Is democracy really dead?

From time to time, I get a critical letter about what I write here. I’ve heard from people who find me biased, unbalanced, excessively partisan, a hetero embracer of all LGBT folks and a knee-jerk supporter of an aging president. Strangely, I think of all that as praise and thank my critics for recognizing me for who I am.

A few recent letters have been different. They come from liberals who see basic democratic principles under attack. And that was even before the latest Supreme Court decision crowning Trump as king if he were elected again. They accuse me of being too nice to Republicans, particularly Chuck Grassley and all the other Iowa Republicans, silent partners in the destruction of what has worked in our democracy for a couple centuries.

I hope I can make up for my sins beginning today.

The separation of church and state is being eviscerated as a guiding principle. This wall of separation was not the construct of heathen. In 1642, Roger Williams, a Baptist minister, articulated the concept. Thomas Jefferson at the time of independence emphasized its importance to the concept to democracy. They spoke of separation, (not ignoring religious belief) which implied two legitimate entities, not competing, but complementary.

Today that definition, that most basic principle, is under attack from a fringe of conservatives. I hate to call them Christians, although they claim they are. That’s their original sin. Whatever label, they are at work determined to remake America.

In Louisiana, there is new wall art for public school classrooms. A recent law will require all public schools, from elementary to universities, to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. More than 40 years ago, the Supreme Court declared that unconstitutional. Christianity remains alive and well.

That makes no difference to today’s conservatives. The governor of Louisiana says, “I can’t wait to be sued.” That’s cute, but not the way a civil society like ours ought to work. We have encouraged religious diversity in a multicultural education system. The new right would replace it with Bible reading and the posting of the Decalogue.

Some will shrug their shoulders, but this is against the injunction that the legislature shall ‘‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

What is going on in Louisiana has not yet reached us in its full glory, but it certainly will if left unchallenged. All of us, including sensible Republicans, must to speak up now.

In the past, what Louisiana is up to would have been almost certainly struck down by a federal court. That, of course, is far less likely today, maybe beyond possibility. This is not as dramatic as the Trump doctrine, but it requires bipartisan opposition. Justice Sotomayor, after the decision on immunity, said “Democracy is dead.” Fuzzing the separation of church and state is a beginning part of the murder weapon.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.