Free Republic

You would have been best off Googling the station: WDTN.

Formerly WLWD - The northern outpost of Cincinnati powerhouse WLW in Dayton, Ohio.

Springfield, OH, is a distant suburb of Dayton. Back in the early 1900s, the interurban used to run between Dayton and Springfield, giving passengers a passing glance at those local boys the Wright Brothers perfecting their flying machine on the flat alluvial soil of Huffman Prairie.

Long association with flight in that area...

You may want to ask yourself why, after 219 years of the Supreme Court in existence and countless court decisions favoring separation church and state, you still persist in thinking church and state together are just fine.

There’s a reason why my position is consistent with the Constitution and yours is not. And that reason is not because there’s been a centuries-long conspiracy against TheBattman. The reason is I’m in the right and you are just plain wrong.

If you want to mix state and religion, there are any number of theocracies you can associate with.

Me? I’d rather remain a proud American.

You’re making no sense.

Choosing to not favor one religion discriminates against all?

I’m sorry, but that’s nuts.

Please sleep on it and re-read your comment. Perhaps you will see the logical inconsistency.

As I noted elsewhere, just because something is done today doesn't make it constitutional. Just because something was done 225 years ago doesn't make it constitutional, either.

Regarding Holy Trinity, you're noting dicta that has no legal basis. It's easy to find analysis putting that statement into appropriate context: such as:

Whether or not America was a Christian Nation was not even at issue in Holy Trinity. The actual dispute or controversy the Court had to decide had nothing at all to do with religion. The parties in Holy Trinity did not question whether the Immigration Act's purpose was "for or against religion" generally or specifically. So when Brewer begins his religious history lesson with, "no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people," he refers to no particular statute, no particular actor. He has moved outside the actual facts of this case and the statute at issue to address the vague application of general principles to law in general. His statements, therefore, create no rule of law, and provide no useful precedent for future legal disputes. As any basic Legal Research textbook will confirm, the legal researcher will not find precedent in such language, but must look for "the [legal] rules stated by courts [which] are tied to specific fact situations" (The Fundamentals of Legal Research, 1994, Jacobstein et al, page 6).

Brewer's comments about religion are not tied to any of the facts as presented in Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity Church did not allege in the facts of its case that the purpose of the Act was to discriminate against a particular religion nor that it was designed to prevent the members of their church from the free exercise of their religion. Since none of the facts suggested that the clergyman was being kept out of the country for the purpose of discriminating against religion or prohibiting religious exercise, the dictum by Brewer addresses no controversy and crafts no rule of law to be applied to other cases as precedent.

Holy Trinity's legacy includes a number of Supreme Court cases which cite the opinion as support for either statutory construction based on legislative intent or the use of immigration policy to exclude or include immigrants. Only on three occasions does the Holy Trinity christian nation dictum make an appearance in a Supreme Court case.

In the 1931 case of U.S. v. Macintosh, an ordained baptist minister was denied naturalization because he was unwilling to take an oath to bear arms in defense of the country unless he believed the war necessitating the defense to be morally justified. As in Holy Trinity, the legal rule established by this case had nothing to do with the christian nation quote. Instead, the applicant was denied citizenship based on a reading of the naturalization statute which required the oath.

However, in Macintosh dictum, Justice Sutherland writes, "We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God." Sutherland then states that as a nation we must assume that obedience to our laws is "not inconsistent with the will of God;" therefore, a foreign-born person refusing to follow the naturalization statute to the letter would be denied citizenship.

There are a couple interesting notes about Macintosh. First, in Holy Trinity, Brewer uses the phrase "we are a christian nation" to allow a foreign-born minister access to this country. In Macintosh, it is used to keep a foreign-born ordained minister out. Second, a different result would most likely have occurred had this case arisen after World War II when the court overturned the Macintosh line of cases (Girouard, 1946).

The other two cases which cite Holy Trinity's christian nation dictum are Marsh v. Chambers (1982), and Lynch v. Donnelly (1983). Brennan writes dissents in both cases and uses the Brewer verbiage to criticize the majority's use of history to support legislative prayer and a government sponsored creche. In the creche case, (Lynch), Brennan writes, "By insisting that such a distinctively sectarian message is merely an unobjectionable part of our 'religious heritage,' the Court takes a long step backwards to the days when Justice Brewer could arrogantly declare for the Court that 'this is a Christian nation.' Those days, I had thought, were forever put behind us ...."

From: http://www.philosofiles.com/big/atheistground/peters-churchstatereply.shtml

Religion has to play a part. It has to be considered. The government is constitutionally prevented from endorsing any particular religion over another. To do so goes against the establishment clause of the Constitution.

And there are good, Constitutional reasons why those laws have been held unconstitutional.

Just because something is done today doesn’t make it Constitutional.

Just because something was done 225 years ago doesn’t make it Constitutional, either.

You are so off base it’s actually comical. I can only conclude that you truly don’t understand what it is to be an American. You really should read the Constitution and educate yourself on Supreme Court decisions related to separation of church and state. I am correct and you are not. You may wish it differently, but that’s your problem; not mine.

And - I don’t believe any founder of this nation was a Muslim. I also don’t believe I claimed that to be the case. But I know Thomas Jefferson — you’ve heard of him, haven’t you? — owned a Koran.

Heh. Yep.

I disagree. They're only "discriminating against them" if they agree to fly over every such gathering except this one. They can't, obviously, from a practical standpoint. Some rationing of time is necessary, and it is completely reasonable and consistent with the Constitution to draw the line at events that favor one particular religious group at the exclusion of others.

Well, I do; from an economics and resource allocation perspective. But I appreciate your open-mindedness. Not everyone shares that.

So you say.

Don’t you see that restricting religious affairs is just the other side of the coin from favoring religious affairs?

Would you like the Air Force to fly over Muslim events?

Scientology events?

Wiccan events?

I know some people, if not you personally, would have problems with that (see comment No. 2 as an example).

The separation of church and state is a logical outcome of the prohibition on establishing a state religion. It’s not “completely revisionist.” It’s been a principle in effect since the earliest days of this nation. The Treaty of Tripoli is a good example.

And you need look no further than comment No. 2 for an indication of what I mean.

Sounds reasonable to me. As much as some may want to obtain support for their private religious views, the government has to be careful about endorsing such views. What I think some people forget is that small measures like this, which maintain the no establishment clause of the Constitution, also help protect religious freedom from infringement by the power of the government. If you seek governmental favor of your religion, be aware that what is favored today may fall into disfavor tomorrow. Better to maintain a separation from government and let religious ideas stand or fall on their own merits; without bias inflicted by governmental predilection.

I can see from your thinly disguised racism that you are a sorry example of a human being.

Joke it up, chuckles. I hope it makes you feel better. If not it’s a waste; because to regular folks it makes you look small, petty, and really rather objectionable.

Using irony isn’t one of your strong points, is it?

Feel free. I have no idea what possible use that would serve of course; but if it makes you feel better, more power to you.

As straw men go, that’s not even a very good one.

The GOP is an organization with a structure, goals, and a budget. It is logical that it would have clear lines of authority, a clear message, and a designated spokesperson.

Black people are an ethnic group spread over every continent on Earth. Why on Earth would anyone think someone would speak for as disparate a subset of humanity as that?

Got an authoritative link for the claim that the audience was “screened very carefully?”

I ask because I’d be very surprised if that were true.

And - regarding joking about WMDs - you are aware that President Bush himself joked about it (rather tastelessly, in my view) in a little skit where he looked around his office and under his desk? It was way back in early 2004.

You can read about it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3570845.stm

Thanks, Hank, for the English lesson. This metaphor thing is so interesting.

By the way, you might want to brush up on your spelling.

“’Blasphemes’ Reagan?”

Are you serious?

He’s a deity now?

How did I miss that news report?