Ernest Istook Quotes
The courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion, when they should be using it to protect religion.
United States, Congress, House. Representative Ernest Istook speaking on the Religious Freedom Amendment. Congressional Record, vol. 144, 4 June 1998, p. H4078.
This is a critical quotation on the government establishment of religion issue. There are a few people who have argued over the years that the Founding Fathers and their culture was religious and where they were careful to avoid favoring one religion over another, they did NOT intend to put atheism on the same equal plane as religion as far as government action is concerned. However, some of the Founding Fathers were atheists, and some others like John Adams were deists—they believed in a God but not in the Trinity or in Judaism or any organized religion. So this quotation makes it clear that the First Amendment does NOT favor religion over non religion or secularism. Atheism must be on an equal footing but not on a higher plane.
The then current example was with same sex marriage. Some people who claimed that their religion declared same sex marriage as a sin and prohibited their aiding and abetting that activity. As a result, they claimed that their right of religious freedom allowed a county clerk to refuse to issue the marriage license or a hotel to refuse to allow a gay couple to rent their facility for a wedding, or a retail store to refuse to sell the couple bedding.
While this principle is very clear to us today, and was to the people who originally ratified The Constitution, there were many attempts by Christian groups to establish a privileged position for Christianity. For example, for years the Sunday Sabbath was legally enforced by unconstitutional Blue Laws that prohibited businesses from operating on the Christian Sabbath and prohibited activities that compete with Sunday church attendance. Supreme Court Justice Story even argued that the First Amendment allowed Christian religious supremacy and Cooley wrote this to refute Story’s now discredited doctrine.
Ernest James "Ernie" Istook Jr. is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Oklahoma's 5th congressional district. He held his congressional seat for 14 years, completing seven terms in the House. Currently, Istook is a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., and also a talk radio host. In 2010, Istook became a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School leading a study on Propaganda in American Politics.
