Islam and the First Amendment: privileges but not rights

Renew America ^

[Ira_Louvin]

The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam. Quite the contrary. We actually at the time were dealing with our first encounters with jihad in the form of the Barbary Pirates, which is why Jefferson bought a copy of the Koran. He was told by the Bey of Tripoli that Islam requires Muslims to rob, kill and pillage infidel Christians wherever they find them. Jefferson naturally found that hard to believe, so he bought a copy of the Koran to read it for himself. Sure enough, it's right in there, in the 109 verses of the Koran that call for violence against the infidels.

Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.

Our government has no obligation to allow a treasonous ideology to receive special protections in America, but this is exactly what the Democrats are trying to do right now with Islam.

From a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America. They have that privilege at the moment, but it is a privilege that can be revoked if, as is in fact the case, Islam is a totalitarian ideology dedicated to the destruction of the United States. The Constitution, it bears repeating, is not a suicide pact. For Muslims, patriotism is not the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the First Amendment is

[Ira_Louvin]

Finally, somebody who gets it! America needs to return to our Christian roots to regain to our former glory!

[ClearCase_guy]

I certainly support the idea being expressed here. However, the First Amendment does not contain the word "Christianity", therefore the First Amendment is broader than Christianity.

I have a hard time seeing Islam as a religion. I do not want it protected. I would support an Amendment to the Constitution which either promoted Christianity or excluded Islam. I'm all in favor of that.

But, honestly, we look like idiots if we say that the First Amendment is about protecting Christianity.

[econjack]

It's pretty hard for me to buy into the idea that Islam is a religion. It appears more like a cult to me. Indeed, it is more of a warrior's code, like Bushido, than a religion. Under its words, women are chattel used to breed more warriors, with little or no voice in their fate. As to “moderate” Islam, I have yet to hear a single Muslim voice raised to espouse the thoughts of a “moderate” Muslim. Indeed, I think seeing Sasquatch is more likely.

[allthingsnew]

“[T]he real object of the [F]irst amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among CHRISTIAN sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which would give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.”

— J. Story, III, Commentaries on the Constitution § 1871 (1833), as quoted in Jaffree v. Board of School Com’rs of Mobile County, 554 F.Supp. 1104, 1114 (D.Ala. 1983)(emphasis supplied).

[ClearCase_guy]

Thanks. So, fifty years after the Constitution was ratified, somebody expressed the opinion that the Founders meant Christianity even though they didn’t say Christianity? And this guy’s ability to see the penumbra of the Constitution, his ability to interpret the document as a Living Document should matter to me?

[allthingsnew]

My post was simply to invite you and other interested persons to investigate the interesting question that you raised, and to suggest that there is more here than meets the eye. Quick Google search shows that Joseph Story is more of an authority on what the Founders intended that one might suppose from the fact that I cited a more recent edition of his treatise:

Joseph Story (September 18, 1779 – September 10, 1845) was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for . . . his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first published in 1833. Dominating the field in the 19th century, this work is one of the chief cornerstones of early American jurisprudence. It is the first comprehensive treatise ever written on the U.S. Constitution, and remains a great source of historical information of the formation and early struggles to define the American republic.

Cheers!

[muir_redwoods]

The first amendment protects the rights of even a pagan who believes in human sacrifice. It does not protect the right to practice that sort of sacrifice; merely to believe in it.

I believe the first amendment protects the right of muslims to belive in their nonsensical death cult promulgated by the drunken, child-raping murderous psychopath mohammad and his stupid stone moon-god allah. The first amendment does not protect the practice of the requirements of the heinous koran go kill, maim and persecute the sane portion of humanity that rejects the sewer-slime that is islam.

I hope I made myself clear.

[allthingsnew]

I see that my last post erred about date of treatise: the one I cited was the first, and it was nearly fifty years after ratification— comparable a book on World War II written in the early 1990’s. Essential point remains that Storey had a great deal of opportunity to know whereof he spoke:

“But all these scholarly books, from Cooley on, are products of lamp and library. Story on the other hand had lived in the first great formative era of American constitutionalism, had taken part in most of the great
Supreme Court decisions which then made up its substance. To a large extent Story’s 1833 book attains the status of a primary source.”
http://www.constitution.org/js/js_001.txt

What Storey has to say is, of course, not necessarily conclusive, but it’s certainly worth considering.

[isthisnickcool]

The notion that one religion is protected is a stretch. The notion that the defined construct that the founders set to writing is not. islam has no more right to exist in the United States of America than the country of France or Germany or Mexico does. islam is not a religion like Lutherans or Baptists or Catholic or even Buddists. None of these religions proclaim themselves to be the basis for law and government. In that regard the socio-political construct called islam stands alone wearing it’s beard it calls religion. islam is no religion. It is a system of government and proclaims itself such in writing and action. islam is on par with Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Communism, etc. It is a way of governance. Period.

islam has no place but everyplace. By design. By demand.

islam has no place in America because it has no other purpose that to displace America. Because of that it is as treasonous, poisonous and as dangerous as any other sovereign nation that would destroy and replace our representative republic.

I learned all of this on 9/12. They wrote it all down. It is a simple thing to understand.

[troy McClure]

AMERICANS FOR A MUSLIM FREE AMERICA.

We learned all we need to know about Islam on 9-11.

[jimt]

I hope I made myself clear.

Not only that, I think you've got it in one.