Posted on 07/30/2007 1:27:31 PM PDT by Amendment10
This post is a follow up to the previous post, the lowdown about church & state separation.
The following essay goes into more detail about the Supreme Court's scandalous interpretation of the religious aspects of the 14th Amendment.
I will start this discussion of the folly of politically correct interpretations of the 14th A. by reluctantly agreeing with the main reason that I believe that atheists and secularists cheerlead the Supreme Court's perverted, 10th A.-ignoring interpretations of the establishment clause and the religious aspects of the 14th Amendment. The problem is that it's hard to find judges that interpret religion-related constitutional statutes fairly, in my opinion, judges that are not biased to the left or right, even if only a little bit. And since the left regularly tries to "buy" votes by essentially promising their supporters that they will never again have to take responsibility for their actions, I expect that liberal judges will continue their practice of essentially letting criminals walk in contrast to the remedies imposed by restitution-minded, religious right judges. After all, even grown-ups don't want a "spanking," particularly when religious-slanted restitutions defile their conscience.
As a matter of fact, regarding the "fair" interpretation of religion-related laws, it was wrong for 19th and early 20th century Christian lawmakers to condone official public school religious exercises, ignoring the diverse religious perspectives of taxpayers who paid for public schools to operate. So the Supreme Court's perverted interpretations of the establishment clause and the religious aspects of the 14th A. have actually served as a firewall with respect to putting a stop to this type of unfair taxation. Jefferson put it this way.
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson: Bill for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers 2:545 Jefferson's Bill for Religious Freedom
Sadly, it remains that the US Supreme Court has made a mockery of justice with respect to politically correct interpretations of religion related constitutional statutes, first with religious right biases and now with liberal left biases. Outcome-driven interpretations of the religious aspects of the 14th A. are easily shown.
First, consider the following excerpts from Court opinions dealing with c&s separation cases; I'm sure that this list of excerpts about the 14th A. will continue to grow. These excerpts will then be followed by clarifications about the purpose and scope of the 14th A. by John Bingham, the main author of the 14th Amendment.
Let's begin with an excerpt from an opinion that is probably the most blatant example of constitutionally confused justices unlawfully legislating absolute c&s separation from the bench.
"The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws. The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect." --Mr. Justice Roberts, Cantwell v. State of Connecticut 1940.
Other 10th A.-ignoring justices then blindly followed the leader.
The First Amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that '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 ....' --Mr. Justice Douglas, Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1943As we can see by these excerpts, the Court's sleight-of-hand concerning its outcome-driven interpretations of the 14th A. was to generalize that the 14th A. was meant to apply the Bill of Rights (BoR) in its entirety to the states, particularly the 1st Amendment. More specifically, given the argument that the 14th applied the BoR to the states, this gave anti-religious expression justices the license to claim that the 1st A.'s prohibitions on religious powers of the federal government were likewise applied to the states."This is alleged to be a use of State power to support church schools contrary to the prohibition of the First Amendment which the Fourteenth Amendment made applicable to the states." --Mr. Justice Black, Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, 1947
"Because of the prohibition of the First Amendment against the enactment of any law "respecting an establishment of religion," which is made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, state officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in the public schools of the State at the beginning of each school day - even if the prayer is denominationally neutral and pupils who wish to do so may remain silent or be excused from the room while the prayer is being recited. Pp. 422-436." Mr. Justice Black, Engel v. Vitale, 1962
"We have announced over and over again that the use of taxpayers' money to support parochial schools violates the First Amendment, applicable to the States by virtue of the Fourteenth." --Mr. Chief Justice Burger, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971
But now the party is over.
To begin with, not only have I not found where 14th A. main author Bingham said anything derogatory about state power to address religion that the Cantwell excerpt suggests, but Bingham actually clarified that, contrary to the Court's "profound insight" that the 14th A. was meant to apply the BoR in its entirety to the states, only constitutional privileges and immunities were to apply to the states.
"Mr. Speaker, that the scope and meaning of the limitations imposed by the first section, fourteenth amendment of the Constitution may be more fully understood, permit me to say that the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, as contradistinguished from citizens of a State, are chiefly defined in the first eight amendments to the Constitution of the United States." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional GlobeRegardless that conservative-judge hating secularists now argue that John Bingham's reference to privileges and immunities above is reasonably regarded as being synonymous with the BoR, they ignore the following caveats by Bingham which clearly show that this is not the case.
"The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights (emphasis added) that belong to the States." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional GlobeAlso, not only are special-interest liberal justices continuing to pervert the religious aspects of the 14th A., but regardless that Bingham emphasized that no powers of the states would be taken away, I have yet to find any reference to the 10th A. protected power of the states to address religious issues in the c&s separation related opinions referenced above. 10th A.-ignoring justices evidently regarded the religious aspects of this amendment as too much of a lose canon to bring attention to in c&s separation related opinions.
"No right (emphasis added) reserved by the Constitution to the States should be impaired..." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe
"Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State? God forbid. I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existance." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe
Again, despite the secularist claim that privileges and immunities are synonymous with the BoR in its entirety, the fact that the 14th A. was meant to address only privileges and immunities enumerated in the Constitution is further evidenced by the fact that Sec. 1 of the 14th A. doesn't reference the BoR.
14th Amendment, Sec. 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.Finally, Jefferson warned of the power-grabbing tendencies of the federal government which he witnessed in his time.
"The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:423Also, Jefferson and Lincoln warned the people to be on their guard against judicial corruption."It is a singular phenomenon that while our State governments are the very best in the world, without exception or comparison, our General Government has, in the rapid course of nine or ten years, become more arbitrary and has swallowed more of the public liberty than even that of England." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:65
"We the People are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." --Abraham Lincoln, Political debates between Lincoln and Douglas, 1858.The Supreme Court is robbing the states of their 14th A.-limited, 10th A. protected powers, plain and simple, particularly their power to address religious issues. The people need to petition justices who are ignoring their oaths to defend the Constitution to resign from the Supreme Court."One single object... [will merit] the endless gratitude of society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:11
"Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:386
The clock is ticking on liberal, outcome-driven interpretations of the 14th Amendment.
. . . perverted some of John Bingham's intentions for the 14th Amendment. The XIVth Amend did several other things, all earth-shaking.
later bump
read later
Yes, perverted some of John Bingham’s intentions for the 14th A. I posted the material as it is now because I got tired of editing it.
There is a lot more to the XIVth Amend and to John Bingham. The part that enabled the Modern American Corporation is quite a story in itself.
Yes, the 14th A. has five sections. I singled out Sec. 1 in the OP because of politically correct interpretations of the privileges and immunities clause concerning our religious freedoms.
Some might like to take a closer look at the Anchor Baby section. There aren’t any 150 year old mothers visiting the clinics this year. Time to re-interpret that part anyway.
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