Thanksgiving 1789

[southpaw]

The establishment clause was to prevent the sponsorship of a nat'l religion.

How much clearer does it have to be! Jefferson's and Madison's letters don't mean squat. I don't think any of Jefferson's personal correspondance was ever passed as legislation or made into law.

The wall of separation violates the free excercise of religion part of the amendment.

[LionPride]

[quote="Lemmy";p="76117"]The conclusion held that a woman's right to an abortion falls within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave women the right to abortion during her entire pregnancy and defined different levels of state interest for regulating abortion in the second and third trimesters. [/quote]

So if I decide to privately kill someone, it's ok then.

What is the difference between a woman deciding she does not want to have a baby and has an abortion, or the woman that suffers from depression after the birth and kills her child?

I'm serious about this. One is hailed by liberals as a person making a choice about her life, and the other is considered a murderer. I can't see the difference between the 2, but somehow, liberals can.

I'm sorry, but abortion is infantcide.

[LionPride]

[quote="southpaw";p="76120"]The establishment clause was to prevent the sponsorship of a nat'l religion.

How much clearer does it have to be! Jefferson's and Madison's letters don't mean squat. I don't think any of Jefferson's personal correspondance was ever passed as legislation or made into law.

The wall of separation violates the free excercise of religion part of the amendment.[/quote]

Absolutely.

The funny thing is, the issue is being taken so far that it's almost becomming illegal to even practice religion. At least a majority religion anyway. Those practicing a minority religion in our country will be protected.

[southpaw]

That's why the constitution needs to have a very narrow interpretation. The problem the liberal activists and liberal judges have been "liberally" interpretating the constitution for over 30 years.

[Lemmy]

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), wrote:
"The state may not establish a 'religion of secularism' in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus 'preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.'...Refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism."

I believe this is a correct ruling. I, by the way, am not a secular humanist.

Quiz time

1. By an Act of Congress, U.S. currency has carried the motto "In God We Trust" since

the very beginning
1862
1914
1957


2. The Pledge of Allegiance, first published in 1892, has included the words "under God" since

1892
1914
1942
1954

3. The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed student-initiated prayers at high-school football games in 2000. Who were the plaintiffs in that lawsuit?

Roman Catholic and Mormon families
two Jewish families
a Unitarian (agnostic) family
an atheist organization

[Lemmy]

PRESIDENT CLINTON'S MEMORANDUM
ON RELIGION IN SCHOOLS

http://www.cofc.edu/~whitel/ClintonSchoolReligion.htm

1. Religious freedom is perhaps the most precious of all American liberties - called by many our "first freedom." Many of the first European settlers in North America sought refuge from religious persecution in their native countries. Since that time, people of faith and religious institutions have played a central role in the history of this nation. In the First Amendment, our Bill of Rights recognizes the twin pillars of religious liberty: the constitutional protection for the free exercise of religion, and the constitutional prohibition on the establishment of religion by the state. Our nation's founders knew that religion helps to give our people the character without which a democracy can not survive. Our founders also recognized the need for a space of freedom between government and the people that the government must not be permitted to coerce the conscience of any individual or group.

2. In the over 200 years since the First Amendment was included in our Constitution, religion and religious institutions have thrived throughout the United States. In 1993, 1 was proud to reaffirm the historic place of religion when I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which restores a high legal standard to protect the exercise of religion from being inappropriately burdened by government action. In the greatest traditions of American citizenship, a broad coalition of individuals and organizations came together to support the fullest protection for religious practice and expression.

4. As our courts have reaffirmed, however, nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door. While the government may not use schools to coerce the conscience of our students or to convey official endorsement of religion, the government's schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression during the school day

6. Student prayer and religious discussion: The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment does not prohibit purely private religious speech by students. Students therefore have the same right to engage in individual or group prayer and religious discussion during the school day as they do to engage in other comparable activity. For example, students may read their Bibles or other scripture say grace before meals, and pray before tests to the same extent they may engage in comparable nondisruptive activities. Local school authorities possess substantial discretion to Impose rules of order and other pedagogical restrictions on student activities, but they may not discriminate against religious activity or speech.

8. Students may also participate in before- or after-school events with religious content, such as 'see you at the flag pole' gatherings, on the same terms as they may participate in other noncurriculum activities on school premises. School officials may neither discourage nor encourage participation in such an event.

9. The right to engage in voluntary prayer or religious discussion free from discrimination does not include the right to have a captive audience listen or to compel other students to participate. Teachers and school administrators should ensure that no student is in any way coerced to participate in religious activity

11. Official neutrality regarding religious activity: Teachers and school administrators, when acting in those capacities are representatives of the state and are prohibited by the Establishment Clause from soliciting or encouraging religious activity and from participating in such activity with students. Teachers and administrators also are prohibited from discouraging activity because of its religious content and from soliciting or encouraging antireligious activity.


excerpts.... more can be found at the link...

LP and Southpaw I do not want to burn your bible. I admire the strengh and the conviction that you have for your faith.

[El-Moldo]

In a court of law, do they still swear in people using the Bible? If so, can atheists lie?

[southpaw]

Nice posting Lemmy. But the fact is that these ruling that protect the free exercise of religion are being ignored by lower court activist judges. You know as well as I do that a law is only as good as the paper it written on. For a law to be effective it has to be enforced. The gov't has hundreds of laws on the books that it doesn't eforce.

The free exercise of religion in public places is under attack by the secular/communists who routinely break the existing laws on the books because nobody will enforce them.

[Lemmy]

True the phrase 'separation of church and state' does not appear in the Constitution. But it was inevitable that some convenient term should come into existence to verbalize a principle so clearly and widely held by the American people. The right to a fair trial is generally accepted to be a constitutional principle; yet the term "fair trial" is not found in the Constitution.

Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State." The U.S. Supreme Court, 1947


El Mondo, I do not know what athiest do in trials. I am not an athiest. Perhaps they do what Quakers do and state they are not lieing nor committing perjury.


About President Clinton's memorandum, most of the legwork came from this group....

http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html

The Joint Statement of Current Law is a collaborative document undersigned by over 30 religious and civil rights groups that outlines the religious rights of students in the public schools. Most of these organizations are separationist in philosophy and practice, some of them (eg., ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State) agressively so.

The document lays to rest the myth that prayer and other types of religious expression are banned in the public schools. On the contrary, religious expression generally enjoys the same protection as other forms of speech. This document forms the basis of President Clinton's guidlines for religious expression in the public schools. A copy of these guidelines were sent to all public school districts in the United States in September of 1995


I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell

Perhaps we should look at ammending the constitution to have federal judges not be appointing to lifetime terms.

[southpaw]

Something has to be done about the arrogance of Judges. Maybe some sort of Congressional oversight committee that reviews judges conduct annually.