Satanic Monuments and Church-State Separation: The Perspective of One Oklahoma Christian

Oklahoma made news this week when the Satanic Temple unveiled the design for its proposed monument to Satan, which it has sought a permit to build on the grounds of the Oklahoma capitol building. Here's what it would look like:



Kind of like a goat-headed Santa Claus, at least going by the looks on the children's faces. I'm not sure actual children would be quite so adoring.

In a tongue-in-cheek statement, the spokesperson and leader of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves (aka Doug Mesner), noted that the monument would be functional as well a symbolic, serving as a place "where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation" (although, as Robin Abcarian of the LA Times has noted, the monument might be more suitably used as a time-out chair by parents--a proposal that might cause me to rethink my view that time-out is generally preferable to corporal punishment).

The proposed monument is a response to the erection, in 2012, of a privately-commissioned Ten Commandments monument that is now on display on the Oklahoma capitol grounds. Doug Mesner has elsewhere acknowledged that the Satanic Temple was originally created to serve as "a 'poison pill' in the church/state debate. The idea was that Satanists, asserting their rights and privileges where religious agendas have been successful in imposing themselves upon public affairs, could serve as a poignant reminder that such privileges are for everybody, and can be used to serve an agenda beyond the current narrow understanding of what 'the' religious agenda is." Their current move is in the spirit of this founding mission.

The ACLU is currently suing to have the Ten Commandments monument removed--and the state of Oklahoma has put a "moratorium" on further religious monuments pending the outcome of the suit (there have, since the erection of the Ten Commandments monument, been requests from several other groups to erect monuments, including representatives of a major world religion, Hinduism). Put another way, the state has actually been able to use the ACLU lawsuit as a kind of cover--allowing them to reject other organizations' petititions for monument space.

But, eventually, the lawsuit will run its course. If the ACLU wins, the Ten Commandments will be taken down and the Satanists won't be able to erect their goat-headed Santa. But what happens if the ACLU loses?

There is, after all, an argument that could be made that keeping the Ten Commandments monument does not violate the establishment of religion clause in the Constitution. If the monument is treated as an historically significant symbol of the rule of law, apart from its religious content, there might be an argument for saying that the state of Oklahoma is not violating church/state separation by allowing a private group to erect the monument. This, in fact, seems to be the line that supporters of the current monument are taking.

But the state could make this case for preserving the monument only if it were equally open to erecting other such law-symbolizing monuments, and only if it adopted religion-neutral procedures for deciding which such symbolic monuments to erect. That is, they'd need to make decisions about monuments with no favoritism based on the religion of the monument sponsors and no favoritism based on the sectarian religious messages symbolically endorsed by the monument itself--and with a commitment to even-handedness in the implied message that the resultant mix of symbolic monuments conveys.

If the State of Oklahoma wants to pursue that course, they might win. And they might even avoid having to put up the proposed Satanic monument, since it is not overtly a symbol of the rule of law. But the Satanic Temple folks have proven themselves clever enough that they could quite readily revise their proposed monument to reflect the Satanic Temple's attitude towards laws.

And, in fact, the Satanic Temple does seem to have a law-and-order perspective that they want to bring into public conversation. Speaking of the Satanic Temple's relationship to Anton LaVey, author of the "Satanic Bible," Mesner had this to say:

LaVey’s rhetoric tended toward Social Darwinistic Police State politics. Since 1995, violence in the United States—and, in fact, the world over—has been in decline, and we’re now in a position to evaluate what’s working for us, and where we went wrong previously. Certainly, a strong and effective police presence is a contributing factor, but we also find that autocratic governments breed social violence. We also find that Social Darwinism, interpreted in brutal, strictly self-interested terms, is counter-productive, and based on a simplistic misinterpretation of evolutionary theory. We do better when we work in groups, where altruism and compassion are rewarded. We are social animals. That said, however, I believe in a system that runs meritocratically. Also, revenge is a natural impulse, without which justice would never be served. We should do our best to mitigate the pain of those who are suffering, whoever they are—but also be diligent to punish the misdeeds of those who behave unjustly to those around them.

According to Mesner, the Satanic Temple does not embrace Satan as a literal being, but as a symbol wedded to an atheistic worldview. Satan names "a rebel angel defiant of autocratic structure and concerned with the material world," and this serves as an apt metaphor for a certain attitude towards political freedom and atheism, one that could be symbolically represented in a way that would likely meet the requirements for a monument on the Capitol grounds.

In other words, even if the particular monument proposal currently offered up by the Satanic Temple could be rejected in a manner consistent with church-state separation (while still preserving the Ten Commandments monument), it doesn't follow that the State of Oklahoma is safe from Satanic monuments.

Put more simply: If the state really wants to fight for the Ten Commandments monument in a manner consistent with church/state separation, it opens a big door. And while space limitations may give the state some leeway to choose among proposed monuments, the mechanisms whereby such choices must be made would be fraught with complications, potentially unsavory outcomes, and dangers of future lawsuits. Not to mention an aesthetic mess as rival groups clamor to install their goat-Santas and Flying Spaghetti Monsters on the Capitol grounds.

I'm a fan of the Ten Commandments. But I'm also a fan of church/state separation. The constitutional prohibition against state sponsorship of a particular religion is a promise to every religious and non-religious community in the country. It is a promise against having our religious freedom curtailed by the demands of a different religion that has come to enjoy theocratic control. It is a promise of a level playing field, in which all of us are afforded the freedom to live out our own comprehensive conception of the good life in a manner consistent with everyone have the same opportunity.

Allowing the Ten Commandments onto the grounds of the state capitol--unless it is done in a manner that would also allow the Satanic Temple to erect their own symbol of law--threatens that promise. But any threat to that promise is a threat to those of us who want to live a religious life informed by our understanding of the Ten Commandments. It threatens us because state sponsorship of religion may not always sponsor a religion supportive of the practice of our own.

Pursuing a policy that is both consistent with the promise of church/state separation and allows for the continued presence of the Ten Commandments monument is a kind of quagmire, one in which the Ten Commandments are lost, figuratively and literally, amidst the clutter on the Capitol lawn.

Far better, in the end, for those of us who care about the Ten Commandments to honor them on private ground.

Same-Sex Civil Marriage, Legal Discrimination, and the Social Functions of Marriage

In honor of the recent court ruling overturning Proposition 8 in California, I'm posting here the text of a talk I gave as part of a 2004 OSU Ethics Center Panel on “Gay Marriage: Civil Right or Threat to Tradition?” Here is what I said a bit more than six years ago: 

My goal tonight is to make the case for same-sex civil marriage—civil marriage, not holy matrimony or any other religious rite of marriage. Civil marriage is a legal category. It has nothing to do with religious beliefs and everything to do with tangible legal benefits—such things as inheritance rights, rights to make health care decisions for an ailing spouse, and the right to sponsor a spouse for immigration. By some counts, civil marriage confers more than a thousand federal protections. It’s desired not only for these legal benefits, but because it’s become a treasured social institution. If you’re legally wed, whether in a church or a courthouse, your relationship receives a special social recognition: you and your spouse are treated as a family.

I want to begin my case for same-sex civil marriage by doing something rather presumptuous, given that I’m a happily married heterosexual. I want to paint a picture of what it’s like to be gay or lesbian in our society. I feel remotely qualified to do this only because I’ve listened compassionately to the personal stories of my gay and lesbian friends. Anyone who’s done so knows, without having to consult a scientific study, that gays and lesbians don’t choose their sexual orientation. And they can’t ordinarily change it, even though those raised in conservative religious environments often go to Herculean efforts in the attempt—fervent prayer, ex-gay ministries, doomed heterosexual marriage. In every case I know the struggle has proved fruitless. Some manage to suppress or sublimate their sexual desires, and can find support for a life of celibacy in such organizations as the Courage Apostolate of the Roman Catholic Church. But if any manage to change their orientation, it’s few and far between. If God miraculously transforms those who pray to be made straight, he’s rather frugal with this so-called miracle. For most, being gay isn’t something you change but something you live with. The question is how you live with it.

In our society, gays and lesbians have four options. First, they can pursue a heterosexual relationship despite their lack of attraction. If they do, they can marry and know what it’s like to have a relationship recognized by law and supported by society. But it’ll be a marriage deprived of something most of us find crucial. Heterosexual sex, while possible for gays and lesbians, can neither express nor contribute to the intimate feelings of connectedness that we call romantic love, what the Catholic Church calls the unitive end of sex. When gays and lesbians choose a heterosexual relationship they give up on the possibility of such love, and they deprive their spouse of any prospect for mutual desire. Loving friendship is of course possible, but romantic love is not.

For this reason, many gays and lesbians choose a second option: a monogamous relationship with a member of the same sex. Then they can experience the unique bonding that comes with loving sexual expression. But their relationship will be socially marginalized, the privileges and supports of marriage withheld. And there is a further risk: When we work hard to build an intimate relationship, it becomes an important part of our self-understanding. When gays and lesbians build such a relationship, many in society will demonize it, effectively assaulting a deeply valued part of who they are.

To avoid this assault, they might embrace a third choice: a life of casual sexuality. If it’s furtive, done in the heat of the moment rather than as part of a committed relationship, then at least they can’t be accused of making a commitment to sin. If it’s something they themselves find rather demeaning, then at least they aren’t in danger of working hard to build something precious only to have it called an abomination.

Finally, they can choose a life of celibacy. Now it seems to me that a celibate life might well be, for some, a richly rewarding one. But it’s one thing to choose such a life, quite another to have it thrust upon you. And even though St. Paul himself argued that celibacy is a gift not given to all and that it would be better to marry than to burn with lust, gays and lesbians may feel that since marriage isn’t an option celibacy has to be their calling whether they have the gift or not. And so they grit their teeth, and they burn.

The one choice not available is the choice held up to the rest of our society as the ideal: loving marriage. Gays and lesbians can marry someone they can’t love, and they can have a loving relationship with someone they can’t marry. But the state denies them what’s available to every heterosexual: the opportunity to develop a loving, intimate sexual union recognized and supported by law. Two serial divorcees who meet at the gambling table in Vegas are free to marry that same night on a whim, so long as they’re straight. But my gay and lesbian friends who have been in faithful partnerships for years are denied marriage rights as if marriage were some kind of reward for the accidental good fortune of being straight.

I’ll be honest. It’s hard for me to discuss whether people I love will be granted the same life opportunities as everyone else. That’s not something you discuss. It’s something you do.

But I’m not naïve. I know that many believe this is something we absolutely must not do. While it seems clear from what I’ve already said that withholding civil marriage rights from same-sex couples amounts to legal discrimination against gays and lesbians, I also know that legal discrimination is sometimes justified, and that many think the current policy of exclusion is just such a case of justified discrimination.

But why think that? Amidst all the rhetoric, it seems to come down to this: opponents of same-sex marriage believe that homosexuality is a moral evil to be prohibited, and hence not something to be legally enshrined in marriage. But let’s be clear about this view. It’s not just promiscuous homosexual sex that’s being condemned. Consider the relationship between my friends Karen and Suzanne: a monogamous, faithful, loving partnership that has lasted for fourteen years and is characterized by mutual respect and care and the commitment to provide mutual support over a lifetime. The claim is that this relationship is an evil to be prohibited, even though, were the relationship heterosexual, it would be held up as a model of virtue, of chaste sexual expression, an example for the rest of the world to follow. Their relationship has every appearance of being good for them, and it doesn’t seem to harm anyone else. Why think their relationship is so morally pernicious that it’s better to practice legal discrimination than to recognize their relationship in law?

Some simply appeal to tradition here: marriage has always been between a man and a woman; society has always condemned homosexuality. But even if that were true, tradition alone is a poor guide on this issue. Traditional views were developed at a time in history when gays and lesbians had neither the conceptual categories nor the public voice to adequately express what it’s like to be gay. As a result, these beliefs were formed in a context of ignorance. We don’t have that excuse. Charity and fairness, it seems, would call us to rethink archaic dogmas in the light of compassionate attention to the lived experience of gays and lesbians, rather than squeeze them into a mold they had no part in fashioning. Tradition alone is no reason to perpetuate a discriminatory practice.

Of course, most opponents of same-sex marriage rely, not on tradition alone, but also on religious arguments. They appeal to Scripture or to some understanding of God’s plan for human sexuality in the natural order. The Catholic Church, for example, argues that God designed human sexuality to be essentially reproductive, such that all sex incompatible with the reproductive end violates human dignity. On the basis of these kinds of arguments many conclude that homosexual acts are immoral and that same-sex marriages should be prohibited no matter how hard that is on gays and lesbians. It’s just their cross to bear. We can be compassionate in helping them bear it, but bear it they must.

Such religious arguments are, of course, relevant for debates within religious communities about who should receive the religious rite of marriage. I don’t find these arguments decisive in my own religious context. While I treasure Scripture as a rich testament to the human encounter with God, I can’t accept those theories of scriptural authority which assume that just because some injunction appears in Scripture, or in Paul’s letters, we can conclude that it’s the timeless will of God. I believe, furthermore, that fidelity to an ethic of Christian love demands that we abandon a teaching that it seems to me has consistently borne poisoned fruits for our gay and lesbian neighbors. But these aren’t the arguments I want to pursue here. I want to focus, not on religious marriage, but on civil marriage.

We live in a liberal democracy that endorses the separation of church and state. Our Constitution was designed in part to ensure that no religious dogma, no matter how popular, could be employed to deny some people full equality under the law. If the only grounds for denying same-sex couples civil marriage rights are religious, then any government policy that discriminates against same-sex couples effectively endorses a particular religious view, and thus violates the separation of church and state.

The issue of same-sex civil marriage needs to be decided, not on the basis of religious arguments, but on the basis of the state’s constitutionally defined role in promoting social stability and the welfare and freedom of its citizens. It’s tempting to pursue this issue from the standpoint of privacy or freedom of association, but that’s not the approach I mean to take here. The fact is that marriage serves a number of important social functions. That’s why the state is in the marriage business in the first place. To preserve church-state separation, the state must base its decision concerning same-sex marriage on the considerations that got it into the marriage business: the social functions of marriage.

So what are these social functions?

One function is to provide a stable context for rearing children. This might lead some to think we can deny marriage rights to same-sex couples since they can’t make babies. But even though they don’t make babies, they can and do participate in raising them, and would thus be served by the civil marriage protections that contribute to a stable child-rearing environment. I might add that social scientific research does not support the view that same-sex couples are less effective than heterosexual ones at raising healthy, well-adjusted children.

More importantly, child-rearing isn’t the only social function of marriage. The state extends civil marriage rights to couples beyond child-bearing years and other couples who either can’t or don’t intend to have children. Why? A second important social function of civil marriage is to establish a kind of “default support person” for adult members of society as they confront life’s hardships. Hardship places stress on intimate relationships, and legally married couples are simply more likely than unmarried ones to stick together during difficult times and hence be available to each other as support persons. As Jonathan Rausch has pointed out, in the absence of a spouse the role of providing support falls “sometimes crushingly” on less immediate family and friends who have their own problems, as well as on charities and government programs that are already overtaxed, underfunded, and ineffective. If this is one of the social functions of civil marriage, then it’s in the interests of the state to extend same-sex marriage rights to gays and lesbians who, by virtue of their sexual orientation, can’t establish successful heterosexual marriages.

Perhaps even more important is the fact that civil marriage is a stabilizing force on society as a whole. The legal benefits of civil marriage encourage couples to form and sustain monogamous partnerships, and the prevalence of such partnerships helps to shield society from the more volatile effects of human sexuality run amok—the suicidal heartbreaks, the violent jealousies, the complex soap operas of sexual rivalry and exploitation that cause so much psychological damage to those caught up in them. At least as significantly, in this age of AIDS the stabilization of human sexual activity plays a critical role in promoting public health.

As it stands, gays and lesbians are denied participation in the primary social model for responsible sexuality. Denied access to the social supports of marriage, intimate relationships lose their traditional social anchor and are prone towards impermanence and, in some cases, promiscuity. If civil marriage were expanded to include same-sex couples, the stabilizing power of marriage would also be expanded.

Finally, there is this simple fact: people in mutually caring, sexually satisfying long-term relationships tend to be more satisfied overall with their lives. While access to civil marriage is no guarantee of a fulfilling relationship, it does provide social and legal supports that can facilitate the development of such a relationship. Promoting the life satisfaction of its citizens is surely one role of government—not merely for the sake of individual citizens but also for the sake of social cohesion. The more satisfied people are with their lives, the less likely they are to engage in disruptive antisocial behavior, and the more likely they are to support the society that contributes to their quality of life.

So: Why is the government in the marriage business? Because there are social advantages to promoting monogamous sexual partnerships. And these advantages would be advanced by extending civil marriage rights to same-sex couples. Hence, the social functions of marriage can’t justify the current policy of legal discrimination. It seems as if only sectarian religious arguments can do that. But to allow such arguments to determine social policy violates the separation of church and state. In a sense, that is what is really at stake in this debate: do we as a nation really believe in the separation of church and state?

The Infamous Atheist Sign in the Capitol Rotunda

At finals time I tend to lose track of the news. Hence, I entirely missed the recent furor about the atheist sign posted in the Washington State Capitol rotunda, in the vicinity of a manger scene. (The trick has since been performed elsewhere, including the Illinois Capitol). The sign, and the controversy surrounding it, were brought to my attention this morning by none other than Chuck Norris.

Chuck (if I may call him that) had a gigantic editorial printed on the opinion page of the Stillwater News Press, in which he railed against the hateful atheists—describing his response, modestly enough, as the equivalent of a “roundhouse kick” against those responsible for anti-religious hate-mongering.

If it was a roundhouse kick, I think it largely missed its target. But I suspect that the more apt metaphor would be a series of jabs, some of which struck glancing blows. But what interested me about Chuck’s editorial wasn’t the merit of his reply (or lack thereof), but the facts about the case. Both a manger scene and an atheist sign had been put up in the rotunda. And the sign read as follows: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven and hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

The message (sans reference to the Winter Solstice) was familiar to me, of course. It’s the dominant message coming out of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and other recent atheist bestsellers, albeit expressed in a brief slogan and without supporting arguments.

And so, since I’ve just finished writing a book critically assessing the arguments in support of this very message, I felt I should consider the issues surrounding the posting of this sign.

The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one issue here. There is, of course, the substance of the message itself, and then there is the question about the moral propriety of posting it in a public venue adjacent to a manger scene in December. But what I want to think about first is the Washington State policy that permits a Christian group to place a nativity scene in the Capitol Building.

Now at first this may seem like a blatant case of state sponsorship of religion, except for the fact that Washington state has apparently made the same space available in a non-sectarian way to other religious groups that want to put things up (a Menorah has been put up in the past). And this year, back in October, state officials agreed to let an atheist group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), put up its own display. What appeared, a few weeks ago, was the now-infamous atheist sign.

In one sense what we have here is an example of state officials trying to fairly carry out one interpretation of our nation’s commitment to church/state separation and freedom of religion. According to the interpretation expressed by the decision-makers in Washington State (and, apparently, elsewhere), what the state should do is provide a neutral context in which divergent comprehensive worldviews can express their beliefs. And instead of doing so by purging all state institutions of religious symbols or ideas, the strategy is to make sure that all comers have the same opportunity (should they wish to avail themselves of it) to express themselves in, say, a public school holiday concert or a Capitol rotunda. And this includes not only those who believe in a transcendent reality and have certain ideas about it, but also those who believe that the natural world is all that there is. In the broadest sense of the term, the latter is a “religious expression” as much as any other. If Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus should be free to express their faith, then so should atheists, even if their “faith” is essentially that none of the things in which religious believers place faith are real.

Now in theory, I like this approach better than the “purge all state institutions of everything remotely religious” approach. But there are difficulties that arise in a society in which one religion dominates as much as Christianity does in the US. When that is the case, it wouldn’t be at all uncommon that an open invitation to religious communities to put up symbols of their religious holidays in a public space would lead to a nativity scene promptly going up and nothing else (other religious communities feeling reluctant, perhaps, to call too much attention to themselves). Put simply, an open invitation by the government runs the risk of combining with pervasive social forces and majority power to ensure that the invitation is only taken up by the dominant religion.

This risk is magnified if the state does not in any way regulate the content of the religious ideas being put on display. For example, suppose that the state lets all religious comers post a display in the rotunda of a public building, regardless of the substantive message expressed in that display. And then suppose that a Jewish community group puts up a Menorah. And then, a few days later, a radical Christian group puts up a signs which says “The people that put up that Menorah are all going to roast forever in the fires of hell.”

If this were a real possibility—if the Jewish group knew that putting up its Menorah could very well generate such a response, and that the state would do nothing to block such public hate speech—then the Jewish group might well decide to spare its community the hateful message by not taking up the state’s invitation to express its religion. And so powerful social forces, unrestrained by the government, could turn what in principle is an open invitation to express religious views into a lopsided forum for the promulgation of the dominant religion.

Of course, this danger could be minimized if the state exercised its judgment concerning what, exactly, could be put on display. Perhaps it could say something like, “Expressing your religion in symbols and images and words is fine, but attacking other religions is unacceptable.” But if it does so, it runs the risk of being accused of censorship.

For these reasons, it might be safest for the state to simply keep its rotundas (literally and metaphorically) free of all religious symbolism. But the effect of doing so will have its own costs, of course. I would much rather go to a holiday concert at my son’s public school in which I was treated to an array of holiday songs from a diversity of religious traditions, than I would a concert in which all we got were “Let’s Go for a Sleigh Ride” and “Frosty the Snow Man.” The fact is that religion, in its diverse forms, fires the soul in ways that often spill over into great art. And I would prefer to live in a world where all of us can appreciate, if just on an aesthetic level, public displays of these creative expressions of the religious consciousness.

So I think there’s no easy answer to how the government should best pursue its mandate to refrain from endorsing a particular religion and to foster freedom of religious expression. The general strategy pursued in Washington state is, it seems to me, a defensible approach.

But if this approach is going to be pursued, government officials need to think carefully about parameters. A Menorah is a symbol related to a religious story, one that brings inspiration to many people. A nativity, likewise, is an image that evokes a religious story that many find inspirational. Both symbols are polysemitic—that it, they do not have a single uniform meaning, but can be interpreted differently by different viewers. Many view the nativity and see in it the message that God rejects human hierarchies and affirms the dignity of the poor. But Dan Barker, head of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, claims to see in it the message that everyone who does not bow down before Jesus is bound for hell.

Now I’m sure there are experiences in Barker’s life that explain why he sees such a loathsome message in an image of shepherds and kings and farm animals gathered in awed silence around a newborn baby. But it should be plain that the nativity image does not say this. The atheist sign, by contrast, does say that “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds”—in slightly different terms, that religion, without distinction, is a source of moral corruption and irrationality.

Now, as I argue in my book, I think that we can identify properties which, if possessed by a so-called religion, do render it a source of moral corruption and irrationality. But we can find religious believers whose faith lacks these harmful properties, and hence who are not “guilty as charged.” In short, I think that the message on this atheist sign is mistaken.

But the state should surely not welcome some religious expressions and exclude others based on judgments about truth. For obvious reasons, doing so would be a recipe for the state to take sides among religious options, and therefore abandon its mandate to refrain from endorsing one religion over others. Freedom of religion evaporates the moment that the government thinks it has the insight and authority to judge which religions are true and which are false. We see this in Muslim nations. We saw it in the atheist Soviet Union. We saw it in the explicitly Christian nations of the middle ages.

Now there is a great deal of truth to the insight that dominant religions can weather harsh criticism from disempowered minorities far better than the other way around. Thus, there is far more harm in allowing the dominant religion to ridicule and denigrate minority religions (including atheism) than in allowing minority groups to take pot-shots at some religious Behemoth. From this perspective, it might be said that allowing an atheist group to use a state forum to attack the moral and intellectual integrity of those who are religious isn’t all that serious a matter.

In fact, it probably isn’t. But I don’t know that I want public officials to be in the business of deciding who can weather attacks on their belief system and who can’t. And so my inclination is to say that when the public school puts on its multicultural holiday concert, the officials shouldn’t decide that songs explicitly attacking Christianity are okay, but ones that attack Judaism or atheism are not. Instead, they should probably just agree not to have religious attack-songs on the program—even if, as may be the case, the atheist choir director has recently composed a beautiful four-part harmony setting of the text to the FFRF sign. This choir director should have a venue in which to perform his creation, but the public school concert probably isn’t the right one.

Of course, deciding to keep religious attack-songs out of a holiday concert is a different matter than deciding to keep attack messages out of the holiday displays in the Washington State Capitol rotunda. In the case of the public school concert, it is employees of the school who are putting together the program. In the rotunda, what we have is a state policy of permitting religious groups to sponsor displays. So the choice of what is displayed is made, not by state officials, but by these groups. Do uniform criteria which preclude explicit attacks on other worldviews, communicated to all who wish to put up a display, count as inappropriate censorship?

This question inspires in me another, related question: Does atheism have enough affirmative content that it can be anything but a denigration of the alternatives? According to Sam Harris, the answer is no. In his Letter to a Christian Nation, he maintains that atheism “is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious.” By “the obvious” he means that there is no God (something that is far from obvious to many others). So, according to Harris, atheism is exclusively negative in its content. It is nothing but a claim to the effect that every religious believer is wrong--and, in his view, obviously wrong.

But even if he is right about atheism, it doesn’t follow that an atheist display couldn’t appear in a public forum guided by a prohibition on attacks against other worldviews. To say, “I think you are mistaken” isn’t an attack. It's just disagreement. To say, “We don’t believe in any higher power that can redeem us” is not an attack on those who do. But what about saying, “Those who believe other than we do with respect to the existence of a transcendent reality are lacking in both moral and intellectual integrity”? That sounds like an attack—one that is commonly heard among religious extremists of every stripe, including, recently, among atheists. And while the FFRF sign doesn’t say precisely this, it comes awfully close.

Is it state censorship to require that divergent perspectives express themselves in the rotunda with a measure of decorum and mutual respect? If it is, then I would say that the state should probably leave the rotunda empty. But I hope that fair and reasonable policies can be developed, policies which can help to put on display the rich and varied textures of our society, without at the same time creating a venue for our intolerance, animosity, and derision of those who disagree with us.