Private support for public beliefs, of any stripe
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Thomas Jefferson, as a tavern placemat reminded me the other day, imported America's first pasta machine.
He'd fallen in love with "macaroni" while touring Italy as our minister to France, tasted many varieties and copied the design of a hand-cranked machine. Before leaving Europe, he bought a pasta maker to bring home.
But Jefferson, the great adapter, borrowed more than just fine cuisine.
Late last week, as atheist students protested Duquesne University's decision to deny their group official recognition and as Bishop David Zubik blessed the "Pittsburgh Creche" at U.S. Steel Plaza, I came across what's surely the pithiest of Jefferson's many presentations of the Reformation principle of separation of church and state:
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others," he wrote in "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1785). "But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
That final sentence is as clear and succinct a standard for evaluating church-state conflicts as we're likely to find. Both Duquesne's decision and the creche's location illustrate it.
Atheist students had petitioned Duquesne's student government for recognition as a campus group, which would have allowed them to receive funds for activities and use campus space for meetings.
In other words, to adapt Jefferson's phrase, the atheists would have picked the Catholic school's pocket.
Your neighbor can say there's no god, but he can't make you pay for his soapbox. The young members of Duquesne's student government -- God bless them! -- understand this.
When administrators reviewed the students' decision, they affirmed it: Duquesne has no obligation to financially support a group whose purpose runs contrary to its religious mission.
That's no surprise, but the American Civil Liberties Union essentially affirmed it as well. Vic Walczak told the Associated Press that because Duquesne isn't a public school, "this is not a constitutional matter."
The location of the "Pittsburgh Creche," however, is a constitutional matter. Or was.
The Holy Name Society of Pittsburgh began placing a Nativity scene on the grand staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse in 1981. In December 1986, the local ACLU sued to stop the display, and in 1989 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the ACLU, determining that the display's primary message was religious and therefore violated the Constitution's establishment clause.
First Published November 21, 2011 12:00 am
