Not according to David Barton’s Wallbuilders, anyhow. Prison chaplain Patrick McCollum has a case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California; as a Pagan, he could not gain a paid position because the California Department of Corrections only offers positions to Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or Native American applicants.
While this seems like a pretty open-shut First Amendment case, Wallbuilders has filed a brief contending that the First Amendment only protects religions that were recognized as such by the Founding Fathers, and that these, of course, are only a select handful of monotheistic faiths. They go on to argue that “witchcraft and paganism” are not in fact religions at all, and that religions other than Christianity might not be religions, either.
The whole document is a series of brain-benders, tortured logic, and just plain silliness, with self-parody worthy of The Onion. The most unintentionally hilarious argument uses a passage from Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance to argue that Madison’s use of the singular ‘creator’ excludes any polytheistic beliefs. (Let’s leave aside for the moment those Pagan faiths that are monotheistic)
This is the passage they chose to quote as their example:
“Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him.”
According to Wallbuilders, this is just so- as long as your conviction doesn’t lean Pagan, Sikh, Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu…
