The New Conflict Between God and The Law

Trevor Keezer thinks his First Amendment rights have been taken away.

The Home Depot store clerk lost his job because he refused to remove a button from his company uniform that read "One nation under God." Home Depot had asked him to remove the button several times, and even offered a substitute button that read "United We Stand."

Keezer was wearing the button to honor his brother, a National Guardsman readying to deploy to Iraq soon. Home Depot didn't dispute that fact, but had an issue with a reference to Christianity on his store apron.

More than a first amendment issue, though, it's indicative of a country that is changing its views on religion, and should look more toward its past to find answers for its future.

Keezer's view is that as an American, he should have the right to express his religious views any way he sees fit - and he's right. As an American, he made a choice not to remove the button, knowing there would be consequences. The problem with his argument is that when he is on the company clock, he's an employee of Home Depot first, and an American second. Businesses have a right to appeal to a broad marketplace and they also have the right to demand a certain dress code of their employees. A Christian message on a company uniform implies the company endorses Christianity, and despite Keezer's personal beliefs, his first amendment rights to not extend so far that he can be permitted to speak for the company regarding religion.

On a similar track, some Christian activists are up in arms over the new Hate Crimes legislation that President Obama signed into law recently, believing that they could be persecuted for espousing their religious belief that homosexuality is wrong.

The truth is the law punishes actions, not thoughts or words - unless the words incite others to act. If a preacher exhorts his congregation to oppose homosexuals violently, clearly the law might be applicable and result in the prosecution of the preacher if violent acts could be traced back to his congregation. Is that a violation of freedom of speech? Based on former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes' free speech test, not so much. His "yelling fire in a crowded theater" example applies to people exhorting violence against anyone, and would not be protected speech, even without the law. The new law simply strengthens the punishment for doing so.
Meanwhile, in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, people are starting to get it right. For the last year, students and teachers erected banners exhorting Bible quotes at Fort Oglethorpe High School football game to motivate their team to emerge victorious. An agnostic parent complained, and the banners came down. As a result, the majority of the parents in Fort Oglethorpe - a buckle notch of the Bible Belt - complained to high heaven that their free speech rights were being violated.

The school board rightly explained that the school, an arm of the government, could not endorse one religion over another per the separation of church and state embodied in what is called the "establishment" clause of the Constitution. Instead, fans, parents and cheerleaders took the initiative to create their own banners and T-shirts with the Biblical phrases.

The result? Instead of a single banner on the field, the stadium was now filled with religious signs, banners and messages. The school, surprisingly to the parents, said "no problem."

In Oglethorpe, both the letter and the spirit of the first amendment worked. A government-sponsored religious display was eliminated, the people spoke their minds, and by using personal displays of their spirituality to counter the loss of the government-sponsored display, they actually discovered that they are able to spread their message more effectively and broadly. Many parents have even dropped their fight to change the school's policy, as well.

And that's really the way it's supposed to work. The founding fathers did not want to be within driving distance of any kind of government-endorsement of religion when they wrote the Constitution, because they just crossed an ocean to escape the state-run Church of England. The establishment clause exists because the only way to make sure that Christians can practice their religion freely without affront by the government is to make sure that Muslims, Jews, Quakers, Mormons and even Wiccans can practice their religion freely, as well.

And that's the nature of spirituality in a free country.

Alan Richards, 60, is the author of The Second Cycle from Emerald Book Company (www.alanerichards.com). An attorney and Chicago resident, he has been married to his wife, Meridee, for 39 years, and has two children - Kate, age 27, and Zachary, age 23. He was a practicing attorney for 30 years doing mostly courtroom work. He holds a law degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and an undergrad degree from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He has been included in Preeminent Attorneys in America, published by Martindale Hubbell, the legal profession's most authoritative publication dealing with lawyer competency. He also appears in Who's Who in American Law.