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The Handmaids are characterized by being unable to access literature nor read any words other than faith. As readers, we consider this outlandish; however, in American society, prisoners are not allowed to read "The New Jim Crow" because it may anger the prisoners and cause riots. Similarly, reading was banned in Gilead for fear that it may provoke violence or unholy thoughts.

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In the eight years since its publication, "The New Jim Crow," a book by Michelle Alexander that explores the phenomenon of mass incarceration, has sold well over a million copies, been compared to the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, been cited in the legal decisions to end stop-and-frisk and sentencing laws, and been quoted passionately on stage at the Academy Awards.

But for the more than 130,000 adults in prison in North Carolina and Florida, the book is strictly off-limits.

And prisoners around the country often have trouble obtaining copies of the book, which points to the vast racial disparities in sentencing policy, and the way that mass incarceration has ravaged the African-American population.

This month, after protests, New Jersey revoked a ban some of its prisons had placed on the book, while New York quickly scrapped a program that would have limited its inmates' ability to receive books at all.

Ms. Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and former clerk on the Supreme Court, said the barriers to reading the book are no accident.

"Some prison officials are determined to keep the people they lock in cages as ignorant as possible about the racial, social and political forces that have made the United States the most punitive nation on earth," she said. "Perhaps they worry the truth might actually set the captives free."

A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections confirmed that the book had been banned but would not elaborate. A form from the prison system's literature review committee obtained by The New York Times indicates that the book was rejected because it presented a security threat and was filled with what the document called "racial overtures."

In North Carolina prisons, "The New Jim Crow" has been banned multiple times, most recently on Feb. 24, 2017, when it was deemed "likely to provoke confrontation between racial groups." State policy dictates that such bans can last for only a year, so the book will be permitted in the state's prisons late next month - unless it is banned again.

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Florida State Prison in Raiford, Fla. The state's corrections department deemed the book a security threat and said it was filled with "racial overtures." Credit Phil Sears/Associated Press

"All you need is one prison to challenge it, and then the book goes back on the list," said Katya Roytburd, a volunteer with Prison Books Collective, a nonprofit that sends free books to prisoners in North Carolina and Alabama.

The central thesis of "The New Jim Crow" is that the mass incarceration of black people is an extension of the American tradition of racial discrimination.

It zeroes in on how the "law and order" rhetoric of the 1950s and 1960s led to the war on drugs and harsh law enforcement and sentencing policies, which disproportionately affect black people.

"It is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt," she writes in the introduction. "So we don't. Rather than rely on race we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind."

Black people are still imprisoned at over five times the rate of white people, according to a 2016 report by The Sentencing Project, a prison reform advocacy group. And while a bipartisan push for sentencing reform took place during President Barack Obama's second term, those efforts have stalled under Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Trump.

The choices prisons make when banning books can seem arbitrary, even capricious. In Texas, 10,000 titles are banned, including such head-scratchers as "The Color Purple" and a compilation by the humor writer Dave Barry.

"Mein Kampf," on the other hand, is permitted, along with several books by white nationalists, despite the existence of prison gangs like the murderous Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

"When you look at the banned book lists and specifically the stuff that's being allowed, there's a definite bias toward violent armed white supremacy and the censorship of anything that questions the existing religious or political status quo," said Paul Wright, the executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center.

Activists see bans as an indictment of how prisoners are limited more broadly. Amy Peterson, a member of NYC Books Through Bars, which sends books to inmates in 40 states, said books were often sent back with little explanation.

"It does seem very much up to the person in the shipping room who's making these arbitrary decisions," she said. "I see it as one of the many ways that people are deprived of basic rights in prison."

But for many incarcerated people, the ban on "The New Jim Crow" does not seem arbitrary. In 2014, Dominic Passmore, a prisoner in Michigan, ordered the book after checking to make sure that it had not been banned in the state. When it arrived, according to state documents, the prison's mailroom staff refused to give it to him, citing its racial content.

Months later, after a series of appeals, the state decided that Mr. Passmore could read the book but informed him that he would have to buy a new copy, as it had misplaced his.

Mr. Passmore, who spent nine years behind bars after pleading no contest to armed robbery charges when he was 14, eventually read the book. He said that it opened his eyes to the wrongs done to black people.

"I feel like the reason why they tried to reject it is because they didn't want me to have that kind of knowledge," said Mr. Passmore, who was recently released.

Prison officials almost universally agree that certain books should be prohibited. Roger Werholtz, who served as secretary of corrections in Kansas and as interim executive director of corrections in Colorado, said that books that could interfere with safety, like instructions on how to pick locks or make weapons, or those that could incite disturbances, such as racist or white supremacist literature, were banned under his watch.

He said that he did not think banning Ms. Alexander's book for its arguments about race made sense.

"I would be pretty skeptical of that," he said. "That's not anything that you don't see in the newspaper. Frankly, most prison officials talk very openly about the overrepresentation of minorities."

Jason Hernandez, 40, was a 21-year-old first-time, nonviolent drug offender when he was convicted of conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Mr. Hernandez studied law in prison and filed his own appeals, only to see them denied. In 2010, he borrowed "The New Jim Crow" from the prison's library lending program.

It inspired him to start a grass-roots organization to help himself and other nonviolent drug offenders with life sentences. In September 2011, he appealed directly to Mr. Obama for clemency. His request was granted and he was released in 2015.

"They prevent books from going in there that could maybe help people escape," he said. "This is what this book did for me, and what it's done for hundreds of others."

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Why Are American Prisons So Afraid of This Book?

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In the eight years since its publication, "The New Jim Crow," a book by Michelle Alexander that explores the phenomenon of mass incarceration, has sold well over a million copies, been compared to the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, been cited in the legal decisions to end stop-and-frisk and sentencing laws, and been quoted passionately on stage at the Academy Awards.

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Religion, even if practiced by the majority of people, does not represent the entire population. Furthermore, having no separation of Church and state can lead to the outlawing of certain luxuries which help society but may be looked down upon by religious associations. For example, many common religions frown upon birth control; however, birth control serves more purposes than preventing fertilization.

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When ancient Mesopotamians created the first religions, they sought to explain the natural world -- to fill in the blanks that science could not. These beliefs were occasionally the foundations of societies. As time moved on and new scientific advances came to be, the need for various gods and ceremonies diminished. People could explain many aspects of the world around them. However, some religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam remained prominent. Nowadays few countries are firmly based on religious beliefs, yet in many countries religions affect certain aspects of law. Allowing religion to affect laws limits people's freedoms. Religious influence should remain out of laws and out of politics in general.

Religion is a belief held by certain people -- not everyone -- meaning that other people have absolutely no right to force their religious beliefs on others. Allowing religions to affect laws forces religions on uninterested parties. Although some laws -- such as laws against murder or thievery -- are also found in religious texts, they are basic moral and ethical codes and address issues that are blatantly wrong. The problem is when a women in a third-world country is found positive for HIV because she had no access to contraceptives; or when two young parents, who can barely take care of themselves, have a child because they had no access to any form of family planning; or when people who are deeply in love cannot express that love through marriage because a centuries-old religious belief, which has oppressed these same people for ages, says that it is wrong.

Many people, including the Pope, argue that same-sex marriage ruins the sanctity of marriage. Even if this were true, sanctity, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is "the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly," meaning that the word sanctity in itself refers to religion. So yes, same-sex marriage may ruin the religious standard of marriage. However, the fact of the matter is that homosexuals want marriage in the purely legal form and religions do not have to approve of this. Same-sex marriage is not prohibited anywhere in the constitution and would therefore be perfectly legal in this country if religions had no influence in the matter. These religious beliefs often bias people, including politicians, when determining the legality of certain issues.

Religion should remain what it truly is -- a voluntary belief, not science and not law. One of the main issues in the world today is the fact that to some people, religion and the Bible or the Torah or the Qur'an is science and the law. This belief has, and still is, causing fatal problems throughout the world. In many places, forms of contraception are illegal, only because various religions place a large importance on pro-creation. Even if these women are extremely impoverished, and cannot feed themselves (let alone a child), and have a large chance of dying due to unsafe birth conditions, they have no choice but to have the baby. Even more controversial is the issue of abortion. 52 of the world's 196 countries only allow abortions to save the mother's life. That is 26 percent of the world. This prevents family planning worldwide and can be extremely detrimental to a woman's mental and physical health.

People around the world say that abortion is immoral because it kills a living being. This is true -- abortion does kill a life, but in the same way that having scrambled eggs for breakfast kills baby chickens. Until 56 to 91 days (sources differ) a baby in the mother's womb is considered an embryo, and embryos cannot sense pain. In fact, many scientists believe even the fetus cannot feel pain until the third trimester, which is after about 99 percent of abortions are performed. Abortion is purely the science of medicine and biology, therefore doctors are much more suited than religious leaders to say whether abortions are moral or not. Most scientists and doctors are absolutely fine with giving abortions and thus it would not be such a heated issue in the world if religion did not interfere. Religious interference in such issues can create confusion amongst people who could mistake religious beliefs for science.

All this does not mean, however, that I oppose religion. The moral and ethical codes religions emphasize are very beneficial to society. Religion is a wonderful thing if people are mature enough to realize that it is a belief and not a science. Religion was created to explain and console people on the world and how it works. However, in this day and age, when science can explain many aspects of the natural world, religion should simply be looked upon as a tradition or belief and not a science and certainly not a law.

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A Detrimental Influence: The Effect Religion Has on Laws

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When ancient Mesopotamians created the first religions, they sought to explain the natural world -- to fill in the blanks that science could not. These beliefs were occasionally the foundations of societies. As time moved on and new scientific advances came to be, the need for various gods and ceremonies diminished.

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Following is an article by the curator of a major exhibition at the Library that opens this month and runs through Aug. 22. A key document on view in "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" (see LC Information Bulletin, May 1998), is the letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, which contains the phrase "a wall of separation between church and state." With the help of the FBI, the draft of the letter, including Jefferson's obliterated words, are now known.
Thomas Jefferson's reply on Jan. 1, 1802, to an address from the Danbury (Conn.) Baptist Association, congratulating him upon his election as president, contains a phrase that is as familiar in today's political and judicial circles as the lyrics of a hit tune: "a wall of separation between church and state." This phrase has become well known because it is considered to explain (many would say, distort) the "religion clause" of the First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ...," a clause whose meaning has been the subject of passionate dispute for the past 50 years.

During his lifetime, Jefferson could not have predicted that the language in his Danbury Baptist letter would have endured as long as some of his other arresting phrases. The letter was published in a Massachusetts newspaper a month after Jefferson wrote it and then was more or less forgotten for half a century. It was put back into circulation in an edition of Jefferson's writings, published in 1853, and reprinted in 1868 and 1871.

The Supreme Court turned the spotlight on the "wall of separation" phrase in 1878 by declaring in Reynolds v. United States "that it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [first] amendment."

The high court took the same position in widely publicized decisions in 1947 and 1948, asserting in the latter case, McCollum v. Board of Education, that, "in the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and state.'" Since McCollum forbade religious instruction in public schools, it appeared that the court had used Jefferson's "wall" metaphor as a sword to sever religion from public life, a result that was and still is intolerable to many Americans.

Some Supreme Court justices did not like what their colleagues had done. In 1962, Justice Potter Stewart complained that jurisprudence was not "aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the 'wall of separation,' a phrase nowhere to be found in the Constitution." Addressing the issue in 1985, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist lamented that "unfortunately the Establishment Clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson's misleading metaphor for nearly 40 years." Defenders of the metaphor responded immediately: "despite its detractors and despite its leaks, cracks and its archways, the wall ranks as one of the mightiest monuments of constitutional government in this nation."

Given the gravity of the issues involved in the debate over the wall metaphor, it is surprising that so little effort has been made to go behind the printed text of the Danbury Baptist letter to unlock its secrets. Jefferson's handwritten draft of the letter is held by the Library's Manuscript Division. Inspection reveals that nearly 30 percent of the draft -- seven of 25 lines -- was deleted by the president prior to publication. Jefferson indicated his deletions by circling several lines and noting in the left margin that they were to be excised. He inked out several words in the circled section and a few words elsewhere in the draft. He also inked out three entire lines following the circled section. Click here to see the text of the final letter.

Since the Library plans to display Jefferson's handwritten draft of the Danbury Baptist letter in its forthcoming exhibition "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic," the question was raised whether modern computer technology could be used to uncover Jefferson's inked-out words, so that the unedited copy of the letter might be shown to viewers alongside Jefferson's corrected draft. The Library requested the assistance of FBI Director Louis Freeh, who generously permitted the FBI Laboratory to apply its state-of-the-art technology to the task of restoring Jefferson's obliterated words. The FBI was successful, with the result that the entire draft of the Danbury Baptist letter is now legible (below). This fully legible copy will be seen in the exhibition in the company of its handwritten, edited companion draft. Click here to see Jefferson's unedited text. By examining both documents, viewers will be able to discern Jefferson's true intentions in writing the celebrated Danbury Baptist letter.

The edited draft of the letter reveals that, far from being dashed off as a "short note of courtesy," as some have called it, Jefferson labored over its composition. For reasons unknown, the address of the Danbury Baptists, dated Oct. 7, 1801, did not reach Jefferson until Dec. 30, 1801. Jefferson drafted his response forthwith and submitted it to the two New England Republican politicians in his Cabinet, Postmaster General Gideon Granger of Connecticut and Attorney General Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts. Granger responded to Jefferson on Dec. 31.

The next day, New Year's Day, was a busy one for the president, who received and entertained various groups of well-wishers, but so eager was he to complete his answer to the Danbury Baptists that, amid the hubbub, he sent his draft to Lincoln with a cover note explaining his reasons for writing it. Lincoln responded immediately; just as quickly, Jefferson edited the draft to conform to Lincoln's suggestions, signed the letter and released it, all on New Year's Day, 1802.

That Jefferson consulted two New England politicians about his messages indicated that he regarded his reply to the Danbury Baptists as a political letter, not as a dispassionate theoretical pronouncement on the relations between government and religion. His letter, he told Lincoln in his New Year's Day note, was meant to gratify public opinion in Republican strongholds like Virginia, "being seasoned to the Southern taste only."

Expressing his views in a reply to a public address also indicated that Jefferson saw himself operating in a political mode, for by 1802 Americans had come to consider replies to addresses, first exploited as political pep talks by John Adams in 1798, as the prime vehicles for the dissemination of partisan views. A few weeks earlier, on Nov. 20, 1801, Jefferson had, in fact, used a reply to an address from the Vermont legislature to signal his intention to redeem a campaign promise by proposing a tax reduction at the beginning of the new session of Congress in December.

In his New Year's note to Lincoln, Jefferson revealed that he hoped to accomplish two things by replying to the Danbury Baptists. One was to issue a "condemnation of the alliance between church and state." This he accomplished in the first, printed, part of the draft. Jefferson's strictures on church-state entanglement were little more than rewarmed phrases and ideas from his Statute Establishing Religious Freedom (1786) and from other, similar statements. To needle his political opponents, Jefferson paraphrased a passage, that "the legitimate powers of government extend to ... acts only" and not to opinions, from the Notes on the State of Virginia, which the Federalists had shamelessly distorted in the election of 1800 in an effort to stigmatize him as an atheist. So politicized had church-state issues become by 1802 that Jefferson told Lincoln that he considered the articulation of his views on the subject, in messages like the Danbury Baptist letter, as ways to fix his supporters' "political tenets."

Airing the Republican position on church-state relations was not, however, Jefferson's principal reason for writing the Danbury Baptist letter. He was looking, he told Lincoln, for an opportunity for "saying why I do not proclaim fastings & thanksgivings, as my predecessors did" and latched onto the Danbury address as the best way to broadcast his views on the subject. Although using the Danbury address was "awkward" -- it did not mention fasts and thanksgivings -- Jefferson pressed it into service to counter what he saw as an emerging Federalist plan to exploit the thanksgiving day issue to smear him, once again, as an infidel.

Jefferson's hand was forced by the arrival in the United States in the last week of November 1801 of what the nation's newspapers called the "momentous news" of the conclusion between Britain and France of the Treaty of Amiens, which relieved the young American republic of the danger that had threatened it for years of being drawn into a devastating European war. Washington had proclaimed a national thanksgiving in 1796 to commemorate a much more ambiguous foreign policy achievement, the ratification of Jay's Treaty that attempted to adjust outstanding differences with Great Britain. Would Jefferson, the Federalists archly asked, not imitate the example of his illustrious predecessor and bid the nation to thank God for its delivery from danger by the Treaty of Amiens? The voice of New England Federalism, the Boston Columbian Centinel, cynically challenged Jefferson to act. "It is highly probable," said the Centinel on Nov. 28, 1801, "that on the receipt of the news of Peace in Europe, the President will issue a Proclamation recommending a General Thanksgiving. The measure, it is hoped, will not be denounced by the democrats as unconstitutional, as previous Proclamations have been."

The Centinel and its Federalist readers knew that Jefferson would never issue a Thanksgiving proclamation, for to him and the Republican faithful in the middle and southern states, presidential thanksgivings and fasts were anathema, an egregious example of the Federalists' political exploitation of religion. Federalist preachers had routinely used fast and thanksgiving days to revile Jefferson and his followers, going so far in 1799 as to suggest that a Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic was a divine punishment for Republican godlessness.

During the Adams administration, Republicans organized street demonstrations against presidential fast days, ridiculed them in the newspapers and boycotted them. Since Federalists knew that Jefferson would never proclaim a national thanksgiving to praise God for the Treaty of Amiens, they calculated that they could use his dereliction as evidence of his continuing contempt for Christianity, which had spilled out again, in their view, in his invitation to "Citizen" Thomas Paine to return from France to the United States.

To offer the nation's hospitality to Paine, author of The Age of Reason, the "atheist's bible" to the faithful, was, the Washington Federalist charged on Dec. 8, 1801, an "open and daring insult offered to the Christian religion." Here, for the Federalists, was the same old Jefferson, the same old atheist. Political capital, they concluded, could still be made from sounding the alarm about presidential infidelity.

During the presidential campaign of 1800, Jefferson had suffered in silence the relentless and deeply offensive Federalist charges that he was an atheist. Now he decided to strike back, using the most serviceable weapon at hand, the address of the Danbury Baptists.

Jefferson's counterattack is contained in the circled section of his draft and in the inked-out lines. He declared that he had "refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion," i.e., thanksgivings and fasts, because they were "religious exercises." This was conventional Republican doctrine that could be found in any number of party newspapers. On March 27, 1799, for example, an "old Ecclesiastic" declared in the Philadelphia Aurora that "Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer are religious acts belonging to the kingdom of Christ" over which the civil magistrate, in the American system, had no authority.

Jefferson took the gloves off when he asserted that the proclamations of thanksgivings and fasts were "practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church," i.e., by George III, King of England. By identifying the proclamation of thanksgivings and fasts as "British," Jefferson damned them, for in the Republican lexicon British was a dirty word, a synonym for "Anglomane," "Monocrat," "Tory," terms with which the Republicans had demonized the Federalists for a decade for their alleged plans to reverse the Revolution by reimposing a British-style monarchy on the United States. One of the most obnoxious features of the Federalists' American monarchy, as the Republicans depicted their putative project, was a church established by law, and Jefferson doubtless expected those who read his message to understand that, by supporting "British" fasts and thanksgivings, the Federalists were scheming, as always, to open a door to the introduction of an ecclesiastical tyranny.

In indicting the Federalists for their "Tory" taste for thanksgivings and fasts, Jefferson was playing rough. Thanksgivings and fasts had regularly been celebrated in parts of the country since the first settlements: to sully them with Anglophobic mudslinging, generated by the partisan warfare of his own time, as Jefferson did, was a low blow. But who was being more unfair: Jefferson or his Federalist inquisitors, who continued to calumniate him as an atheist?

The unedited draft of the Danbury Baptist letter makes it clear why Jefferson drafted it: He wanted his political partisans to know that he opposed proclaiming fasts and thanksgivings, not because he was irreligious, but because he refused to continue a British practice that was an offense to republicanism. To emphasize his resolve in this matter, Jefferson inserted two phrases with a clenched-teeth, defiant ring: "wall of eternal separation between church and state" and "the duties of my station, which are merely temporal." These last words -- "merely temporal" -- revealed Jefferson's preoccupation with British practice. Temporal, a strong word meaning secular, was a British appellation for the lay members of the House of Lords, the Lords Temporal, as opposed to the ecclesiastical members, the Lords Spiritual. "Eternal separation" and "merely temporal" -- here was language as plain as Jefferson could make it to assure the Republican faithful that their "religious rights shall never be infringed by any act of mine."

Jefferson knew and seemed to savor the fact that his letter, as originally drafted, would give "great offense" to the New England Federalists. Reviewing the draft on Dec. 31, Postmaster General Granger, the object of unremitting political harassment in Connecticut, cheered Jefferson on, apparently welcoming the "temporary spasms" that he predicted the letter would produce "among the Established Religionists" in his home state. When Levi Lincoln, a cooler head, saw the letter the next day, he immediately perceived that, as written, it could hurt Jefferson politically among the growing number of Republicans in New England. People there, Lincoln warned Jefferson, "have always been in the habit of observing fasts and thanksgivings in performance of proclamations from their respective Executives." To disparage this custom with an "implied censure" by representing it as a tainted, Tory ceremony could be politically disastrous, however well the slur might play south of the Hudson River.

Jefferson heeded Lincoln's advice, with the result that he deleted the entire section about thanksgivings and fasts in the Danbury draft, noting in the left margin that the "paragraph was omitted on the suggestion that it might give uneasiness to some of our republican friends in the eastern states where the proclamation of thanksgivings etc. by their Executives is an antient habit & is respected." Removed in the process of revision was the designation of the president's duties as "merely temporal"; "eternal" was dropped as a modifier of "wall." Jefferson apparently made these changes because he thought the original phrases would sound too antireligious to pious New England ears.

In gutting his draft was Jefferson playing the hypocrite, sacrificing his principles to political expediency, as his Federalist opponents never tired of charging? By no means, for the Danbury Baptist letter was never conceived by Jefferson to be a statement of fundamental principles; it was meant to be a political manifesto, nothing more.

Withholding from the public the rationale for his policy on thanksgivings and fasts did not solve Jefferson's problem, for his refusal to proclaim them would not escape the attention of the Federalists and would create a continuing vulnerability to accusations of irreligion. Jefferson found a solution to this problem even as he wrestled with the wording of the Danbury Baptist letter, a solution in the person of the famous Baptist preacher John Leland, who appeared at the White House on Jan. 1, 1802, to give the president a mammoth, 1,235-pound cheese, produced by Leland's parishioners in Cheshire, Mass.

One of the nation's best known advocates of religious liberty, Leland had accepted an invitation to preach in the House of Representatives on Sunday, Jan. 3, and Jefferson evidently concluded that, if Leland found nothing objectionable about officiating at worship on public property, he could not be criticized for attending a service at which his friend was preaching. Consequently, "contrary to all former practice," Jefferson appeared at church services in the House on Sunday, Jan. 3, two days after recommending in his reply to the Danbury Baptists "a wall of separation between church and state"; during the remainder of his two administrations he attended these services "constantly."

Jefferson's participation in House church services and his granting of permission to various denominations to worship in executive office buildings, where four-hour communion services were held, cannot be discussed here; these activities are fully illustrated in the forthcoming exhibition. What can be said is that going to church solved Jefferson's public relations problems, for he correctly anticipated that his participation in public worship would be reported in newspapers throughout the country. A Philadelphia newspaper, for example, informed its readers on Jan. 23, 1802, that "Mr. Jefferson has been seen at church, and has assisted in singing the hundredth psalm." In presenting Jefferson to the nation as a churchgoer, this publicity offset whatever negative impressions might be created by his refusal to proclaim thanksgiving and fasts and prevented the erosion of his political base in God-fearing areas like New England.

Jefferson's public support for religion appears, however, to have been more than a cynical political gesture. Scholars have recently argued that in the 1790s Jefferson developed a more favorable view of Christianity that led him to endorse the position of his fellow Founders that religion was necessary for the welfare of a republican government, that it was, as Washington proclaimed in his Farewell Address, indispensable for the happiness and prosperity of the people. Jefferson had, in fact, said as much in his First Inaugural Address. His attendance at church services in the House was, then, his way of offering symbolic support for religious faith and for its beneficent role in republican government.

It seems likely that in modifying the draft of the Danbury Baptist letter by eliminating words like "eternal" and "merely temporal," which sounded so uncompromisingly secular, Jefferson was motivated not merely by political considerations but by a realization that these words, written in haste to make a political statement, did not accurately reflect the conviction he had reached by the beginning of 1802 on the role of government in religion. Jefferson would never compromise his views that there were things government could not do in the religious sphere -- legally establish one creed as official truth and support it with its full financial and coercive powers. But by 1802, he seems to have come around to something close to the views of New England Baptist leaders such as Isaac Backus and Caleb Blood, who believed that, provided the state kept within its well-appointed limits, it could provide "friendly aids" to the churches, including putting at their disposal public property that even a stickler like John Leland was comfortable using.

Analyzed with the help of the latest technology, the Danbury Baptist letter has yielded significant new information. Using it to fix the intent of constitutional documents is limited, however, by well established rules of statutory construction: the meaning of a document cannot be determined by what a drafter deleted or by what he did concurrently with the drafting of a document. But it will be of considerable interest in assessing the credibility of the Danbury Baptist letter as a tool of constitutional interpretation to know, as we now do, that it was written as a partisan counterpunch, aimed by Jefferson below the belt at enemies who were tormenting him more than a decade after the First Amendment was composed.

Back to June 1998 - Vol 57, No. 6

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'A Wall of Separation' (June 1998) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin

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Following is an article by the curator of a major exhibition at the Library that opens this month and runs through Aug. 22. A key document on view in "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" (see LC Information Bulletin, May 1998), is the letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, which contains the phrase "a wall of separation between church and state."

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Religion in Gilead

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Gilead is a theocracy, a government where church and state are combined. Religious language enters into every part of the society, from Rita's position as a Martha, named for a New Testament kitchen worker, to the store names like Milk and Honey. And religion, specifically the Old Testament, is also the justification for many of Gilead's most savage characteristics. Offred's job as Handmaid is based on the biblical precedent of Rachel and Leah, where fertile servants can carry on adulterous relationships to allow infertile women like the Commander's Wife to have families. Each month before the Ceremony, the Commander reads from Genesis the same lines that make the book's epigraph, justifying and moralizing the crude intercourse that will take place.

Yet many of the biblical quotes in the book are twisted. The theocracy is so rigid about its religious influences, and so emphatic about the specific rules it upholds, that it even warps essential virtues like charity, tolerance and forgiveness. Offred knows that the prayers that the Aunts play the Handmaids in the Rachel and Leah Center are not the words that actually appear in the Bible, but she has no way of checking. The Salvagings and executions are supposedly the penalty for biblical sins like adultery, but Offred knows that others are executed for resisting the government. The Handmaid's Tale is not a criticism of the Bible in itself, but a criticism of the way that people and theocracies use the Bible for their own oppressive purposes.

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Gilead is a theocracy, a government where church and state are combined. Religious language enters into every part of the society, from Rita's position as a Martha, named for a New Testament kitchen worker, to the store names like Milk and Honey.

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Atwood makes it clear in this interview that religion as a whole is neither good nor bad. She believes that religion may be used to control people, and Atwood emphasizes that this use of religion is an abuse

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I asked Margaret Atwood her opinion on declining religiosity in the United States on Friday, Oct. 4 during her Q&A at Town Hall Seattle. Atwood wrote the controversial novel "The Handmaid's Tail", which depicts the fictional takeover of the United States by fundamentalists.

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Censorship

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Propaganda
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Censorship
in Gilead Propaganda Censorship - The usage of biased or misleading information to promote or publicize a particular political cause or opinion
- Used to convince people to adopt a specific mindset towards a certain subject Is Propaganda effective in Gilead? - Used in television campaigns
- Only show footage that boosts public morale
- Experienced in the Red Center
- Showing abuse of women through past pornography
- Showing the women's past rebellion
-All of whom are now "Unwomen" working in the colonies & In Gilead Quotes "They only show us the victories, never
defeats. Who wants bad news?" (Atwood 102) - Offred comments on the government's selective television programs while the Household waits for the Commander
- Provides contrast
- Government's aim:
- To make it seems as if Gilead is winning whereas they might not actually be winning
- In doing so:
- Boosts public morale
- Stomps on potential rebellious thoughts of unconvinced citizens
- Establishes the setting
- Tells the readers more about the newly create Gilead "Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary." (43) - Establishes the tone
- Gilead has the intentions of becoming "ordinary"
- Therefore has intentions of staying in power for an extended period of time
- Provides contrast
- Handmaids, and others, that are forced to play to the rules of this theocratic government constantly compare their current lives to how they lived in the past - Aunt Lydia states this to convince the enslaved women at the Red Center that Gilead is not wrong, only different, and something the Handmaids will have to get used to. "She wasn't singing anymore by then, she was making speeches. She was good at it. Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn't do this herself, she made speeches instead, but she presented this failure of hers as a sacrifice she was making for the good of all." (56) - Offred comments on Serena Joy's life as a Commander's Wife
- Provides a character revelation
- Serena Joy's past is revealed
- Provide background information
- Shows the country before Gilead's creation
- Shows the campaigning of the founders of Gilead Connections Text-to-text: Handmaid's Tale and 1984 Text-to-world: Hitler's Regime - Propaganda was essential to Hitler's regime
- Used it to implement policies and enforce opinions and notions on certain ideas
- Mein Kampf
- Nazi Party used many media during their rule
- Newspapers, televisions, books, radio
- Famous examples: Education for Death
- Put propaganda everywhere public - The control of information and ideas circulating within a society
- The suppression of speech and other forms communication How is Censorship Used in Gilead? - The censorship of literature
- Handmaid's suppression
- The Bible
- The censorship of media
- Television channels, satellites Quotes Connections "They've frozen them, she said. Mine too. The collective's too. Any account with an F on it instead of an M. All they needed to do was push a few buttons. We're cut off." (224) "But all around the walls there are bookcases. They're filled with books. Books and books and books, right out in plain view, no locks, no boxes. No wonder we can't come in here. It's an oasis of forbidden. I try not the stare." (172) "Waves, coloured zigzags, a garble of sound: it's the Montreal satellite station being blocked. " (101) - Offred comments on Canada's freedom, which the government of Gilead does not want its citizens to hear or or be influenced by - During Offred's first visit to the Commander's office, she can only gape at the amount of books and therefore amount to information that the Commander, a man of
importance in Gilead, has
- Provides contrast
-In Canadian society, access to books if free
(libraries)
- In Gilead this freedom of information is taken away from the public and only bestowed upon the ruling class
- Displays foreshadowing
- This exact room is the start to Offred's journey to discovering the forbidden side of Gilead
- She also asks for information of the country from the Commander here, something that is forbidden - Offred think about the time before, when the government cut off women's ability to own money or property
- Provides background information
- Shows what happened in the time before Gilead had been established
- The beginning of the discrimination against women Text-to-text: Handmaid's Tale and 1984 - The government of Oceania censures anything that may every be used against themselves in the future
- The protagonist, Winston Smith, works in the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to alter historical records in order to favor the current government
- Irony? Text-to-world: Tienanmen Square - Students' protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square
- Lead to removal by force by the Chinese military
- Unknown death count
- Chinese government blocked off foreign and local press from incident
-Due to the small amount of vague information given by the Chinese government, there was a distinct lack of evidence that could be used to support or counter the actions of the protesters or the military - Establishes the setting
- Shows just how controlling Gilead really is
- The government of Gilead does not wants its citizens to hear anything about the outside world
- The only channels that are not blocked include Christian worship or Gilead's news
- Contains symbolism
- To Offred and many others that are not willingly
participating in the regime, it represents the
possibility of freedom.
- Even relevant in current day (as displayed by the abundant amount of immigrant applicants)
- Develops conflict
- Offred is no longer allowed certain privileges, while Luke has had nothing taken away from him
- Offred begins to distance herself from her husband as she becomes more depressed Text-to-self: Can Gilead become reality? - If we were living in Gilead, the loss of rights and freedoms of both men and women would affect us directly
- We could lose the right to...
- Speak freely
- Use money and own property
- Read and write
- Just as Offred spoke of the use of Compucards, our society often relies on electronic money - The media chooses what they want and do not want to show us, just like in the case of blocking the Montreal satellite
- People are using religion to justify the choices they make and are using it to manipulate other people
- Ex. Protests and the government
- Atwood shows that there is a real possibility of this type of dystopia developing in real life - The government has complete control of its people, whether it be through support or fear
- Ex. When they are able to convince their people that they are in a state of war when they are actually not
- The protagonist's last thought - Like Gilead, the government of Oceania uses propaganda to feed its opinions and beliefs to the citizens
- They use a figure the public calls "Big Brother"
- Only an actor, not actually the leader or part of the government, worshiped like a god
- Reoccurring statement: "Big Brother is watching" - The suppression of language
- "Newspeak"
- Used to eliminate past connotations with certain words
- Emotionally isolates citizens
- Also censures people who the government deems dangerous
- Ministry of Love
- Social institutions "Take, break, re-make"

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Handmaid's Tale Seminar - Propaganda and Censorship

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Propaganda &Censorship in Gilead Propaganda Censorship - The usage of biased or misleading information to promote or publicize a particular political cause or opinion- Used to convince people to adopt a specific mindset towards a certain subject Is Propaganda effective in Gilead?

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Censorship

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Last week, I began watching The Handmaid's Tale , a Hulu original series based off of the novel by Margaret Atwood . Set in a dystopian society and ruled by an extreme, fundamentalist regime; the series draws viewers in with multiple storylines, dynamic characters, and pendulum swings oscillating between hope and despair. Along with the brutal objectification of females in this radical, religious Totalitarian society, The Handmaid's Tale , sheds light on the power of the literate individual.

Books, reading, and writing are outlawed in Gilead, and one scene in an early episode where "The Eyes" are burning books and art, immediately reminded me of other stories about censorship and book banning, such as Fahrenheit 451 . The ability to read, write, and think for oneself is seen as a threat to the new government of Gilead and there is not a more powerful illustration of this then in the "Closet Scene" from episode 4. Offred, the main character, was locked in her room for 2 weeks straight and finds a Latin phrase, Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum carved into the corner of her closet. This single phrase, written by her predecessor who failed to bear a child for the commander and his wife, risked her life to offer hope in the form of words that Offred couldn't even translate. This small carving of words, hidden in the closet, reignited the fire of freedom that had been dimmed inside of Offred.

Words have the power to transport readers to new places, they can inspire a movement, and bring hope to those who identify with characters they read about or quotes that sing to their heart. This week marks the beginning of Banned Books Week , an annual celebration that recognizes Students' Right to Read and emphasizes the First Amendment . The theme for this upcoming Banned Books Week (Sept. 24 - Sept. 30) is "Words Have Power. Read a Banned Book." The words in these banned and challenged books have the power to connect readers to literary communities and offer diverse perspectives. And when these books are threatened with removal from communal shelves, your words have the power to challenge censorship. ( )

The Right to Read implies that individuals have the choice in what they read and the ability to be selective in this endeavor. The same freedoms are extended to the group as well and oppose the individual's efforts to limit what others read. " The right of any individual not just to read but to read whatever he or she wants to read is basic to a democratic society," ( ). Censorship and the banning of books limit the access of information for students. It distorts their understanding of information, creates bias, and neglects to provide a whole picture of the successes and challenges of a community or culture.

In this age of information and with the access to content at the touch of a button, it is essential to develop critical thinking skills and savvy discerners of information instead of limiting what students read. Just as important is the classroom discussion around censorship, along with individual dives into inquiry around bias, banned books, and healthy skepticism.

During Banned Books Week, I urge you to take part in the activities or create one of your own. In my classroom, I had students select a commonly banned or challenged book , preferably one they were familiar with, and answer the following questions:

Why is this book banned or frequently challenged?

What passages, lines, words, or characters are often attributed to the challenging or banning of the book?

What are the different opinions about this book?

What is your opinion?

Should this book be banned? Should any book be censored or banned?

How does censorship play a role in your life?

This short exercise made students aware of the issue, the sides, take a stand, and defend their thoughts. It provided us a perfect launch into (another frequently challenged book), as well as a larger, conceptual lens on censorship and the Right to Read.

Literacy = Power, Opportunities, Democracy, and Improved Professional & Personal Lives. And although contemporary books and movies, such as The Handmaid's Tale , paint an extreme cautionary example of censorship and banning books, it does illustrate the importance of freedom and the role literacy plays in our lives.

***And if you are wondering the translation of the Latin words Offred found hidden in her closet, here it is: "Don't let the Bastards grind you down"... fitting, don't you think?

About sfarnsworth

Educational Services Consultant: Literacy, Technology, and AIW. Certified Google Innovator. Staff Developer

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The Handmaid's Tale, Censorship, & Banned Books

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Last week, I began watching The Handmaid's Tale, a Hulu original series based off of the novel by Margaret Atwood. Set in a dystopian society and ruled by an extreme, fundamentalist regime; the series draws viewers in with multiple storylines, dynamic characters, and pendulum swings oscillating between hope and despair.