The MagazineFaith in GovernmentThe strikingly divergent opinions of the Founders.May 17, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 33
• By RYAN T. ANDERSON
 God and the Founders  Photo Credit: AP Madison, Washington, and Jefferson Everybody wants the Founding Fathers on their side, especially when it comes to First Amendment jurisprudence. Want to promote religion in the public square and the necessity of religion for good morals and politics? Just pull out a few choice quotations from George Washington’s Farewell Address, or his public proclamations of days of prayer and thanksgiving. Want to defend your secularism or rationalism? Just refer to Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation,” or his redacted Bible. Want to split the difference and push governmental impartiality among religions, and between religion and non-religion? Why, just invoke (incorrectly, as we’ll see) the authority of James Madison and his famous “Memorial and Remonstrance.” Perhaps this helps explain why questions of religion and politics are so messy in American public life—and even messier in today’s Supreme Court jurisprudence. Consider how, on the same day in 2005, the Court issued two different 5-4 decisions on cases involving public displays of the Ten Commandments. The Court allowed a Texas state capitol Decalogue monument but ruled against Kentucky courthouse postings of the same—repeatedly invoking the Founders in both majority and dissenting opinions. The merits of each case aside, how could educated and intelligent judges repeatedly disagree with each other, all the while claiming that the Founders are on their side? To read more, you must be a Weekly Standard Subscriber We're Sorry,
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