It's necessary for me to start this particular blog posting, that will defend the right of a juror to consult the Bible during his or her deliberations, by stating that I do not consider the Bible to be the "literal" word of God.

I don't think, for instance, that Lot's wife really turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah. Nor do I think that Moses really parted the Red Sea. Or that Noah got ALL of the animals in the world, two-by-two, into the ark. Or for that matter, that the whole world was flooded.

But I do believe that the Bible, even with all of its inherent contradictions (do we "turn the other cheek" as per the New Testament, or is it "an eye for an eye" as instructed by the Old?), is one of the greatest works of spirituality ever compiled, and has for centuries provided a valuable compass for many people (even non-Christians like Gandhi) when it came time to make important decisions about morality or justice.

That's why I find myself puzzled by a recent 3-2 decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that it is improper for members of a jury hearing a death penalty case to bring Bibles into the jury room. Religious views, of course, are fine to bring along. You just can't consult the book that shaped them.

Colorado has a law that says juries cannot use outside materials during deliberations. These materials, the court said, may carry the "ring of authority" and thus influence jurors. In the past, for instance, the court has said juries cannot use dictionaries or the Internet.

I can understand that. Using the Internet, for example, could expose the jury to elements of a case that may have been ruled inadmissible.

But the Bible? After all, don't courts ask you to swear on a Bible that you'll tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Doesn't that imply that the courts recognize the Bible as a document that carries some measure of importance, even if only for a particular group of people?

Besides, I'm sure there are more than a few people in the state of Colorado who could recite whole passages of the Bible from memory. Would you therefore ban these people from being jurors because they are, basically, a "recorded book"?

I understand the point the Colorado Supreme Court is trying to make - jurors must decide the outcome of a case based on what they hear or see during the trial, or are given to read by the judge, and based on those things alone.

But even I can recite the part of the Bible that says "an eye for an eye." If I believed that this was the determining factor in making a decision (which I don't, by the way), then I would follow that dictum - with or without a copy of the Bible.

The same can be said of any book. For instance if I happened to think that psychologist Carl Jung's "Modern man and his search for a soul," could help me formulate my thoughts on this issue - or even "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for that matter - then I would use it, even if I didn't have it in hand.

I would push for the same 'consulting' rights, by the way, for a Muslim who wanted to consult the Koran or a Jew who wanted to consult the Tanach (the first five books of the Old Testament).

As I argued in last week's My American Life about the Terri Schiavo case, this is a nation of laws. And it's more important to follow those laws that we have hammered into place over the course of 225 years as a nation than it is to follow the religious teaching of any particular book or faith in our courts. The Founding Fathers felt the same way.

But at the same time, it is ridiculous to believe that people aren't influenced by their religious views (or their lack of religious views, for that matter) when deciding the outcome of a court case. And I have a bit of trouble separating the religious view from the object that shaped that view.

Gov. Bill Owen of Colorado says the decision is demeaning to people of faith. I'm not particularly a person of faith, but I, too, find it demeaning intellectually, and, well, silly.

Let's hope that the Colorado legislature can rewrite this law to achieve a balance that will both give the court the authority it deserves, and recognize that people can and will consult their own moral compasses when they make important decisions in the jury room.

“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan values . . . is the source of all fanaticism.”

- Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr

One of my favorite plays is Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons," the story of Sir Thomas More. More was Henry VIII's chancellor, second only in power to the king himself. But when Henry decided to leave the Roman Catholic church and start his own denomination in order to divorce his wife, Katherine of Aragon, More hesitated.

More would never actually answer the question of whether or not Henry had the power to ignore Rome - using a trick of the law (British common law took silence to a question as an affirmative) to get around his situation.

In one scene of Bolt's play (and in the movie of the same name), More's son-in-law, William Roper, confronts him about his use of the law to protect himself, and 'accuses' More of preferring man's laws over God's. This is More's answer (which Bolt based on More's writings):

And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat [wiped away]? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?

Sparks Online Notes explains the above passage this way:

More [who is strongly religious] respects man’s law as the best available means of protecting against evil, even if it lets people ... off the hook from time to time.

I've been thinking a lot about the Catholic More and the Protestant Niebuhr after US President George W. Bush and almost 200 members of Congress ignored the US Constitution, and allowed themselves to be pressured by the religious right to pass a special bill for Terri Schiavo's parents.

It is also, to quote an editorial in The Economist magazine, "an extraordinary piece of federal interference in the judicial system." Congress and the president have, basically, undermined the rule of law.

The rule of law consists of several important principles:

1) Government decisions are made according to written law and rules

2) Government sanctions cannot be made up after the fact (ex post facto)

3) Rules are applied as much as possible consistently to all

4) Courts provide citizens consistent, written process (due process) before life, liberty, or property is taken

5) Courts provide reasons based upon the law for their decisions

The decision by Congress to enact the Schiavo bill flew in the face of at least three of these principles. It was basically a step towards the "Islamization" of US law.

I use that word intentionally, not in the sense that Islam will soon sweep across the US, but to describe a process where religious fundamentalism exerts power over the political processes of a country. It forces courts and politicians not to consider the correct legal solution to a problem, but to create one that will satisfy a particular group's religious beliefs.

As Juan Cole of the Informed Comment blog notes, the actions by Washington lawmakers "have taken us one step closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood [of Egypt] model."

In this model, private decisions are made matters of public interest, and then religious groups exert pressure on the courts and the government to take action against those who have offended them, or in favor of those who support them. Cole writes:

One of the most objectionable features of this fundamentalist tactic is that persons without standing can interfere in private affairs. Perfect strangers can file a case about your marriage, because they represent themselves as defending a public interest (the upholding of religion and morality).

When President Bush and the Congress voted in favor of the Schiavo bill, ignoring the decisions of 19 different Florida state justices, and dozens of medical opinions, that had given her husband the right to remove the feeding tube, they were doing exactly what Prof. Cole describes.

Unpopular rulings are common

Courts make decisions all the time that are unpopular. Just ask Democrats about the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that made Bush president in 2000. Or Bob Riley, the Republican governor of Alabama, about the federal ruling that made him remove the Ten Commandments monument put in the Alabama state judicial building by the now-ousted Alabama chief justice Roy Moore.

In both cases, the losing sides disagreed strongly with the outcome. But they obeyed the rulings because that's what you do in a country governed by laws.

Al Gore made that great concession speech on TV, saying he disagreed with the court, but that he would honor and respect its opinion, and called on his supporters to do the same. I remember Gov. Riley saying that as much as he disagreed with the court's ruling, it was his duty to uphold the law, and he was going to do it, so he had the monument removed.

My own concern about what lawmakers have done is weaken the separation of powers between the three branches of government in America.

The one saving grace of this entire shameful episode is that a majority of Americans, liberal and conservative groups alike, believe that the government has no place in this kind of personal decision (70 percent in the recent ABC News polls), and that most of the politicians who supported the bill did so "for political advantage," rather than concern for Schiavo or "the principles involved."

It's not that a politician's faith should be excluded from how they make a political decision. Nor I do doubt that the president, and many of those in Congress who voted for this bill, are people of good faith.

But the men who created this country set it up in such a way that this type of issue should not be dealt with in this way. The founders saw how religion and religious wars had corrupted and destroyed much of their world at that time, and they were determined not to repeat that mistake.

My sense is that they would be horrified by the actions of these lawmakers.

After reading Monitor religion editor Jane Lampman's fascinating piece about Christian evangelicals and their movement to "take back America," two thoughts kept running through my mind: 1) it's time to re-read Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," and 2) how twisted the idea of what the "Founding Fathers" said about religion has become.

"The Handmaid's Tale" is Ms. Atwood's 1986 dystopian novel about an America taken over by Christian religious zealots. In the novel, widespread pollution has caused infertility among women in the 'Republic of Gilead,' and fertile women are forced into slavery in order to bear children for couples in the ruling class unable to procreate.

'Offred' is the protagonist of the novel, a woman who serves "the commander" and his wife, a former gospel singer named Serena Joy, in what used to be Cambridge, Mass. The themes of the novel are, according to the online study guide Spark's Notes, "Women’s bodies as political instruments; language as a tool of power; the causes of complacency."

While the first theme is important (a theme which Atwood has taken to an extreme in the novel to illustrate a very important point), I find myself more drawn to the other two items in the Spark's list: language as a tool of power and the causes of complacency, because they are the two I see driving the current situation in the US.

No one in this country uses the language of victimization as a tool of power better than the religious right. For instance, take this quote from Jane Lampman's article:

"The country is getting further away from Christian values, and we're being stifled," says Debbie Mochle-Young, of Santa Monica, Calif. "Other nationalities are coming to live here and say, 'We want our beliefs,' but they don't let you have yours."

While I certainly agree that other nationalities are coming to the US and saying 'we want our beliefs' (which, by the way, is one of the very reasons the United States was founded in the first place), I'm left scratching my head at the thought that Christianity is 'stifled' in the US, or that 'they don't let you have yours [read 'Christianity'].'

Yet being 'stifled' is the constant complaint of the religous right. No matter that they comprise about 25 percent of the US population, no matter that the party they support controls all branches of government in the US, no matter that their influence extends far and wide - they are an oppressed minority, struggling for their very existence.

Please.

Ultimately, the biggest problem that the religious right in America has is the US Constitution, which guarantees religious freedom for all Americans (even those without religious beliefs) and dictates that there will be no official government religion.

Again, consider this quote from the Lampman article:

"Judicial activists are running rampant and a God-free country is their goal.... All means to turn the tide must be considered, including their removal," urges the Rev. Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America, which mobilizes "patriot pastors" across the US.

The law drives the religious right crazy. As a result, even staunch conservative judges who make rulings that strictly interpret the Constitution as supporting the separation of church and state, are decried as "judicial activists." It's a great case of accusing your opponents of doing the very thing you are doing yourself.

The Founding Fathers, of course, had very strong views about the role of religion. George Washington viewed it very favorably, although historians note that he was careful not to malign or disparage any religious belief, including non-Christian ones.

In Benjamin Franklin, the 'first American,' there was no stronger voice for the importance of "tolerance" toward all religious beliefs. Thomas Jefferson, meanwhile, who had strong religious beliefs of his own bent, nevertheless felt it should basically be kept as far away from government as possible.

Jefferson also felt that the idea of "The Creator" should not be a specifically Christian one.  Take, for example, the following quote from his autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom (which Jefferson wrote, and considered one of the greatest achievements of his life), and the basis for the religion clauses in the Constitution's Bill of Rights:

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

In the end, the Founding Fathers had it both ways - by promoting as much religious freedom as possible, they ensured that no one religion (or even a branch of a particular faith - after all, not all Christians would support the aims and ideals of the current religious right) could claim supremacy.

Which leads me to complacency. I have no trouble saying that I would fight with every molecule of my being for the right of Christian evangelicals to worship in the way they feel most appropriate. But I would also use those same molecules to fight for every other religious group in America.

In fact, I would argue that those of us who believe in religious diversity and tolerance, and in the idea of no state-sponsored religion, are in fact the ones who are advancing the ideas and thoughts of the Founding Fathers.

And as much as Christian evangelicals believe it their duty to "take back America" with their ideas, it is our duty to ensure that the ideas and the goals of tolerance and diversity espoused by the Founding Fathers endure as long and as vibrantly as they always have.

It's the American thing to do.

Every now and then I read something that literally makes my hair stand on end, and leads me to momentarily reconsider my decision to become an American citizen. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it always leaves me feeling shaken, puzzled, confused or speechless for days.

My latest go-around with these unsettling emotions came last week courtesy of the folks at the Harris Interactive Poll. The topic - "Iraq, 9/11, Al Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction: What the Public Believes Now."

While the poll offered some interesting survey statistics about what Americans believe about the war in Iraq, how long we should keep troops in that country, and if Iraqis are better off now than they were when Saddam Hussein was in charge, it also contained some very disturbing numbers about other things that Americans believe:

(Just a note: This was a scientific, nationwide poll of 1,012 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive between February 8 and 13, 2005.)