Posted on 11/30/2020 6:35:01 PM PST by marshmallow
On Nov. 10, in Spell v. Edwards, a Louisiana federal district court dismissed a suit by megachurch pastor Tony Spell challenging the state's COVID-19 limits on worship services. Plaintiff filed an Emergency Application for an Injunction Pending Appeal with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, contending:
This case presents a threshold question that other applicants did not present to this Court in prior religious liberty challenges: Whether the First Amendment places the decision of whether to assemble solely within the jurisdiction of the Church and not the State.
(Excerpt) Read more at religionclause.blogspot.com ...
Amendment I
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...
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
So, what was the reasoning by Justice Alito?
Congress didn’t. 10th amendment my friend.
They would be better off arguing the Guarantee of a republican form of government, because the state of Louisiana legislature didn’t make that law either.
It is made from whole cloth by the Governor of Louisiana.
Did you read the 14th ammendment: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...”
The Incorporation Doctrine has done more evil to the rights of US citizens than any other work of the USSC.
The 14th Amendment was written and adopted for the purpose of protecting the rights of freed slaves and nothing more.
I don’t accept the Incorporation Doctrine as legal slight of hand to force the states to do things that can not be politically accomplished by Congress.
The Incorporation Doctrine gave us Birthright Citizenship. Are you happy with that?
Correct. Congress didn't. States did. Hence the 14th. Due process clause.
I guess we are crawling into the weeds tonight.
The Incorporation Doctrine does not exist in the 14th Amendment. It is a Judicial Philosophy rooted in the Slaughterhouse cases of 1873.
Judicial overreach and legislating from the bench did not start in the 20th Century. It started in the 18th Century and has been growing ever since.
The Constitution does not apply to the states. It limits the power of Federal Government, not the states. The States have their own Constitutions to limit their power. Look to those constitutions to reign in you state government.
If your state judges ignore that constitution. Do something about that. Elect someone different or have them removed.
OK, then let's come back to earth for a moment.
If 50 state legislatures independently (but simultaneously) decide that their citizens should be boarded into their homes due to (insert reason here), do you think that might - or might not - violate any particle or clause of the United States Constitution?
A Church can be enjoined by a law that is enjoined upon all.
No question about it.
Our Founders gave them protection from unequal treatment.
All of the state constitutions that I have read very closely to the US Constitution.
The US is not a nation but a Consolidation of nations that created the US Federal government as their agent to conduct foreign relations, provide for their common defense and regulate trade between the states and foreign nations.
One of the reasons that the Federal Government has grown so large and has trod on our rights so much is that the American people have forgotten that fact.
At least 90% of the Federal Government is doing things it has no Constitutional power to do.
Without going into the weeds.... somehow the same constitution that protects a woman’s right to an abortion and prevents individual states from infringing on that “right” ..... a right that is not specifically spelled out in the constitution..... well this same constitution lacks the power to guarantee freedom of religion and its practice to its citizens
More than 90%
Totally agree.
I feel kinda cynical to say that we can only blame ourselves, as citizens.
"A republic, if you can keep it."
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