Posted on 10/20/2010 10:03:03 AM PDT by opentalk
The media are in a full-scale hyperventilation following Tuesday's separation of church and state comments by Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell.
As an Investor's Business Daily editorial points out, O'Donnell was right when questioned about this issue during a debate with Democrat candidate Chris Coons, and all the nattering nabobs of negativism filling the airwaves are wrong:
There is, of course, no such passage. Those scoffing law scholars might want to look at the Constitution's unadorned text instead of the judicial activist law review articles that take up so much of their day.
What the Constitution does say, in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" — a restriction imposed upon the state to prevent its interference in religious practice.
IBD referenced Mark Levin's "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America."
The "Wall of Separation" phrase comes not from the Constitution, but from President Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802. As Levin notes, the obscure comment was virtually ignored for nearly a century and a half. It wasn't until 1947 when Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black ruled in the Everson case — which actually upheld the use of taxpayer money to transport children to Catholic and other parochial schools — that the Jefferson metaphor was used to establish "the anti-religious precedent that has done so much damage to religious freedom."
...Levin's argument is similar to that of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist. In his dissent in a 1985 ruling against silent school prayer, Rehnquist pointed out: "There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the 'wall of separation' that was constitutionalized in Everson." He called Jefferson's "wall" "a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging."
... Is it any wonder that the newest Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan, did not require the study of constitutional law when she was dean of Harvard Law School — but did require the study of foreign law? Those future federal judges graduating Harvard might catch onto the fable liberal activists have gone to such trouble weaving.
No it's not.
It's an interpetration of the apparent evidence.
Not as clear cut as saying the sun rose this morning, and we all saw it. That is a fact. But not science.
The big bang theory is relatively recent, and controversy and contradictions and revisions have been a constant companion to its "development." Contradictions and unexplained phenomena abound.
Now is not the time for that. 2 weeks before the election. Nope, “we think it’s ok to have theocracy as the framers intended in the states but not at the federal level” is not “on message”.
But we know that Christine will try to figure all this stuff out, and will push for more Creationism in schools and School Prayer and all that stuff we want. But after the elections.
Now is a time to talk about Taxes, and Obamacare and Cap and Trade and all the bad Obama stuff. Add Coons poisons people to that and to the reward cronies stuff, or whatever they want to talk about that will bring the targets of the message to Christine.
Whatever the timeline, the impetus of the belief in the near simultaneous “special” creation of all species is a RELIGIOUS belief, not a scientific one based upon evidence.
Nothing in science precludes God. Many Christians embraced the scientific data that points to a “Big Bang” because it so closely comports with the theology that there WAS a beginning to the universe (many previously thought the universe might not have a beginning).
So would teaching the Book of Mormon as actual history be acceptable in Utah public schools under your view of the 1st Amendment? Or would that be an establishment and/or endorsement of a religion?
Hypotheticals are the weapons of the intellectually unarmed.
Bernie Ward comes to mind.
Only another fool steps into a "hypothetical" trap.
The STATES have rights now? The STATE has the right for Congress to not pass law respecting the establishment of religion?
To not understand Natural Law is to not understand the philosophical foundation of our Nation.
“This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” Ronald Reagan
If CO'D had made that clarification and explained the difference in meaning between the two she would have looked good. But instead she asked “That's in the First amendment?” as a question, as if she didn't have a clue.
Congress vs ‘the government’ is the the same in so many minds, and term ‘the government’ to complain about congress is used over and over by Republicans, so she is easily crucified for responding in this way to such a fine difference in common use of words.
Arguing against decades old judicial precedents in debates is not for amateurs. Scalia would have most (all) people for lunch, I have seen him in debates.
Your inability to give an answer shows that it is you who are intellectually unarmed and afraid to give battle on the field of ideas.
The democrats have successfully made what should have long ago been a national referendum on liberalism into a mass of individual races, election after election, and then proceed to destroy our candidates with such misdirection in detail. Frightened republicans NEVER challenge them out of fear of the liberal media.
Still we continue to lose more often than not.
Well, NOW is the time to start challenging them and show them for the sophists and liars they are. Telling the truth is never a bad policy.
You don't know what you're talking about. States are nowhere said in the law to posses "rights". States only have "Powers", and only persons have rights.
Cordially,
Did God spring forth from the Big Bang or was the Big Bang an Act of God? Or was God surprised by the whole Big Bang thing? Or does God just not exist? Those are the 4 "Big Bang stories of creation" to consider.
Which ONE of the Four Big Bang stories is the one taught in schools?
Believing that God caused the Big Bang even with a timeline of millions of years is still a "creationist" worldview. Anyone who believes in God as creator is a creationist. But even those who beleive in the no god god of Atheism still believe a creation story of how everything came to be.
Saying "science proves my religion of atheism" is still pushing a religion on pupils.
The schools are already doing with when they say "homosexuality is not sinful or immoral". That is contrary to other religious views.
When they use "Gaia" as a concept to promote the Global Climate Change bunk, that is pushing a religion on the students as fact.
“Is it any wonder that the newest Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan, did not require the study of constitutional law when she was dean of Harvard Law School — but did require the study of foreign law? Those future federal judges graduating Harvard might catch onto the fable liberal activists have gone to such trouble weaving.”
The answer is simple boycott anyone with a legal degree from Harvard law school.
“Did God spring forth from the Big Bang or was the Big Bang an Act of God?” Science cannot answer the question nor is it an appropriate area of discussion when discussing the EVIDENCE for the Big Bang and how it fits the theory.
“Or was God surprised by the whole Big Bang thing?” Same as above
“Or does God just not exist?” Same as above.
“Those are the 4 “Big Bang stories of creation” to consider.”
Isn't that just 3? Either way neither has ANYTHING to do AT ALL with the scientific theory of the “Big Bang” or the evidence that supports it.
If a teacher were to say “Science proves my religion of atheism” they should and would be fired - just as if a teacher were to say “Science proves my religion of Christianity” or “History proves my religion of Mormonism” or “Science proves my religion of Islam”.
Science is not atheism. Atheists of course must accept physical explanations for physical phenomena, but does it follow that believers must therefore always and exclusively accept supernatural explanations for physical phenomena?
Most scientists in the USA have faith in God.
Even if there was a big bang, something had to exist to blow up. What was it that went bang? Nothing?
The problem that I see is that the anti-creationists insist that their view is “neutral”. There is no such thing.
It’s even worse when creationists try to concede that point.
“Did God spring forth from the Big Bang or was the Big Bang an Act of God?”
These are 2 different things. Have trouble parsing the concepts did you?
Good catch. I used the wrong word.
I used “right” instead of “power”
“It’s a power that was given to the states. Not a right to the people.”
Thomas explains it much better than I do.
Here’s what he says.
the Clause made clear that Congress could not interfere with state establishments
the prevailing view that the Constitution left religion to the States. ... History also supports this understanding: At the founding, at least six States had established religions.
the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision–it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual right. These two features independently make incorporation of the Clause difficult to understand.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2610810/posts
Having trouble differentiating the concepts of science from theology again?
No, we stay on message.
We know that Christine will talk against the Everson line of cases. We want her in there.
Now is not the time to get off message.
If Christine can make a TV ad out of this controversy, and make Coons look stupid or a liar or terrible in some way, better than the other things she has to look bad, she should do it.
But, there’s nothing wrong with people who kinda have an understanding of the 1A talking as if they’re experts. We have freedoms and whatnot.
Coons makes millions of dollars from making Gore-tex. Gore-tex is made from teflon. Teflon need PFOA to make it. PFOA is a particularly bad poison. Coons makes money from poisoning people. No one here really seems to care. I’ll be writing something about that for Red State. A “news” article.
Ok, good catch. I used the word right instead of power. I could’ve used the word “thing”.
The point is that states can establish religion.
‘
But nice catch. You caught me on a word slip. 2 people did. Excellent of you.
Please, explain the relationship, if any, between “Everson” and “a wall of separation between church and State.”
Try to explain law in such a way that it references things less than 200 years old.
Read Elk Grove. Please. Pretty please. We’re having a Constitutional law debate, and you’re quoting Ronald Reagan.
Federalism. States Rights? Ever hear of States Rights? Anybody?
I'll look forward to reading your article.
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