Posted on 07/01/2003 2:47:12 PM PDT by Lurking Libertarian
ATLANTA - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a Ten Commandments monument the size of a washing machine must be removed from the Alabama Supreme Court building.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a ruling by a federal judge who said that the 2 1/2-ton granite monument, placed there by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
[snip]
Moore put the monument in the rotunda of the courthouse in the middle of the night two summers ago. The monument features tablets bearing the Ten Commandments and historical quotations about the place of God in law.
[click link to read remainder of article]
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Their errors carry as much weight as they do because too many people assume that how they rule truly does reflect what the Constitution says. And that enables them to go further and further overboard with their rulings. Now of course this is different from the question of whether their rulings have power to them. But we have a holiday coming up to remind us that might doesn't make right.
Well, the fact that you live there kind of explains what looks to me to be a suspicion that everyone is always acting out of some liberal motive. I am amazed you can stay there without your head exploding.
See, if you were here in the South, you'd know that striking Judge Roy's Ten Commandments was an aberration, so he must've been out of line. We have religious displays all over the place, and the courts allow them all the time. This very 11th Circuit allowed the Ten Commandments in a courtroom in Albany, Georgia just two weeks before they struck Judge Roy's monument. We still pray at football games, and at most graduations. So you have to know that this guy was crossing the line to get slapped down by a conservative panel the way he did. Just read it.
Remember the question I asked you about following orders? Imagine a unit commander just decides for himself that he doesn't agree with a standing order, and takes the position that he won't follow it, even if his CO tells him to. That's exactly what Judge Roy is doing - and he is also taking the position that he has more power than the Federal appeals court just because he thinks he knows better than them. This is about nothing more than his own appetite for power and publicity. Why do you think he filmed the installation, if he wasn't setting up the confrontation? Then he comes into court and gives testimony that absolutely ensures the court will rule against him? Just read it.
Oh really, then you need to write to SCOTUS and tell them they must stop the teaching of atheism in govt. schools! No honest person can look at the curriculum and deny that. Atheism/naturalism taught as the official state religion in every govt school. When a school teaches a kid that evolved from a chimp, that's not endorsing atheism as a state religion? Or when you teach him situational ethics rather than objective right and wrong - that's not endorsing atheism. It seems everything that is taught in govt. schools is wholly consistent with atheism. Are you going to try to claim that atheism is not a religion? Please try so I can pounce.
I read Nietzche and Satre in school - but I also read Kierkegaard. I don't think either was favored, but Kierkegaard left the greater impression. So maybe I was being taught Christianity.
In answer to your main point - call me whatever name you may want, but I don't think the schools in my part of the world promote atheism. If you think they do, you haven't seen either the school boards or the PTA here.
By the way - schools are local phenomena. There is no federal mandate commanding them to teach atheism. If your kid's school is teaching atheism, then the remedy lies with the parents, by dealing with the board and the administration. But it sounds to me like you don't want them to JUST not teach atheism, you want them to teach Christianity. You know, there are schools for that.
I think I know the laws of my own State. Schools take them to bet an abortion silly, they don't perform the abortion. And it's a fact! Want to defend it?
Well, the fact that you live there kind of explains what looks to me to be a suspicion that everyone is always acting out of some liberal motive. I am amazed you can stay there without your head exploding.
Our culture is dominated by liberal philosphy (which is embued with moral relativism) - of that there is no doubt. Just watch TV any night of the week, or read any major newspaper. In fact, those who hold to traditional Christian values in the United States (I would say about 30% of the population) are the ONLY significant block of such people left in the western world, but they are still a minority in America. Gore won the popular vote, remember? The guy who wanted to FORCE the Boy Scouts to accept gay scout leaders! THOSE EVIL BOY SCOUTS! I don't know how old you are, but when I was a kid, there were still some morals left in America. Then the 60s and their "if it feels good do it" ethics took the nation by storm. They threw out anything of any moral value and adopted their own moral values (morals by personal preference) and the courts and the legislatures and our culture and our media now all reflect those hedonistic amoral values. Those are not my values.
See, if you were here in the South, you'd know that striking Judge Roy's Ten Commandments was an aberration, so he must've been out of line. We have religious displays all over the place, and the courts allow them all the time. This very 11th Circuit allowed the Ten Commandments in a courtroom in Albany, Georgia just two weeks before they struck Judge Roy's monument. We still pray at football games, and at most graduations. So you have to know that this guy was crossing the line to get slapped down by a conservative panel the way he did. Just read it.
GOD BLESS THE SOUTH. They are the last bastion of traditional Christian values in America.
Imagine a unit commander just decides for himself that he doesn't agree with a standing order, and takes the position that he won't follow it, even if his CO tells him to. That's exactly what Judge Roy is doing - and he is also taking the position that he has more power than the Federal appeals court just because he thinks he knows better than them.
If any law contradicts my God-given freedoms or rights, it should be defied and ignored. Can you show me in the Constitution where churches are not allowed to have political views? Another restriction on speech by Christians. If I had my own church, I would say IRS be damned and pay their tax and I would say what I wanted - just as preachers did during the Revolution. MORAL PRINCIPLE trumps everything - even some elitist snob in a black robe. No one will every stop me from exercising my religion in any form I wish, anywhere I wish, any time I wish. If that means I get fired from my job, fire away! If that means I am arrested, get the cuffs out! I will not be cowed by intimidation of the State.
If talking religion violates their rights of the students, then talking politics violates them also. Did you think the Founders were concerned about mere aesthetics when they wrote the first amendment? They wrote it to prevent government from exercising, in Jefferson's words, "tyranny over the minds of men". That's the only context in which the establishment clause can be judged. Religious establishments were used to control expression, so that's why they were proscribed.
And there was no requirement that "religion" had to involve anything supernatural. Anything which promotes one set of views about anything over another set, to the point where it infringes on people's right to express themselves, would have to fall under the purview of the clause.
You can't win this one. They teach it started with the Big Bang, then the universe evolved over billions of years, galaxies, stars and planets formed; the molten earth cooled, oceans formed, life sprang spontaneously (haha) from the primordial ooze, and bacteria evolved into men, chimps or some common ancestor thereof, into human beings. That's not atheism? It most certainly is! Show me one single scientific or ethical teaching in govt. schools that is NOT consistent with atheism. They even hand out condoms because they reason that teenagers are hormone-stoked ANIMALS that couldn't control their drives if they wanted to - no animal can! If origins are not religious in nature, then why do they refuse to allow teachings of a theistic origin? huh?
In answer to your main point - call me whatever name you may want, but I don't think the schools in my part of the world promote atheism. If you think they do, you haven't seen either the school boards or the PTA here.
Oh well they don't do it overtly, they just ensure that every single curriculum is consistent with it. I'm sure there are some exceptions in the South. Come to L.A. or go to NYC and see what you find.
By the way - schools are local phenomena. There is no federal mandate commanding them to teach atheism. If your kid's school is teaching atheism, then the remedy lies with the parents, by dealing with the board and the administration. But it sounds to me like you don't want them to JUST not teach atheism, you want them to teach Christianity. You know, there are schools for that.
Local? Really? Tell that to the national teacher's union and the courts who treat them as an arm of the federal govt. The point is that your position is inconsistent and does not ensure EQUAL treatment under the law. It fails miserably.
Maybe for a revolutionary, but not for an officer of the court. Unless, of course, you are an anarchist.
;)
Religion is not politics. Religion is not philosophy.
There is no constitutional ban on the state having a political preference. There is no constitutional ban on the state having a philosophical preference. There is a constitutional ban on the state having a religious preference. If you can't distinguish between those, that is your issue. Most of us can, and the courts don't seem to have had any problem with it either.
Let me clue you in on something I mentioned before. The govt is not the highest moral authority - God is. The D of I says as much. The Roman empire slaughtered Christians NOT because they worshipped Christ, but becuase they would not worship the Emperor ALSO. They were deemed a threat to the State because they did not buy into the pluralistic morality of Rome. Rome could not tolerate any authority higher than it. Sound familiar? I am far from an anarchist. I am a Christian Constitutionalist. I have noticed that there aren't 5 people in Washington who even follow the Constitution with all of their anti- and extra-constitutional legislation. Show me in teh Constitution where it allows for an EPA, or an IRS. We fought a revolution over a 2% stamp tax! I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat - both parties are corrupt beyond repair. I am not a conservative - there is nothing left to conserve. I'm not a libertarian because they don't care about open borders and they believe that men are basically good by nature (wrong-headed!).
Let's see...what was the name of that famous Nazi judge who hung the bomb-plot conspirators....he followed the law as he understood it too.
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