Behind The Lodge Door: The Church, State and Freemasonry in America by Paul A. Fisher

Author:Paul A. Fisher [Fisher, Paul A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TAN Books
Published: 2015-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

" . . .Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinions. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy . . . has been found to assuage the disease. [America] has exhibited proofs, that EQUAL and compleat liberty, if it does not wholly eradicate it, sufficiently destroys its malignant influence on the health and prosperity of the State . . ." (Emphasis added). [Everson, p. 68].

Actually, the statement by the minority, while not accurately reflecting the views of Madison, does echo the views of Justice Black, and Elmer Rogers of the Scottish Rite.

In testimony delivered before the Senate Education and Labor Committee—shortly after Justice Black had initiated correspondence with Senator Hill and with the high Masonic official—the latter expressed opposition to Congress providing equitable educational benefits for students in both public and church schools. He said:

" . . .each group would contend for the most it could get and thus give rise to much wrangling.

"Moreover, the fight between the two kinds of nonpublic schools, sectarian and nonsectarian, would be always tense, to say nothing of a like feeling that would arise as between the various religious denominations for their respective shares. All of this will throw religion and education into State and National politics with that acrimony and vindictive jealousy that always characterizes such issues."29

And those views of Rogers were strikingly similar to sentiments expressed by Justice Black when he was commenting on his membership in the Ku Klux Klan before a nationwide radio audience in 1937. At that time Black had said:

" . . .any program, even if directed by good intentions, which tends to breed or revive religious discord or antagonism can and may spread with such rapidity as to imperil this vital Constitutional protection of one of the most sacred human rights . . .

"[It will project] religious beliefs into a position of prime importance in political campaigns and . . . reinject our social and business life with the passion of religious bigotry.

"It will bring the political religionist back into undeserved and perilous influence in affairs of government . . ."30

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