DR,
I note you quoted James Madison. Add these to your collection.
“The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total
separation of the Church from the State.”
~ Writings, 1819
“Because the Bill [to institute an assessment to fund teachers of
Christianity] implies either that the Civil Magistrate
is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion
as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant
pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all
ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed
perversion of the means of salvation.” ~~ Memorial and Remonstrance
Against Religious Assessments, 1785
But really the crux of the matter is the Supreme Court rulings. I have
to live the the Abomination of Citizens United* so you
and your like minded religious zealots have to live with total church
and state separation. You better have millions of dollars
and several lifetimes to reverse these decisions. It won't happen in my
remaining years, that is for sure.
U.S. Supreme Court Decisions on Separation of Church and State
(arranged by date)
Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879)
Court finds that the federal antibigamy statute does not violate the
First Amendment's guarantee of the free exercise of religion.
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
Court finds that a New Jersey law which included students of Catholic
schools in reimbursements to parents who sent their children to school
on buses operated by the public transportation system does not violate
the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
McCollum v. Board of Education Dist. 71, 333 U.S. 203 (1948)
Court finds religious instruction in public schools a violation of the
establishment clause and therefore unconstitutional.
Burstyn v. Wilson, 72 S. Ct. 777 (1952)
Government may not censor a motion picture because it is offensive to
religious beliefs.
Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961)
Court holds that the state of Maryland cannot require applicants for
public office to swear that they believed in the existence of God. The
court unanimously rules that a religious test violates the Establishment
Clause.
Engel v. Vitale, 82 S. Ct. 1261 (1962)
Any kind of prayer, composed by public school districts, even
nondenominational prayer, is unconstitutional government sponsorship of
religion.
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)
Court finds Bible reading over school intercom unconstitutional and
Murray v. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) - Court finds forcing a child to
participate in Bible reading and prayer unconstitutional.
Epperson v. Arkansas, 89 S. Ct. 266 (1968)
State statue banning teaching of evolution is unconstitutional. A state
cannot alter any element in a course of study in order to promote a
religious point of view. A state's attempt to hide behind a nonreligious
motivation will not be given credence unless that state can show a
secular reason as the foundation for its actions.
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 91 S. Ct. 2105 (1971)
Established the three part test for determining if an action of
government violates First Amendment's separation of church and state:
1) the government action must have a secular purpose;
2) its primary purpose must not be to inhibit or to advance religion;
3) there must be no excessive entanglement between government and religion.
Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980)
Court finds posting of the Ten Commandments in schools unconstitutional.
Wallace v. Jaffree, 105 S. Ct. 2479 (1985)
State's moment of silence at public school statute is unconstitutional
where legislative record reveals that motivation for statute was the
encouragement of prayer. Court majority silent on whether "pure" moment
of silence scheme, with no bias in favor of prayer or any other mental
process, would be constitutional.
Edwards v. Aquillard, 107 S. Ct. 2573 (1987)
Unconstitutional for state to require teaching of "creation science" in
all instances in which evolution is taught. Statute had a clear
religious motivation.
Allegheny County v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989)
Court finds that a nativity scene displayed inside a government building
violates the Establishment Clause.
Lee v. Weisman, 112 S. Ct. 2649 (1992)
Unconstitutional for a school district to provide any clergy to perform
nondenominational prayer at elementary or secondary school graduation.
It involves government sponsorship of worship. Court majority was
particularly concerned about psychological coercion to which children,
as opposed to adults, would be subjected, by having prayers that may
violate their beliefs recited at their graduation ceremonies.
Church of Lukumi Babalu Ave., Inc. v. Hialeah, 113 S. Ct. 2217 (1993)
City's ban on killing animals for religious sacrifices, while allowing
sport killing and hunting, was unconstitutional discrimination against
the Santeria religion.
*In a 5-4 ruling, the Justices declared unconstitutional the government
restriction on “independent” political spending by corporations and
unions...
The decision overturned century-old precedent allowing the government to
regulate such spending. As a result, Citizens United has greatly affected
the way corporations and unions can spend on elections.
RG
On 9/20/2016 6:14 AM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
RG, you might read this to untwist the pretzel you have made of the meaning here.
http://lexingtonlibertarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/misinterpretation-of-separation-of.html
...during that debate Madison made it plainly clear what motivated him and what his purpose was in crafting the First amendment.
He said, “he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.”
So we see the framers, whose context was that they came from European monarchies with state religions, were determined that there would be no national church and that everybody would have the religious freedom to worship as they pleased.
That is a far cry from the modern application of this amendment. We have gone from a “hands off” attitude to removing all religion from the government. That was never the intent of those who wrote the rules. Today we interpret the first amendment to remove all religion from the marketplace. The 10th Amendment cannot be displayed on government buildings, crosses are yanked out of remote areas and prayer while school is in session, even a moment of silence is not allowed.
In that school prayer case, Wallace versus Jaffree, 1985, Justice Rhenquist in the dissenting opinion said, “It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of constitutional history, but unfortunately the Establishment Clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson’s misleading metaphor for nearly 40 years.”
Massachusetts had a Puritan religion and required all members of government to be members of Christian religion, right in its constitution which pre dates the federal constitution.
States still have the right to establish a State Religion, the Federal government does not.
73
DR
On Sep 19, 2016 1:55 PM, "R George" <xgeorge@xxxxxxx <mailto:xgeorge@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
DR/RR,
FYI: When I use the word Constitution I include the Bill of Rights
because the 1st 10 were ratified the year following full
ratification of the Constitution. 1790/1791.
*Amendment I**
**Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;**
*
Below is from the guy who had a little something to do with the
Constitution - *Thomas Jefferson.*
“… I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole
American people which declared that their legislature
should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free
exercise thereof,’ *thus building a wall of separation between
Church and State.”* ~~ Letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802
“[E]very one must act according to the dictates of his own reason,
and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the
President of the U.S. *and no authority to direct the religious
exercises of his constituents.*” ~~ Letter to Rev. Samuel Miller,
January 23, 1808
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden
people maintaining a free civil government. *This marks the lowest
grade of **
**ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will
always avail themselves for their own purposes.”* ~~ letter to
Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
And an excerpt from a favorite founding father of mine - *Thomas
Paine (Age of Reason)**
*
*"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by
the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by
the Protestant church, **
**nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.**
**
**All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian
or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to
terrify and enslave mankind, **
**and monopolize power and profit.**
**
**I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe
otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to
mine. But it is necessary to **
**the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself.
Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it
consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.**
*
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so
express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man
has so far corrupted and prostituted
the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief
to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the
commission of every other crime.
*He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in
order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury.
Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?*
Soon after I had published the pamphlet Common Sense, in America,
I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of
government would be followed
by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous
connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place,
whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so
effectually prohibited by pains and penalties, every discussion
upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion,
that until the system of government should
be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly
before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a
revolution in the system of religion would
follow. Human inventions and priestcraft would be detected; and
man would return to the pure, unmixed and unadulterated belief of
one God, and no more.
Every national church or religion has established itself by
pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain
individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their
Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their
Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.
Each of those churches show certain books, which they call
revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of
God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say,
that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks
say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel
from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other
of unbelief; *and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.**
*
As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I
proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on
the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion,
means something communicated immediately from God to man."
Continued here:
http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason1.htm
<http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason1.htm>
RG
On 9/16/2016 5:14 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
RR,
You're absolutely right on that one, Ron.
73
DR
On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 8:02 PM, Ron Ristad <ristad@xxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:ristad@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Actually the separation of church and state is not in the
Constitution. This is an interpretation by the Supreme Court.
A future Supreme Court could make a different interpretation.
The fact is that the Constitution and Bill of Rights were
written by Christians and are based on Christian ideals. This
is why it is not like Sharia Law or the Talmud.
People who want to change it to make it more like their
culture and their religion claim that it was designed so that
it could change with changing conditions but this is
bullshit. That would be like changing the Ten Commandments.
-RR, Sick of political correctness that I never agreed to and
sick of all the bullshit..
