The Prayer ban in RI is the dumbest court ruling i have ever read...If you are "uncomfortable" with others praying, then according to the Law, you have a right to Force others to stop making you "Feel bad".....The laws are not created to make a person's "feelings better", The Law is there to address an injustice..Feelings are Yours to deal with..Don't agree..OK try getting a law passed for something you do not like seeing or hearing, that's not religion related...The law makers would laugh at You...Oh and I am by no means a "Holy roller"..I believe in Justice for all & this is Her "inner thoughts & emotional baggage" problem...She doesn't like it, then stop looking and making Herself feel bad........
So read on ...Rhode Island City Enraged Over School Prayer Lawsuit - NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/yBrqux
Rhode Island City Enraged Over School Prayer Lawsuit from the www.nytimes.com
A girl’s successful lawsuit to have a prayer removed from her high school has roiled the heavily Roman Catholic city of Cranston, where residents are appealing the decision.
This is yet another assault on common sense and Civil society's compact with each other...
Yes Mob rule is wrong and at the same time, the mob of 1 special interest is also wrong, especially when the injustice claimed, is basing its arguments on the intangible and subjective emotions of its members and on the ignorance of the others outside its group, which it needs and seeks for support.....
I am so very tired of "Emotional & Feelings" based Laws, getting by in the court system...
The Laws, in Our Republic were based on a rational thought process and these days, with so many trading Logic & Reason for a quick fix of emotional fulfillment, the courts are almost forced to follow the will of the Ignorant & uncaring majority...This needs to stop or else one day, a law may get passed making something You like to do, Illegal, simple because a few People "feel" its bad to do...These Laws, based on "Emotions & Feelings' are no different than those passed in a Religious based government, where an intangible Faith system is used to outlaw, what the Masses "Believe" the Deity thinks is wrong...
I just explained to the Wife...that there is NO Law that states that there is "Separation of Church and State"..Not 1...The "separation of Church and State," Doctrine is from supreme court decision..I believe it was in the 40's with FDR's corrupt and very evil, Head Justice Hugo Black, that sited a letter from ex President Jefferson, to a friend , Jefferson said that a "theoretical wall of separation between Church and State exists in the Constitution"..Hugo left out the rest of the letter and ignore the Law....When the Constitution was set up, ever State had as a requirement to take the Office a person was just elected to, they had to pass a religious test, to prove they were worthy for the Office...That was Never outlawed and it still done today, but so ever hidden..People are "sworn" in with a religious book and an oath recited...See if the Law, did indeed "outlaw" this behavior in the Government & Public places, this tradition would not be done any more......
1. Separation of church and state is a bedrock principle of our Constitution much like the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. In the Constitution, the founders did not simply say in so many words that there should be separation of powers and checks and balances; rather, they actually separated the powers of government among three branches and established checks and balances. Similarly, they did not merely say there should be separation of church and state; rather, they actually separated them by (1) establishing a secular government on the power of "We the people" (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office. Given the norms of the day, the founders' avoidance of any expression in the Constitution suggesting that the government is somehow based on any religious belief was quite a remarkable and plainly intentional choice. They later buttressed this separation of government and religion with the First Amendment, which constrains the government from undertaking to establish religion or prohibit individuals from freely exercising their religions. The basic principle, thus, rests on much more than just the First Amendment.
ReplyDeleteThat the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, to some who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and, upon learning they were mistaken, reckon they’ve discovered a smoking gun solving a Constitutional mystery. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to name one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
To the extent that some nonetheless would like confirmation--in those very words--of the founders' intent to separate government and religion, Madison and Jefferson supplied it. Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists–as if that were the only basis of the Court’s decision. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court’s decision. Perhaps even more than Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
2. While the First Amendment only limited the federal government, the Constitution was later amended to protect from infringement by states and their political subdivisions the privileges and immunities of citizenship, due process, and equal protection of the laws. The courts naturally have looked to the Bill of Rights for the important rights thus protected by the 14th Amendment and have ruled that it effectively extends the First Amendment’s guarantees vis a vis the federal government to the states. While the founders drafted the First Amendment to constrain the federal government, they certainly understood that later amendments could extend the Bill of Rights' constraints to state and local governments.
ReplyDeleteIt is instructive to recall that the Constitution's separation of church and state reflected, at the federal level, a "disestablishment" political movement then sweeping the country. That political movement succeeded in disestablishing all state religions by the 1830s. (Side note: A political reaction to that movement gave us the term "antidisestablishmentarianism," which amused some of us as kids.) It is worth noting, as well, that this disestablishment movement largely coincided with another movement, the Great Awakening. The people of the time saw separation of church and state as a boon, not a burden, to religion.
This sentiment was recorded by a famous observer of the American experiment: "On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention. . . . I questioned the members of all the different sects. . . . I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America, I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835).
A word should be added about the common canard that this is all about people easily offended. We’re not talking about the freedom of individuals to say or do something others find offensive. We’re talking about the government weighing in to promote religion. Under our Constitution, our government has no business doing that--regardless of whether anyone is offended. While this is primarily a constitutional point, it is one that conservatives--small government conservatives--should appreciate from a political standpoint as well. While the First Amendment thus constrains government from promoting (or opposing) religion without regard to whether anyone is offended, a court may address the issue only in a suit by someone with "standing" (sufficient personal stake in a matter) to bring suit; in order to show such standing, a litigant may allege he is offended or otherwise harmed by the government's failure to follow the law; the question whether someone has standing to sue is entirely separate from the question whether the government has violated the Constitution.
The Constitution, including particularly the First Amendment, embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to undercut our secular government by somehow merging or infusing it with religion should be resisted by every patriot.