Baker Institute expert: Texas Legislature must uphold church-state separation

EXPERT ALERT

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu

Baker Institute expert: Texas Legislature must uphold church-state separation

HOUSTON – (Jan. 6, 2017) – A range of proposals before the 2017 Texas legislative session would breach Thomas Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state, according to a religious studies scholar and Christian theologian at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

“Legislators, of course, are entitled to their own religious convictions, as much as anyone else,” said Baker Institute nonresident scholar David Brockman. “What they cannot do – according to the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and subsequent judicial interpretation – is make public policy that, as then-Supreme Court Justice David Souter wrote, prefers ‘one religion to another, or religion to irreligion.’ Yet several of the bills to be considered in the 2017 Texas Legislature appear to do just that.”

Brockman, who teaches courses in religion and religious studies as an adjunct professor at both Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University, has written an op-ed for the Texas Observer on the topic and is available to speak with media about proposed legislation — including anti-Shariah, anti-abortion and pro-Israel bills — and its implications.

“In 1785, James Madison explained why a wall of separation was crucial not only to protect government from religion, but to protect religion from government,” Brockman wrote in his op-ed. “The Old World, Madison reminded readers, had spilled ‘torrents of blood’ trying to impose a uniform set of religious beliefs. And he warned Christians that any government that can favor their religion over others can just as easily favor one group of Christians — say Catholics or Baptists — to the exclusion of other groups. In short, as Madison wrote in 1823, mixing religion and government ‘is injurious to both.’”

-30-

For more information or to schedule an interview with Brockman, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

Related materials:

Brockman biography: www.bakerinstitute.org/experts/david-r-brockman.

Baker Institute Religion and Public Policy Program: www.bakerinstitute.org/religion-policy-program.

Follow the Baker Institute via Twitter @BakerInstitute.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Founded in 1993, Rice University’s Baker Institute ranks among the top five university-affiliated think tanks in the world. As a premier nonpartisan think tank, the institute conducts research on domestic and foreign policy issues with the goal of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy. The institute’s strong track record of achievement reflects the work of its endowed fellows, Rice University faculty scholars and staff, coupled with its outreach to the Rice student body through fellow-taught classes — including a public policy course — and student leadership and internship programs. Learn more about the institute at www.bakerinstitute.org or on the institute’s blog, http://blogs.chron.com/bakerblog.