Thread by @cjtackett

I've seen this meme shared quite a few times over the last few days, mostly by people who really want to compromise with Republicans, by showing Reagan speaking up for the separation of church and state.

Yeah, he said it, but (as always), there really is more context needed.

The Reagan quote in the meme is "We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate." It's from a speech given on October 26, 1984, to a Jewish group in Temple Hills, NY.

The rest of the paragraph is:
"All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief."
Still all feels good right?

You can read the full October 26, 1984 speech by Reagan here:
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/president-reag…
Is he being straight with them? Or is he placating? I'm kinda going with the later, based on another speech two months earlier.

On August 23, 1984, in Dallas, TX, during the Republican National Convention, Reagan gave a speech to a Dallas Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast. The full speech is here, but I'll break out a few elements in what follows. It's current CN talking points.
americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronal…

"Those who created our country -- the Founding Fathers and Mothers -- understood that there is a divine order which transcends the human order. They saw the state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral order is religion." - Ronald Reagan

"The Mayflower Compact began with the words, "In the name of God, Amen." The Declaration of Independence appeals to "`Nature's God"' and the "Creator'" and "the Supreme Judge of the world." Congress was given a chaplain, and the oaths of office are oaths before God."

"I believe that George Washington knew the City of Man cannot survive without the City of God, that the -- that the Visible City will perish without the Invisible City." - Ronald Reagan

"Religion played not only a strong role in our national life, it played a positive role. The abolitionist movement was at heart a moral and religious movement; so was the modern civil rights struggle."
Interesting how Reagan ignores religion's role in promoting slavery and racism

"But in the 1960's this began to change. We began to make great steps toward secularizing our nation and removing religion from its honored place. In 1962 the Supreme Court, in the New York prayer case, banned the compulsory saying of prayers." - Ronald Regan

"In 1963 the Court banned the reading of the Bible in our public schools. From that point on, the courts pushed the meaning of the ruling ever outward, so that now our children are not allowed voluntary prayer." - Ronald Reagan

"Once religion had been made vulnerable, a series of assaults were made in one court after another, on one issue after another. Cases were started to argue against tax-exempt status for churches." - Ronald Reagan

This isn't someone who really wants church and state separate

"the frustrating thing for the great majority of Americans who support and understand the special importance of religion in the national life -- ... is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and open-mindedness."

"If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in common? And would this not, indeed, bring them closer? And is this not to be desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue may not be tolerant at all."

"The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And -- And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide." - Ronald Reagan

"We need [religion] because we are imperfect, and our government needs the Church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive." - Ronald Reagan

Ok, so we've FINALLY made it to the point in the speech where Reagan brings out a similar version of the quote at the very top of the thread. But separation of church and state is NOWHERE to be found.

"We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief." - Ronald Reagan

This is lightyears different

And here is the back portion of the paragraph.
"All are free to believe or not to believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions." - Ronald Reagan

"If we look back through history to...great nations that rose up to even world dominance and then deteriorated, declined, and fell, we find they all had one thing in common. One of the significant forerunners of their fall was their turning away from their God or gods."

"Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive." - Ronald Reagan

"Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under." - Ronald Reagan

Guys, the speech above, from Reagan in August 1984, its Christian nationalism. He speaks in asides as all religions are good, but then focuses over and over on Christianity. It's like the others can exist, but he and his followers knew the US should be and will be Christian.

And, then there is the idea Reagan brought in over and over throughout the speech, that those who aren't religious can't be moral. What a load of 💩

So when you see this meme and it's all rah rah about Ronald Reagan and his embrace of separation of church and state, remember it was a surface act. When Reagan was with those driving the Republican agenda, the white Christian nationalism intent at the core shown through.

*latter (Sigh) In a long thread, I'll of course notice stuff once it is already out in the wild.