Friendly and Hostile Separation
Scholars have distinguished between what can be called "friendly" and "hostile" separations of church and state. The friendly type limits the interference of the church in matters of the state but also limits the interference of the state in church matters. The hostile variety, by contrast, seeks to confine religion purely to the home or church and limits religious education, religious rites of passage and public displays of faith.
The hostile model of secularism arose with the French Revolution and is typified in the Mexican Revolution, its resulting Constitution and the Spanish Constitution of 1931. The hostile model exhibited during these events can be seen as approaching the type of political religion seen in totalitarian states.
The French separation of 1905 and the Spanish separation of 1931 have been characterized as the two most hostile of the twentieth century, although the current schemes in both countries are considered generally friendly. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy at the beginning of his term, however, considered the current scheme a "negative laicite" and wanted to develop a "positive laicite" more open to religion. The concerns of the state toward religion have been seen by some as one cause of the civil war in Spain and Mexico.
The French philosopher and Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafter Jacques Maritain noted the distinction between the models found in France and in the mid-twentieth century United States. He considered the US model of that time to be more amicable because it had both "sharp distinction and actual cooperation" between church and state, what he called "an historical treasure" and admonished the United States, "Please to God that you keep it carefully, and do not let your concept of separation veer round to the European one." Alexis de Tocqueville, another French observer tended to make the same distinction, "In the U.S., from the beginning, politics and religion were in accord, and they have not ceased to be so since."
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Famous quotes containing the words friendly, hostile and/or separation:
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“... beauty, like ecstasy, has always been hostile to the commonplace. And the commonplace, under its popular label of the normal, has been the supreme authority for Homo sapiens since the days when he was probably arboreal.”
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“Last evening attended Croghan Lodge International Order of Odd Fellows. Election of officers. Chosen Noble Grand. These social organizations have a number of good results. All who attend are educated in self-government. This in a marked way. They bind society together. The well-to-do and the poor should be brought together as much as possible. The separation into classes—castes—is our danger. It is the danger of all civilizations.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)