Posted on 12/11/2009 5:33:11 AM PST by Locomotive Breath
First, the guy won, period. The law is at this point and time, unconstitutional.
Second, this looks very entertaining!
I smell a rat.
A super liberal is attacked by a super liberal . . . Gee. This wouldn't be a way to 1)make your conservative state appear backwards and 2) sell a ton of your own really bad books. http://braveulysses.com/
Congress shall pass no laws ...
However some states had state religions at the time of the signing of the constitution, and it was, and I believe, still is, legal.
You are absolutely right. Some of the state churches were not disestablished till the 1830s.
It's going to tick off some people here, but the First Amendment served to prevent a *national* Church but had no intention of abolishing ones already established at lower governmental levels. De Tocqueville tells a story I think from NY where a judge threw out an atheist's testimony on the grounds that though the witness swore on the Bible, his atheism destroyed any possible confidence the court could have in the sanctity of that oath.
My how far we've fallen.
Is it? I don't think it is actually. Religious tests for state office were very much in force in the Federal period.
New Hapmshire and Vermont required legislators to be Protestants into the 1870’s, while North Carolina required them to be Christians.
If we really believed in Federalism, with 50 Free States forming a Free County, this sort of thing would be allowed.
This is not an Amendment I issue, but rather an Amendment XIV issue. By barring members of a specific religion from holding office, equal protection is denied. It has nothing at all to do with the restriction placed upon Congress in Amendment I.
Yes, and the civil war decided that Federal law trumps state law.
Furthermore, I don’t WANT this to be allowable. Ever.
You guys would be screaming bloody murder if a state changed it’s constitution to require that only Imams were allowed to serve in public office. This is no different as far as I’m concerned no matter what my personal religion is.
P.S. The Alabama state constitution also said that blacks did not get equal rights, but we found that it didn’t wash Federally either. When it comes to FEDERALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS, United States constitution trumps State Constitution. The author of this piece makes an excellent point that we enjoy that when the SCOTUS upholds the FEDERALLY protected right of the 2nd amendment over local and state attempts to remove that right from us.
H. K. Edgerton’s come out against him? Must be a Yankee.
Except that Edgerton isn't a super liberal. He's best known as the foremost promoter of the black confederate claims and is a die-hard Lost Cause supporter.
Agreed.
This is the 21st century. Laws like this would never hold up in court.
Has nobody ever read Article VI of the Constitution? “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Federally protected rights refers to rights protected from the power of the Federal Government.
The State Constitution is the appropriate place to put limits on the powers of your State.
Extending federally protected rights to every level of government essentially transforms all levels of government into mere agents of Washington, because their freedom of action is nothign more or less than whatever Washignton will allow. This is the anti-freedom situation today.
The US is supposed to be a decentralized compact of free States, not a centralized leviathan.
You're correct, the operative word being supposed; therein, lie the real issues.
“The US is supposed to be a decentralized compact of free States, not a centralized leviathan.”
So you think that it would be ok for say, Oregon, to outlaw guns?
In the modern era, any case that’s ever ended up in front of SCOTUS has affirmed that the states cannot deny to the individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution. This particular NC law has never been challenged but I think any challenge is likely to succeed.
You both may be right about the Civil War/14th amendment. I hadn’t considered that angle. I’d have to look at the language of the 14, but I’m beginning to suspect it was poorly written to allow such wide latitude. :)
On the rights issue that autumnraine brings up. No government local, state, or federal, has the authority to legislate against the God-given rights of man. That’s right in the Declaration. But no man has a God-given right to a disestablished government. Freedom from coercion yes. But not freedom from a national church.
Autumnraine, I get what you’re saying about imams, but I think what we are seeing now, a tyranny of secularism, shows that blanket disestablishment may well not be the way to go either. Soon we very well may have a religious test for office—if you are religious, you can’t hold office. Now how that’s better than an established church I have no idea.
Welcome to the centuries old struggle between states rights and the federal gov.......
Great posts Autumn
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.