With no disrespect to any of the fine citizens of South Carolina, I'd like to express my disappointment with something I read today. It was in a column about SC gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and her statements from her website about her faith. (Haley is a Christian, and goes to great lengths on her site emphasizing that point.) The column reports that the SC constitution contains the requirement that "No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being."
From a constitutional law standpoint, I find it hard to believe that a state constitution can so directly contradict the federal constitution's stated right of freedom of religion. But aside from the legality of the requirement, I have grave concerns with the limitations it puts on the citizens of the state. The requirement does not go so far as to impose a belief system upon citizens of the state, but it does limit the positions that citizens without certain belief systems can hold.
I believe in "the Supreme Being", but also respect the right of others not to. I also don't see how an argument can be made that the governing ability of one who does not believe would be lesser in any way than one who does. The record shows that believing in a Supreme Being doesn't exactly keep you off the Appalachian Trail, if you know what I mean.
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Don't misunderstand me to be defending either Candidate Haley's position on religion or her state's constitutional requirements to hold office. I would just like to point out that there is nothing within the clause you referenced that violates the Federal Constitution's First Amendment - as you allude.
The First Amendment prevents only Congress from passing a law abridging the Freedom of religion. It makes no reference to a state's right to do so. (Not that South Carolina's clause does that). In fact, the Tenth Amendment would grant states the right to establish an official state religion should they so choose.
Consider the time in which the Federal Constitution was crafted. At that time, many states had clauses within their state constitutions that were very similar to the clause you reference in your post. In fact, many states went so far as to actually establish an official state religion specifically within their constitutions.
One impetus behind our Founders even putting the language regarding religion into the First Amendment was to specifically assure states that the Federal Govt. would not intrude on a state's right to establish a religion should they so choose.
As I stated earlier, I offer no defense for the SC state Constitution - which appears to be in serious need of a do-over. And I personally don't support the clause in question. I'd just like to point out that there is nothing about it that is in violation of the Federal Constitution's First Amendment.
wrong. wrong. wrong. The first section of the 1st amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." It is THEN followed by the portion preventing Congress from abridging religious freedom (". . . prohibiting the free exercise thereof;")
Exactly. "CONGRESS shall make no law..."
There's no mention of Congress preventing a state from making enacting such laws.
Remember, the First Amendment guarantees only a freedom of religion, and not a freedom from religion.
My apologies, as I misunderstood to what the "only" of your comments was referring. You are correct.
I realized upon re-reading my post that the clause I referenced does not in fact contradict any freedom of religion clause because it does not impose restrictions on the citizenry. It does, however, clearly place restrictions on candidates for governor which seem to be unreasonable (beyond the obvious reasonable restrictions of age and criminal background), and that was the main point I was trying to make. Thanks for calling me out on my mistake Wiley.
The debate about states' rights is an entirely different ball of wax which we won't take on here, but perhaps is worth arguing another day.
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