About the American Family Tree
of the National Constitution Center

Sponsored link.

About the National Constitution Center:
The National Constitution Center opened on 2003-JUL-4. It is located
on the Independence Mall in Philadelphia, PA. On hand were Governor Ed
Rendell, actor Richard Dreyfuss, musician Winton Marsalis. U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was presented with the Philadelphia Liberty Medal.
Ten thousand people visited the Center on opening day. 1,2

The Center's National Family Tree:
One of the center's more interesting and thus controversial exhibit is the
National Family Tree. It recognizes 100 people who are noted for their
contributions and exercise of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Most are/were ordinary
citizens, not presidents or law makers. This fact alone has generated some
protest.
Among the 100 individuals were a few whose lives or causes had at least some
direct connection to religion. We noticed twelve:
 | Roger Baldwin (1884 - 1981) , was the founding director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU has spearheaded countless constitutional challenges, many of which
involved religion. Baldwin was a Unitarian and a Sunday School teacher.
He once said: "I would say
that social work began in my mind in the Unitarian Church when I was ten
or twelve years old, and I started to do things that I thought would help
other people." 3 |
 | Fr. Daniel Berrigan (1923-) is a Roman Catholic priest, poet, advocate for
social justice and anti-war activist. In 1967, he was sentenced to three
years in prison with his brother Phillip for destroying draft files with
homemade napalm in protest of the Vietnam War. He was active in the
Plowshares raids against General Electric's production of nuclear weapons.
He was nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize. 4 |
 | Susan Epperson, (1941 -) was an Arkansas biology teacher in
1965 when she challenged a state law
in Arkansas which banned the teaching of the theory of evolution
in public schools. The law had been created in 1928, shortly after
the famous Scopes "Monkey Trial." She won
her case in 1968 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, In Epperson v.
Arkansas, that the prohibition of teaching
evolution in public schools was unconstitutional. 5 |
 | Lillian and William Gobitas, were two Jehovah
Witnesses students who were suspended from public school because they refused
to salute the U.S. flag. Perhaps influenced by pre-World War II patriotic
fervor, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the students in an infamous
Minersville School District v. Gobitis case. (Both court documents
and the National Constitution Center apparently misspelled their
last name.) This "...decision
unleashed a wave of virulent anti-Jehovah's Witness persecution across the
nation that is little remembered today....The American Civil Liberties
Union reported...that nearly 1,500 Witnesses were physically attacked in
more than 300 communities nationwide." 6 |
 | Anna Gordon (1853-1931), held various positions in the Women's Christian Temperance Union,
including being selected to be vice president in 1898, and president in
1914. She played a major role in prohibition -- the ratification of the
18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which prohibited the sale of
alcoholic beverages. 7 |
 | William Franklin Graham, Jr. (1918 -) , known worldwide as "Billy"
"has been our leading religious revivalist..." for over four
decades. 8 Time Magazine summed up his career by
stating: "Transcending doctrine and denomination, he served as the
nation's spiritual counselor and made America safe for public testimonies
of faith." |
 | Anne Hutchinson, (17th century) was a religious dissident. She
felt that many of the the Puritan pastors in the Massachusetts Bay
Colony concentrated excessively on God's laws regarding personal
behavior. She felt that this had a corrupting influence on the settlers
whose Puritan religion denied that good deeds could lead to salvation. She
was tried and exiled from the colony in 1638. |
 | Norma McCorvey (1949-), is "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme
Court case which legalized early abortions, nationwide. In 1970, she was a
pregnant 21-year old woman who was "too poor to get an illegal abortion
in Texas or a legal one in California." Texas at the time only
permitted abortions to in case of a threat to the woman's life. She sued
for the right to have an abortion. She testified that the pregnancy was
the result of a rape. In 1987, she allegedly admitted that she had
perjured herself. The case took so long that she gave birth to her child
and put the baby up for adoption. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided
in her favor. In 2003, she unsuccessfully attempted to have the court
reverse their decision. 10 |
 | Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1919 - 1995), was perhaps the best-known
Atheist in the U.S. Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists
said: "Many people of many religious creeds, philosophies -- and no
religious creed -- have helped to make and America the free country that
it is It is appropriate that Madalyn Murray O'Hair be recognized for her
efforts in helping to keep our public schools secular and free from
religious coercion." 11 In 1963, a case initiated by
O'Hair was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a vote of 8 to 1 --
unusually lopsided by today's standards. The court declared Bible reading
and prayer recitation in public school classrooms to be unconstitutional.
12 |
 | Jonas Philips, wrote to the Constitutional Convention advocating religious
freedom and the equality of religions in the constitution. He was a Jew
and a member of Mikveh Israel congregation in Philadelphia, PA. |
 | Senator Strom Thurmond, (1902 - 2003) (R-SC).
Thurmond, a Baptist, held an
honorary degree honorary degree from Bob Jones University,
famous for its anti-Catholic and racist stances.
He is known for many
accomplishments, having served as Senator since 1956 in such committees as
Armed Service, Judiciary and Veterans' Affairs. In 1999 he submitted a letter
to the Senate Judiciary Committee suggesting that the
religious freedoms of Wiccan soldiers be
terminated. In 2001, he introduced a bill that would "express
the sense of Congress that public schools may display the words 'God Bless
America' as an urgent expression of support for the Nation."
13 |
 | Brigham Young, (1801 - 1877) became a member of the
Church
of Jesus Christ, the original Mormon church, in 1832. Nine
years later, he became the President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles,
the governing body of the church. The church split after the assassination
of founder Joseph Smith. In 1846, Young led most of the church members in
a 1,400 mile trek westward to Utah, where he became president and prophet
of the church in 1847. He married more than twenty wives, and was tried
for polygyny in 1871. 14 |

Sponsored link:

References:
- The National Constitution Center has a home page at:
http://www.constitutioncenter.org
- "Voices, Images of Atheists as National Constitution Center opens
in Philadelphia: Madalyn O'Hair Among 100 'Family Tree' Americans Honored
For Exercise Of Bill of Rights -- Downey Tells Nation: 'I Am A Proud
Atheist And I Love This Country'." AA News, 2003-JUL-4.
- "Roger Baldwin, founder, American Civil Liberties Union, 1885-1981,"
at:
http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/
- Bryan Sears, "U.S. Peace Activist Philip Berrigan Dead at 79,"
Reuters, 2002-DEC-7, at:
http://www.philly.com/
- Jonathan Thorndike, "Epperson v. Arkansas : The
Evolution-Creationism Debate," Enslow Publishers, (1999) Read
reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
- Tony Mauro, "Thank Jehovah's Witnesses for speech freedoms,"
USA Today, 2000-MAY-30. Reprinted at:
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/jw_freedom.html
- "Gordon, Anna Adams," Women in American History by Encyclopædia
Britannica, at:
http://search.eb.com/
- "The preacher, Billy Graham," Time Magazine, at:
http://www.time.com/time/
- "Introduction: The Trial of Anne Hutchinson," Barnard
Electronic Archive, at:
http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/
- Leilani Corpus, "Norma McCorvey: "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade,"
Media House International, at:
http://www.forerunner.com/
- Ellen Johnson, "Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair to be recognized for
Bill of Rights exercise as National Constitution Center opens in
Philadelphia," American Atheists, 2003-JUL-3, at:
http://www.atheists.org/
- "Flashline: Forty years after Murray & Abington, battles over
school prayer and public religion continue," American Atheists,
2003-JUN-16, at:
http://www.atheists.org/
- "Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina - 88," T. Rex's guide
to Life, at:
http://www.quinnell.us/
- "Brigham Young," WPBS, at:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/

Copyright © 2003 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2003-JUL-6
Latest update: 2007-JUL-27
Author: B.A. Robinson

|