach morals. As you are saying, there was a machloket whether there should be only a public Puritan church, or others can register too. As you mentioned it was resolved… If we were to pay taxes to support Puritan ministers – and have a right to have our own, this would not be much different from current situation, where we pay taxes to support government schools, and then open our own.
>> The first Jewish religious congregation would not be started until 1842. Like every other Ashkenazi congreatation in existence in the US at that time that has survived, it is not orthodox.
Well, you are cancelling Sephardim, like Puritans were cancelling Catholics 🙂
nah mods
My only point was that what “most Americans” think Is completely irrelevant.
It was a prediction. You can make that prediction not come true if you so desire.
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