FLUSHED WITH PRIDE

 ADL Celebrates Flushing Remonstrance: Precursor to First Amendment by More Than One Hundred Years

New York, N.Y.

June 7, 2001

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today reaffirmed the significance of the Flushing Remonstrance, a document which established a precedence for religious tolerance in America, by symbolically reissuing the 1657 edict at the historic Quaker Meeting House in Flushing, Queens…

www.adl.org/presrele/CvlRt_32/3852_32.asp

Although that celebration took place two years ago, and the history it commemorated was made over three and a half centuries before that, I was unfamiliar with this proud piece of American history until I came across it recently while proofreading a timeline for my library’s newsletter. At first I simply fell for the salacious sound of it… the flushing remonstrance! … which seemed to evoke a Victorian heroine resisting the advances of a shameless lover. I began quizzing coworkers on it, mainly for an excuse to say it out loud. For while it is decidedly not an example of antiquated erotic rhetoric, it is nevertheless thrilling and seminal… ;^)

The Flushing Remonstrance was a public protest on the part of the residents of Flushing, N.Y., and was directed unabashedly at their governor, Peter Stuyvesant, in 1657. Apparently, he had advised them to shun Quakers (who believed in a direct experience of God, and therefore were deemed too casual when it came to church), but they were distinctly disinclined to do so. In their reproof, they proffered love and charity also to “Jews, Turks, Egyptians, Protestants, Independents, Baptists…” and by implication all God’s creatures, and set the stage quite dramatically for that aspect of the First Amendment concerning religious freedom and the separation of church and state. At a time when it sometimes seems America is losing her moorings in terms of both free speech and religious tolerance, perhaps we should reflect on those things like the Flushing Remonstrance that helped make America the great experiment in diversity and democracy that it was and is.

Or as another diversity-minded denizen of the environs of Flushing once remonstrated: “Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world / I wanna be the one to walk in the sun / And girls they wanna have fun / Oh, girls just wanna have fun…”

The New York State Archives, at the Cultural Education Center in Albany, is the repository of this historic proclamation, which was partially burned in the 1911 State Library fire.

Read the full text of the Flushing Remonstrance at the Religious Freedom page of the University of Virginia:

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/flushing_remonstrance_1657.html

And check out Salon’s “Documents of Freedom” series at: http://dir.salon.com/topics/documents_of_freedom//index.html.

These include:

¨      Introducing “Documents of Freedom” ¾ From Milton to China’s Democracy Wall, Salon’s new series honors the milestones of human liberty. [2003-07-01]

¨      “The presses must roll” ¾ The Supreme Court’s Pentagon Papers decision barred an imperious president from blocking publication of explosive government documents about an ill-conceived war. Today, journalists may not be so brave -- or judges so vigilant. By Gary Kamiya [2003-07-01]

¨      “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue” ¾ In “Areopagitica,” Milton made a magisterial case not just for freedom of speech, but for freedom of soul. By Gary Kamiya [2003-07-08]

¨      “The Fifth Modernization” ¾ Eleven years before Tiananmen Square, a courageous Chinese worker dared to call for democracy. He was imprisoned for 15 years, but his message defies iron bars. By Andrew Leonard [2003-07-15]

¨      “The Bill of Rights” ¾ More than an indestructible wall limiting the power of government, the Bill of Rights is a testament of hope. By Roger K. Newman [2003-07-22]

¨      “Ain’t I a Woman?” ¾ Sojourner Truth’s impromptu personal oratory gave women’s rights a voice of fire. By Laura Miller [2003-07-29]

¨      “On Liberty” ¾ John Stuart Mill’s classic is all over the Web, because it reminded us that freedom requires reckoning with “heretical opinions” -- a message we need now more than ever. By Scott Rosenberg [2003-08-12]

¨      “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” ¾ The power of Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights call-to-arms comes from watching a great man grapple with the possibility that he’s wrong. By Joan Walsh [2003-08-19]

¨      “Lenny Bruce died for our sins” ¾ Thanks to the martyred comedian, American culture is free to be a wild kingdom. But with his new anti-porn crusade, Attorney General Ashcroft wants to turn back the clock. By Gary Kamiya [2003-08-26]

¨      “I shall not burn my press and melt my letters” ¾ Newspaper publishing in the days of Ben Franklin and his grandson was a filthy, grinding business. Fighting for freedom of the press was an even more wretched a task. By David Talbot [2003-09-02]

NEXT ARTICLE