No offense meant but how long did you lurk before signing up to think this teaches FReepers anything?
The language of the Fourteenth Amendment is where the federal courts claim to find the power.
I can't remember the last Fourteenth amendment case that had anything to do with it's intent. "Brown", I guess.
Welcome to FR.
You really ought to quote Jefferson's passage if you're going to talk about it:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, 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.
Now, your point is well taken, that the U.S. Constitution speaks only about the limits on the powers of the federal government, and therefore does not prohibit any state from connecting church and state -- indeed early American history is filled with examples of religion-based states.
So I disagree that the Supreme Court misinterpreted Jefferson's statement. What happened, in fact, was that the 14th Amendment opened the door for an override of the limits on the powers of the federal government, as mrsmith correctly points out. It didn't misinterpret TJ, it ignored him (and the 10th Amendment).
Welcome to Free Republic. Those of us who study and revere the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in particular, will gladly engage you in all the debate you care to join. Your handle suggests you're looking forward to it too.
Welcome to FR
I have always thought it an interesting irony that the first time the Supreme Court referenced this metaphor created in the Danbury letter was in defense of marriage against polygamy in the Utah territories.
The court in Reynolds ruled in 1878 that the wall protected the American tradition of marriage.
I agree that the wall metaphor is bad law and bad interpretation of the religion clauses of the first amendment.
Welcome to FR; thanks for the post, I'm sure most here will agree.
Interesting. There was recently a federal case - can't recall the name or the circuit, I think it was a circuit case - in which the court said that the "wall of separation" is a misnomer and there was never such an intent in the Constitution. It was a "Ten Commandments in a public building" case which the ACLU lost, if I recall correctly.
*Bump* for later reading
Article 52.
(1) Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda. Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited.(2) In the USSR, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church.
His letter to the dude in Danbury assuring that there would be no national religion has certainly been misread by our intellectual bettors (sarc) on the Godless left.
ping
Jefferson's wall was a very different thing than the "high and impregnable wall" invented by Hugo Black.
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority (Jefferson letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808)."
"[T]he clause of the Constitution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, ever one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes and they believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes." -- Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
Jefferson was clearly only concerned with a state church and viewed that as the only concern of the First Amendment.
I think this has been a great discussion but I still feel it has been signficantly misguided in some respects:
1. Jefferson's wall metaphor is but one potential interpretation of the religion clauses. In its first application in 1878 it was arguably used to defend the government's establishment of religion [marriage between a man and a woman]. Black's interpretation of the wall metaphor has progressively turned the meaning of the first amendment entirely inside out. We are now allowing religious speech to be banned from government space to preserve the excessive reading of the establishment clause. This is why Scalia was right when he observed that it is not a wall separating church and state but a bulldozer-- pusing religion out of public life.
2. The establishment clause is in reference to the state establishments of religion that existed within the colonies at the time of the Constitution. It was a promise that the federal government would not interfere with those establishments. This historical reality annihilates much of what is being defended in this thread as normative readings of the establishment clause. THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE IS A FEDERAL GUARANTEE THAT STATE CHURCHES WILL NOT BE UNDERMINED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
3. This does set up problems for the incorporation processes understood in light of the passage of the 14th amendment. It seems quite possible that the incorporation OUGHT to mean that local establishments of religion [churches I suppose and religious non profits] cannot be interfered with by governing authorities. I think almost no one is prepared to accept this though I actually think it is quite defensible.
Because our jurisprudence is so fundamentally flawed on this question we are tending toward the abolition of religious speech. There is constant reference on this thread that the government can support non-religious speech. That is the functional annihilation of religious speech. Because if a religious speech person is standing on a square centimeter of government funded property they cease to have free speech rights as far as religious content is concerned. Radical secularists are fully aware of this and pretend to not notice the radical case for censorship that they are practicing and advancing in America's public sphere.
Ironically, I do have hope that the Supreme Court will gradually undo the damage done by Black. I do not personally think the 10th amendment plays a critical role in this.
1Jo 4:5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
1Jo 4:6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.
They DIDN'T misunderstand it.Those liberal pukes had their own agenda and kick the snot out of the Constitution knowing full well what they were doing !!!