Posted on 05/01/2003 1:19:38 PM PDT by Remedy
Court says Virginia Military Institute must stop prayer before supper.
On April 28, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the tradition of voluntary supper prayer at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is an unconstitutional "establishment of religion." The unanimous decision for a three-judge panel was written by Judge Robert King, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. The Fourth Circuit covers North and South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. The court sits in Richmond, Virginia.
It's not the first time a court has addressed VMI affairs. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the all-male admission policy at the military school, founded in 1839. In this case, two cadets filed suit in 2001 to stop the reading of a prayer before supper in the VMI mess hall each evening. As the appeals court described it, cadets "must remain standing and silent while the supper prayer is read, but cadets are not obliged to recite the prayer, close their eyes, or bow their heads."
The appeals court based its decisions on recent Supreme Court decisions, rather than on the original meaning of the Constitution itself. This trend of disregarding the Constitution’s intended meaning in favor of the Supreme Court’s preferred meaning has resulted in many decisions eliminating religious speech or symbols from many public settings.
Had the appeals court followed the First Amendment’s intended meaning, the court would have upheld VMI’s voluntary supper prayer. The same first Congress that proposed the First Amendment also enacted legislation requiring that military academy cadets attend church services and recite mealtime prayers. Instead, the appeals court concluded that requiring VMI cadets to be in the mess hall when the prayer is read amounted to compelling them to "participate in a religious activity."
One of the three judges deciding this case actually sits on the Third Circuit, which sits in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Critics of the obstruction campaign against President Bush’s judicial nominees have noted that appeals court vacancies result in judges from other circuits sitting temporarily, or "by designation." Three of the Fourth Circuit’s 15 full-time positions are vacant and Senate Democrats have prevented a Judiciary Committee hearing on one Bush nominee for nearly two years. The same day as this decision was handed down, President Bush made nominations to the remaining Fourth Circuit vacancies.
Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore says he will ask the full Fourth Circuit to reconsider the decision.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
GOV : Congress, the Court, and the Constitution
1. Congress assumed that the Court is properly the enforcer of the First Amendment.
This is by now a very old error, and one so venerable that to speak in correction of it is to raise questions about one's sanity in most circles. So deep runs the popular myth that the Supreme Court is properly the final authority in enforcing virtually every provision of the Constitution that a digression is necessary here into the more general question of judicial review. As Professor Robert Clinton has shown, the judicial power to invalidate the actions of other branches of the national government was widely understood at the founding to be ''departmental'' or ''coordinate''—a power he calls ''functional review'' enabling the judiciary to pronounce authoritatively on the constitutionality of laws touching on the integrity of the courts' own functions, for instance where a case concerns jurisdictional issues, standards of evidence, or the provision of simple due process. This limited version of judicial review was all that was either exercised or claimed for the Court by John Marshall in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison.(see footnote 131) On the other hand, the legislative and executive branches have a like authority to have the ''last word'' on those constitutional questions bearing on the exercise of their own powers, arising from the provisions of the Constitution addressed to themselves. Thus, that same John Marshall, for instance, held that the reach of Congress's power over commerce among the states was to be controlled authoritatively not by the judiciary, but by the people through democratic processes: such are ''the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments.''(see footnote 132)
Now obviously, the terms of the First Amendment address themselves to the Congress and not to the judiciary, and in no way would an infringement of one of the rights therein have an adverse effect on the proper functioning of judicial processes. Moreover, if the First Amendment had been expected to be the subject of routine judicial enforcement, we would expect the subject to have come up frequently in the First Congress that debated and drafted the Bill of Rights. Yet, in his brilliant account of how the Bill of Rights came to be added to the Constitution, Professor Robert Goldwin manages to tell the whole story in complete detail without ever once mentioning that the subject of judicial enforcement of the Bill arose at all. The point of the Bill of Rights was not to trigger judicial review, but to weave a love of liberty into the American political culture. Here ''is how it works,'' Goldwin tells us in his recent book:
[T]o the extent that these principles of free government [in the Bill of Rights] have become a part of our ''national sentiment,'' they do, indeed, often enable us, the majority, to restrain ourselves, the majority, from oppressive actions. That is the import of the first five words of the Bill of Rights: ''Congress shall make no law'' that attempts to accomplish certain prohibited things. It means that even if a majority in Congress, representing a majority of us, the people, wants to make a law that the Constitution forbids it to make, we, all of us, superior to any majority, say it must not be done, because the Constitution is the will of all of us, not just a majority of us.(see footnote 133)
So as not to be misunderstood, I should add that certain provisions in the Bill of Rights do address themselves to the courts, and so are fit subjects for judicial review—obviously amendments five through seven, arguably four through eight—but the First Amendment is not one of them. It is only in this century, with the expansion of judicial authority in every direction, that we have come to think otherwise. And RFRA played right into that modern myth, insisting that a clause of the First Amendment be enforced by courts in a certain way when, at the very least, clear doubt exists that it was meant to be judicially enforced at all.
Daniel 6:10 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
But not entirely unexpected.
John 15:20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
This is one more example of the absurd and impossible conflict between the 14th Amendment and almost everything else in the Constitution, and with the intended realtionships between Governments, envisioned by the Founding Fathers. It could, of course, be remedied by an act of Congress, limiting the jurisdiction of the Federal District Courts to exclude this sort of case. But the 'Liberals' & moderates would not likely agree to such a limitation.
Thus, in less than a decade, we have seen the chivalric tradition and simple, basic American reverence for God, officially stripped from the foremost non-Federal military institution in America.
One can only hope that appreciation for this latest outrage against the American tradition will not be lost in the ocean of like events in which we are all but drowning. VMI has a proud tradition. It would be a real pity if VMI were simply allowed to fade into purposeless mediocrity.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site [An Ohio Conservative Resource Center, Where Virginia Traditions Are Honored]
Jim, say it again and say it loud!!! The RATs must go!!
Don't mind if I do:
THE RATS MUST GO!!! DASCHLE, HILLARY, & CO AND THEIR ENTIRE CREW OF AMERICA HATING, LIBERTY HATING, GODLESS SOCIALIST SCUMBAGS MUST BE DRUMMED OUT OF THEIR GOVERNMENT POSTS!!! SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!!!
What part of "Voluntary" did the court miss?<P. If you want to be technical, this ruling is, in itself a violation of the First Amendment - "no law prohbiting the free exercise of religion".
The courts ordered him to cease and desist immediately. The case was appealed several times before the school decided it couldn't afford to pursue the appeals any longer.
The minister told the courts to go f#ck themselves -- he was going to lead that crowd in prayer before every home game, and if they didn't like it they knew exactly where to find him on any given Saturday morning in the fall.
And guess what -- "f#ck themselves" is exactly what the courts did. As far as I know, he still carries on to this day.
Almost certainly less, probably much less.
Once you accept money from the feds, they own you.
1997-10-31 Federal Bureaucracy Stifles EducationFor starters, the Department of Education makes colleges comply with some 7,000 regulations under the laws authorizing student grants and loans. On top of that, a law passed by Congress in 1988 -- over President Reagan’s veto -- says that even if only one student receives only $1 in federal student aid, the college still must comply with all of those regulations.
No regulation to remedy - ED : Administration Cites Recent Surveys Showing Lack Of Basic Knowledge Of U.S. History & ED : Senate Panel Hears that Ignorance of U.S. History Poses Major Security Threat
But the 'Liberals' & moderates would not likely agree to such a limitation.
Thus, in less than a decade, we have seen the chivalric tradition and simple, basic American reverence for God, officially stripped from the foremost non-Federal military institution in America.
GOV : The Godless Party: Media Bias & Blindness—And the Big Story They MissedThe media have thoroughly reported the key role religious conservatives play in Republican Party politics; what they’ve ignored is the equally important role militant secularists play in setting the agenda of the Democratic Party
WORLD Sept. 2, 2000: Remarkable Providences: Fear of the Lord…Rabbi Lapin's fearless statement makes sense: "Those of us who venerate freedom, be we Jewish or Christian, be we religious or secularized, have no option but to pray for the health of Christianity in America. No other group possesses both the faith and the numbers sufficient to hold back the ever-encroaching, sometimes sinister, power of the state."
Without the institutions that make people feel a part of a larger whole, the individual is isolated and likely to proclaim allegiance to the state, the "new god" of the modern world. That is the goal of the Left's war against culture; it has nothing to do with "rights" or "freedom."
The teacher is careful not to be the one to call for prayer, but she sure is proud that the kids do so. I keep thinking that all it would take would be one atheist student or parent to raise a stink about it, and 56 good kids would lose this opportunity. One complaining atheist always wins in court (or the school board) over a thousand Christians.
You are correct. In fact this occurred in the early colonies. In the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland the Church of England was recognized by law as the State Church; and in Maryland, which had passed through Catholic and Puritan hands, this church was supported by general taxation. In New England, except Rhode Island, the Puritan or Congregational Church was practically the State Church.
After the revolutionary war and the ratification of the bill of rights, this was frowned upon and the appeal of the federal restriction filtered down to the state level, as I think it should have in this case. But as you say, it could still theoretically be possible.
Without the institutions that make people feel a part of a larger whole, the individual is isolated and likely to proclaim allegiance to the state, the "new god" of the modern world. That is the goal of the Left's war against culture; it has nothing to do with "rights" or "freedom."
You are absolutely on the right track. My own take on the same tactic is set forth in a number of essays. A typical one is Destroying Cultural Continuity. We are in a war with vicious demagogues, willing to destroy America for a power base, and academic charlatans seeking to destroy our heritage out of pure hatred for the Society created by the Founding Fathers, and the sooner all Conservatives understand how late the hour has become, the better.
William Flax
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