From the WSJ Opinion Archives
REVIEW & OUTLOOK What if City Hall opened itself up to outside groups and every Sunday morning a church used it for services? Wouldn't that be unconstitutional? This was the question Justice Stephen Breyer asked during oral arguments in a Supreme Court case--Good News Club v. Milford Central School--involving a children's Bible group denied after-hours access to a New York public school.
The tone and direction suggested the answer was clear: Of course it would be unconstitutional. But Justice Breyer would do well to point his browser to the Web site for the Becket Fund, a bipartisan, interfaith public-interest law group that acts as sort of an ACLU for religious freedom. In a posting Friday morning, the Becket site shows that the Founders would have permitted services not only in City Hall but in the Supreme Court itself. Even more compelling, Exhibit A here is a Library of Congress program on "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" declaring that Mr. Separation-of-Church-and-State himself was a "most regular attendant" at services in the Capitol--even dispatching a Marine band to accompany the hymnists.
Indeed, Jefferson attended a Congregationalist service in the House just two days after sending his letter to the Danbury Baptists with its now-famous phrase about the "wall of separation." Jefferson did not object to government buildings being used in this way, because use was open to any denomination that wished to do so--even Catholic priests and female preachers appeared on occasion--and participation was voluntary.
That America today doesn't know its own history here is a reflection of the larger revisionism that today portrays the churches, synagogues and mosques that crisscross the country not as bulwarks of freedom but as incipient threats to the American way of life. And the ridicule and distrust that characterize this revisionism are readily apparent: in the knee-jerk suggestion that George W. Bush's effort to enlist faith-based social services will lead to a U.S. version of the ayatollahs' Iran; in the latest Ted Turner crack, this one referring to employees of his who had ashes on their foreheads for Ash Wednesday as "Jesus freaks"; even, sadly, in the Court itself, which, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in a dissent last year "bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life."
In fairness to Justice Breyer, as he himself noted during the oral arguments in this case, you can't predict where he will vote by his questions. Still, given some of the Court's recent rulings, it is entirely conceivable that the majority will interpret the Establishment Clause as prohibiting the Good News Club from taking advantage of the same public facilities open to other clubs.
But our justices should know that if they are going to go down this road, they'll have to do it without Jefferson.
What Would Jefferson Do?
The man who invented the "wall of separation" attended church services on government property.
Sunday, March 11, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST
