In a land of democracy, even these last remnants of the scourge of
medievalism are wiped out. We look with indignation and disgust at the
priest-ridden countries where a slavish population submits to the lash
of bigoted despots, and rejoice that our lot is cast under a freeer
heaven. Such religious persecution as may still be found among us finds
no warrant in law. It consists of the abuse by individuals of their
economic power over others. In any community where human beings are
found vile enough to wish to destroy what they can of the happiness
of all who do not pronounce their shibboleth, they can only resort to
private activity in the way of ostracism, boycott, blacklisting and
other weapons of cowardly malignance; and the state gives them no
countenance in their criminal enterprises. It is our proud boast that
in this land of freedom the state protects every person in the full
exercise of his right to choose his own religion, and to abstain from
recognition of any other.
What a pity that words are not always equivalent to deeds! So curiously
compounded is the human mind that few are capable of carrying a
principle to its logical conclusion. In some matters, a middle ground
is possible; but there can be no compromise in cases where the slightest
concession vitiates the entire contention of one side or the other. In
matters of policy or of tactics, it is often feasible and just that
each of the contending parties should recede somewhat from its extreme
demands, in order to break a deadlock, or to promote good feeling;
and refusal to yield a non-essential point may be justly condemned as
obstinacy. Even in matters of principle, there is no sacrifice of one's
own sacred convictions in manifesting respect for the convictions of
others. But between manifesting respect for the views of an opponent and
surrendering one's own conscience to him, there is a great gulf fixed.
We may agree that truth needs no artificial props, and that nothing
can be safer than to allow even the most flagrant error full liberty of
expression. This, however, is something very different from ourselves
furnishing the medium of expression for that which we believe to be
false and pernicious, and giving it the unmerited advantage of our moral
sanction. When we realize that exemption from taxation is as palpable
a subsidy as direct appropriation of funds for the propagation of the
doctrines of the exempted institution, and that every taxpayer must not
only bear a heavier burden in consequence of such exemption, but must
also, with or against his will, be counted as part of the organic
social whole which officially pronounces in favor of the merits of such
doctrines, we immediately perceive that the wrong done to the citizens
is not to be measured in dollars and cents. Standing at the parting of
the ways, the state deliberately chooses to follow the path which
leads in the direction of ecclesiastical domination of the protesting
individual. It denies the sacred and blood-bought principle of full
religious liberty. It asserts that the private conscience of the
individual is the property of the community. This is the theory of the
Spanish Inquisition, and is diametrically hostile to democracy. If the
state has the right to decree that its citizens, regardless of their
desires and convictions, shall be forced to contribute to the support of
the church, it has an equal right to declare that they shall give their
time as well as their money to its upbuilding; that they shall attend
its services and give it the benefit of their membership; that they
shall refrain from any word or deed, public or private, which may tend
to weaken its influence; that they shall submit all their affairs to
its guidance, and shall obey its ministers in all things. There is
no logical stopping-point short of this consistent application of the
doctrine that religion is a matter of public concern. If this doctrine
be true, every step away from the Middle Ages has been a ghastly
mistake; and we should return in all reverence and humility to the ideas
and efforts of Torquemada and Simon de Montfort. No person has a logical
right to condemn medievalism, who does not fully and consistently accept
the democratic principle that religion is a strictly private affair and
that it is in no way the business of the state to concern itself
with the question whether the church is to live or to die. From the
democratic standpoint, the church is simply a voluntary group of
individuals, who hold certain beliefs and aims in common, and who have
the same right as all similar groups to associate for the carrying out
of such aims, provided that they do not involve lawlessness of any kind,
and to use their own means in propagating their ideas among such men
and women as choose to lend a hearing to them. Like all other groups of
law-abiding men and women, it is entitled to protection against lawless
interference with its peaceful and lawful activities, whether the
majority of the community may approve or disapprove of its specific
doctrines; and it is bound, in its turn, to refrain from interfering
with the equal freedom of other groups or individuals. In case of a
dispute, the state is the proper umpire, not with reference to the truth
or the wholesomeness of the doctrines professed by the church or by its
opponents, but solely with reference to the question whether the civil
rights of either faction have been infringed by representatives of the
contrary party. There is no room here for the favoritism inherent in tax
exemption. This measure cannot satisfy the claims of either democracy or
medievalism. It gives to priestcraft either too much or too little.