Gore & Establishment Clause
Gun Grabber Gore Wants to Violate the Separation of Church and State
by dischord
(distribution permitted and encouraged)

Should the federal government or the clergy have power over the rules for entering a house of worship? Al Gore, despite the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, apparently thinks the government should make the rules. According to his campaign web site (http://www.algore2000.com/guns/gun_agenda2.html):

>>Ban Concealed Weapons from Houses of Worship: Churches, synagogues,
>>mosques and other houses of worship should be havens from the threat of
>>gun violence. Al Gore supports banning concealed weapons in houses of
>>worship to protect worshipers and make police officers’ jobs easier.

Get it? In Al Gore’s world, if Father Mike or Reverend Jones or Rabbi Cohen knew you to be safe and had no problem with your carrying your Glock (after you told him you had reason to fear for your life but refused to give up weekly worship), he couldn’t give the OK. He would be legally powerless to make a rule about his place of worship because the government would mandate it. In fact, if your favorite member of the cloth himself feared for his life, he could not carry a gun for protection to his own pulpit.

Certainly, the clergy themselves should be able to ban weapons on premises. I’m certain most would. But others would want to allow it. Just as I would oppose a law that *forced* clergy to allow carrying, I’d oppose a law that *forbid* clergy to allow carrying.

In fact, attempts to meet that balance and respect the Establishment Clause are behind Gore’s proposal. In recent years, as states relaxed their concealed carry laws, there has been much consternation as states like Texas and Kentucky removed laws that forbid carrying in churches.

But as the Rev. Rick Scarborough, pastor of First Baptist Church of Pearland, Texas, told the Austin American-Statesman back in 1997, “Private property always has the lawful ability to eliminate anyone whether they are carrying a gun or not carrying a gun. It’s not the business of any government entity, be it federal, state or local, to tell a church who can or can’t come on their property.”

Get it?, the laws do not bar churches from banning guns (or anything else). People who disobey these bans can be declared trespassers and removed. There even are laws that cover dangerous situations, most using language like “brandishing a deadly weapon in a dangerous manner.”

In fact, people who fear this lack of government control over churches have fallen victim to the propaganda of groups like HCI or Violence Policy Center that people who get permits to carry concealed weapons are somehow likely to crack and “brandish weapons in a deadly manner.”

That’s just simply not the case. Rather, it’s typically the folk who wouldn’t obey the laws anyway who are the danger. A carry permit law that bans concealed permit carriers from doing anything won’t effect the actions who disobey the permit law itself.

But if there really is a danger to churches (Has there been a spate of church shootings? Uh, Al, that was burnings not shootings) such a law would do nothing to stop it. If there really were a problem, Gore’s proposal would be a dereliction of duty because it does not address the problem.

In fact, all it does is satisfy the sensibilities of those frightened by anti-gun propaganda. However, they are wrongly irritated into thinking churches are powerless without such a government ban. In states like Texas or Kentucky that have recognized the Establishment Clause, there is nothing to stop churches from banning guns. They can use existing trespassing laws to back it up.

But I suspect that most people who go to religious services are the type who would meekly obey requests to leave guns at home. It wouldn’t get into declaring them trespassers and having them forcibly removed. This is a non issue. There is no protection missing that this law would add.

All that’s missing is the government saying one way or the other what’s allowed in a church. That bothers Al Gore, and his being bothered by a lack of a national law mandating behavior in church bothers me.