Posted on 12/20/2003 9:06:19 PM PST by N Scott
James Madison in writing the Bill of Rights, and what was later to become the First Amendment to the Constitution, in his original proposal to the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, wrote this Freedom of Religion Amendment, "the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious beliefs or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full in equal right of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretense, infringed." We have the inalienable right of conscience in the affirmative and the negative
We have an inalienable right of conscience; in the affirmative and in the negative. We have the inalienable right to say the Pledge of Allegiance; we also have the same inalienable right not to say the Pledge of Allegiance, in the same way we have a right to say prayer or not to say a prayer. Under the First Amendment to the Constitution we have the right to free religious expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, it also says that these rights shall not be restricted or abridged. We also have the same right not to express or say anything at all. No one, not even the government has a right to limit, or restrict, or ban anybody else's freedom or Liberty; anywhere or at anytime, including Government run schools and Government buildings. We have the right of conscience to say what ever we like; this is what freedom of speech means, also to write whatever we like, under freedom of the press. But we also have the right of conscience to say or write nothing at all. The Government has no Constitutional right to restrict, or limit, or abridge, or ban our freedom of speech, or our freedom of conscience, or freedom of religion, or our freedom of the press, in Government run institutions or anywhere else. Except if it violates our right to live free from harm, for our property and ourselves. At the same time the government has no right to force anybody to say the Pledge of Allegiance or to say a prayer.
The Federal Courts and the Supreme Court has misused President Thomas Jefferson statement and metaphor, that he used in a letter written in 1802, in reply to a group of Baptists, in Danbury CT, to explain his views of religion and government. When in that letter he used the metaphor of [the wall between the separation of church and state] as only part of his explanation of his views. What makes this surprising, is this letter is not an official government document, but a letter merely expressing the opinions of Thomas Jefferson to a group of Baptists in Danbury CT, and especially sense he did not write the original freedom of religion proposal, Madison did, and was not there in Congress when the arguments were made that shaped the final draft of the First Amendment. Although he was president at the time the letter was written, and yet it was cited by the Supreme Court in their legal opinion. The federal courts and the Supreme Court has misused this quote to restrict, abridge and ban the right of conscience, the free expression of religion, our freedom of speech, and the freedom of the press in Government run schools and buildings. Because Thomas Jefferson also wrote, "The God that gave us life, gave us Liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but it cannot but it disjoin them." The Government or the federal courts or the Supreme Court should have no right to restrict or abridge our right of conscience, in the affirmative or the negative, anywhere or at anytime, even in a Government run School or Building. The definition of a right should be to protect or expand liberty, not to diminish it.
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