McCain's Beliefnet Interview: How can the Religious Right Hate This Guy?

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity” - John Quincy Adams

www.american-infidels.com

I am just wondering wether you are agreeing with the religious right, i.e you support the candate with the highest God-o-meter score. Or is this said in a neutral fashion?

One has to wonder what exalted principles of Christianity are thought to be embodied in the Constitution of the United States. I can't see the substantive parts of the Constitution as having much to do with Christianity. Did Christianity advocate the separation of powers, or preach against the quartering of troops in private homes, or in favor of trial by jury? No, the important heritage to be looked to in the Constitution is the political legacy of England from the Magna Carta to the Glorious Revolution, and the Enlightenment heritage of Britain and the Continent.

But let's keep our eye on the ball here. McCain was asked specifically about the Constitution.

Q.A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?

McCain:I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense.

I don't know what "broadest sense" McCain has in mind. The Constitution certainly does not say much about turning the other cheek, or selling all you have and giving it to the poor. The Framer's Constitution does however retain the institution of slavery, so I presume that the Christian nation thus established thought slavery was in accord with the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.

Here is a pertinent selection from Assoc. Justice Story:

Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§1841 (part)

§ 1841. The remaining part of the clause declares, that "no religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under the United States." This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any religious test, or affirmation. It had a higher object; to cut off for ever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government. The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in the history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew, that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its stratagems, to secure to itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of the civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility. The Catholic and the Protestant had alternately waged the most ferocious and unrelenting warfare on each other; and Protestantism itself, at the very moment, that it was proclaiming the right of private judgment, prescribed boundaries to that right, beyond which if any one dared to pass, he must seal his rashness with the blood of martyrdom.

The republican party does not get it.
The invasion of Iraq should have ended after we captured SH. McCain,and his heart for war,have no chance of beating Hill.

We are both wondering where Senator McCain took his history courses. We have both searched our memory as best as we could and we cannot remember any part of the Constitution where it states that this country was founded as a Christian nation.

Senator McCain’s statements are patently untrue and cannot be verified by a study of the very documentation that he sites, the Constitution of the United States.

There is documentation that states the reverse. The Treaty of Tripoli (ratified by the United States Senate on 10 June 1797) states that the United States is not a Christian nation. While this treaty no longer has legal status, it clearly reflects the beliefs of our founding fathers at the beginning of the American government.

In hearing what Senator McCain said in his interview with BeliefNet, we can only conclude that he is in some way seeking the votes of fundamentalist Christians.

Or he has accepted their version of history. While there are references to a Creator in the Declaration of Independence, they were written by men who were more Deists than they were Christian. They were men who came from environments where the church was controlled by the state and church membership was a requirement of citizenship and political activity.

It states on Thomas Jefferson’s grave stone that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence, author of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia. The statute for religious freedom was written by Jefferson and James Madison in response to the persecution of Baptist ministers by the state of Virginia and the Anglican Church. And while people may feel that the colonies that became the United States were a haven for all Christians, it should be noted that it wasn’t until the early 19th century that Massachusetts removed the requirement for church membership (or establishment clause) from its own state constitution.

Both Jefferson and Madison felt that religious beliefs were private matters and immune from interference from the state. These beliefs are neither expressed by the fundamentalists today nor echoed by Senator McCain’s comments.

It is also interesting to note that Senator McCain has announced that he has changed from the faith of his father to the faith of the voters. For a long time, he let people think that he was an Episcopalian and only recently has he stated that he is in fact a Baptist. Such a conversion seems more of a political one than a religious one.

We also believe that any person running for the highest office in the land should have a clear understanding of the Constitution. We also believe that the American people, who have studied the Constitution in their own high school classes, should be crying out when others try to rewrite American History and the Constitution.

We are not asking for Senator McCain to retract or restate his word. To do so, would only confirm what he has already shown are his motives – to seek the nomination of his party to be the presidential candidate.

When he was a POW, he confessed to being a war criminal to make things easier on him.

He's not a man. He'll say anything to make his life even easier than it already is. His dad and grandpa's power in the military, and their money got him not only into military school, but also into the military and into office. Just another daddy's boy, like Bush.

Great job Ann and Tony--finally somebody intelligent enough to write an accurate blog.