Religion Divides - Tolerance
Unites
The New World's first lawful
expression of religious tolerance as an individual liberty took place in 1624 on Governors Island - New York State's officially
recognized birthplace. This historic precept of toleration was optimized to freedom of religion in the First Amendment
of the Bill of Rights of 1791 by promising all religions to be equal and free under the United States Constitution. State
rights, however, continued to displace the Constitution in the matter until 1868 when also freedom from religion was
achieved for all U.S. citizens. Namely, as of that year, civil law in religious matters superseded religious laws which had
been protected by assorted states.
Most notably, 14 years before the First Amendment, this jurisprudence of toleration had evolved from its earliest
juridical beginnings on the State's birthplace, unique for its time in 1624, to becoming enshrined in New York's first state
constitution in 1777 in confirmation of New York State's polyglot culture - its birthright:
XXXVIII.
And whereas we are required, by the benevolent principles of rational liberty, not only to expel civil tyranny, but also to
guard against that spiritual oppression and intolerance wherewith the bigotry and ambition of weak and wicked priests and
princes have scourged mankind, this convention doth further, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this State,
ordain, determine, and declare, that the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination
or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed, within this State, to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of conscience,
hereby granted, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the
peace or safety of this State.
XXXIX. And whereas the ministers of the gospel are, by their profession,
dedicated to the service of God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of their function;
therefore, no minister of the gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever, shall, at any time hereafter, under any presence
or description whatever, be eligible to, or capable of holding, any civil or military office or place within this State.
This individual liberty of the year 1624 - codified
again as New York State law in 1777 - became available thus, 244 years later, to all United States citizens
in the 14th Amendment of the Bill of Rights: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States."
Therefore, Governors Island, not Battery Park on Manhattan Island, is the origination point of substantive American
and New York State history and could be a national symbol and public memorial to a legacy of consequence. When politically
recognized thus, Governors Island would be situated in a National Heritage Triangle of fundamental American values: Tolerance, Liberty and Welcome (click Governors Island Preservation and Education Project.)
That this active judicial notion of toleration involved mutual respect can be deduced from instructions to the
colonists of 1624 to Governors Island that they were to respect the consciences of others - that is, natives and non-believers didn't have to submit to the settlers'
religion. The policy was to try ‘to attract' them 'through attitude and by example'
only. On the other hand, natives and non-believers, when falling
under the settlers' immediate authority, could be induced by the Director and his Council to respect the colonists' faith
when expressly slandered only. Religious conversion, however, couldn't be forced on anyone. But more importantly, no one could
be persecuted because of religion.
"A Government Of Performance, Integrity And Pride"
(Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's Inaugural Address of January 1, 2011)
The 1624 Governors Island landing delivered New York State's
oldest laws and ordinances from the States of Holland, including the judicial right to religious tolerance which applied to
what is now the NY Tri-State region between 38 and 42 degrees latitude. They imbued the Island with what today is still a
universal value of historic substance and 21st-century pertinence. That these oldest laws uniquely affected New York's culture
and jurisprudence is inarguable. The Island's symbolic value to America's citizens, if not humanity at large, is unquestionable.
Yet, New York State Legislators and
the Governor have ignored the critical role Governors Island played in 1624 in the founding of the State of New
York and the State's judicial contribution to America's culture of freedom - the State's birthright - while implicitly dignifying
a faulty history as insisted upon for years by the Battery Conservancy, the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation
("GIPEC') and, since April 2010, its succesor entity, the Trust for Governors Island, on their web sites.
After innumerable
attempts at discombobulated, politically fragmented plans devoid of any coherence, vision or meaningful substance, GIPEC -
entrusted with the development of the Island since 2003 - presented its last plan to the public in 2009. It called for a generic
park made of recycled materials and had chosen its latest straw man, the architectural firm of "West8,"
to lead that project. The anticipated park is economically unfeasible, financially unsustainable and has no meaning to
the nation, New York State or New York City.
Additionally,
West8's promulgated mandate had been conditioned upon the omission of any reference to the Island's profound
historical importance and national symbolic value respecting American liberty. Furthermore, in December 2008, GIPEC had started
to solicit ideas from the public (!) for the naming of a section of the proposed park on Governors Island without ever having
recognized or considered State Legislative Resolutions No. 5476 and No. 2708 of May
2002 which affirm the Island as the birthplace of New York State and
the origin of American [religious] tolerance or toleration.
The "winning entry" was Picnic Point so that in September 2009 a few [official] visitors and their guests
could have a picnic and party during a New Island Festival within a New York City Harbor Festival. These festivals were the
highlight of a 2009 quadricentennial celebration in honor of three legendary dead men: the American Robert Fulton, the Frenchman
Samuel de Champlain and the Englishman Henry Hudson. These parties had been called into being by the New York State Legislature
to generate broad popular excitement and to mobilize the State's population in celebrating the 2009 year!!!
This [inconsequential] vision for New York State's joyful
tribute in 2009 was signed into law by Governor George Pataki in February 2002 in a political nod to the grandiose but spurious
tri-centennial celebration of 1909 in honor of Robert Fulton and Henry Hudson. It was an express effort to eradicate the factually
accurate, historical national meaning of the year 1609 in a 2009 quadricentennial commemoration thus denying New York State
its authentic cultural patrimony of historic substance which is shared bilaterally by the primary histories of the United
States of America and the Netherlands (click Lifeblood of American Liberty.)
In the absence of the New York State Legislature's
unequivocal acceptance of this fundamental American history with respect to Governors Island, the National Park Service, which
has jurisdiction over a portion of the Island, also has been unwilling to accept the Island's and, hence, the State's
legacy of toleration as the basis for ethnic diversity and central to American freedom.
One may conclude, like The Tolerance Park Foundation, that the current state of affairs, wherein
Governors Island is denied politically its irrefutable place in primary American history as a national symbol and as the historical
locus of a profoundly momentous message which has been recognized by the United States in its Constitution and by the United
Nations in Article 26-2 of its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Education...shall promote...tolerance...among
all nations, racial or religious groups," is indeed misfortunate; although not irretrievable.
The Trust for Governors Island should respect the reason for the federal government's transfer
of the Island to the State of New York for one dollar past the Congressional legal deadline of September 2001. This was feasible
thanks to the White House dedicating the Island to the theme of education on April 1, 2002, based on legal precedent going
back to 1785. It ensured the furthering of our Education and Preservation Project. It also reduced the influence of some powerful
local special constituents in the Island's redevelopment and safeguarded America's oldest natural symbol with a historic message
of profound meaning to American freedom.
Additionally, short of designating or
preconditioning acreage for the proposed Tolerance Park project, 60-plus acres were set aside generically as "park"
land upon jurisdictional transfer from federal ownership to NY State ownership on February 1, 2003. The American people thus
surrendered the Island's "national economic value" to New York State and,
specifically, imparted the Island's "national intangible value" to the people of
the State of New York.
For the Trust, therefore, to appropriate the Island's
national economic and intangible values for "unique public programs, an ambitious park and a public space plan...for
the people of the City of New York" is not according to the letter and spirit of the original
education dedication as justification for the one dollar transfer in the national public interest or for the national common
good. Ergo, it specifically denies the Island its momentous national and NY State legacy of historical substance and
symbolism for America's future generations.
Would or could the United States, New York State and New York City find it of any importance that, at the very least
on their web sites, with respect to Governors Island's development, some reference exists to the nation's primary history
of current and enduring relevance which is New York State's birthright, New York City's identity and Governors Island's legacy
to American liberty as we understand it (click Governors Island National Symbol)?
