Posted on 06/28/2005 5:11:48 AM PDT by Molly Pitcher
So we in Texas get to keep our Ten Commandments monument -- all six feet of it, reposing quietly on the State Capitol grounds -- whereas two Kentucky counties have to remove the Big Ten from their courthouses. And blamed if I can see why, but, then, blamed if anyone this side of the barred windows in the state institution for the mentally incapacitated can ever see what the U.S. Supreme Court means when it defines religious "entanglement" under the First Amendment.
Oh, we can read the decisions all right -- two of them this week. We just can't tell what they mean or how to apply them. Almost 60 years into the business of adjudicating church-state relationships, the court can write and perform only farce.
I am here to suggest we've brought this on ourselves -- for reasons I will get to presently.
A secular-minded Supreme Court -- such as we've had for the past half century, during which time the learned justices have thrown out prayers in schools, prayers at commencement exercises, prayers at football games, nativity scenes on public property, crosses on public property, etc. -- has slapped religious Americans in the face with wet towels. Yet it seems to lack the courage of robust conviction. Disliking the notion of religion in public life, the court can't bring itself to padlock God from the public square. And so it goes on closing one door while leaving another partially cracked. Everything on a case-by-case basis!
What a mess -- one increasingly typical since the court's 1962 decision disallowing a bland prayer of thankfulness used in New York public schools. The court is making this thing up as it goes.
What now?
There doesn't seem at this point the slightest use of waiting on a court in Washington, D.C., to sort out the relationship of God to those who perceive themselves to be God's people. In due course, one or two Supreme Court justices will retire, and a storm of talk will ensue concerning whether X or Y nominee to the court will begin to turn around church-state jurisprudence.
And, well, what if in 10 years a reconstituted court does proclaim the right of a county to display the Mosaic law? It strikes me -- correct me if I am wrong -- that cultures, not courts, set constitutional tone; that the incoherence of our church-state jurisprudence proceeds less from the court's incoherence than from society's unwillingness to say what its own will is.
I can recall old Everett Dirksen, the organ-toned senator from Illinois, working his colleagues, again and again, for ratification of a constitutional amendment to allow school prayer. The culture didn't care deeply about having such an amendment; and so it failed, again and again.
Our eyes are on the high court as we look for the remediation of past abuses committed by the court. We might more fruitfully broaden the angle of vision, looking to the society that supports the court that hands down the church-state decisions and the politicians who appoint and confirm that court's members, as well as to those who write the books and editorials, compose the music, teach the seminars, make the foundation grants, yes, even preach the sermons in fashionable churches. We generally don't call these folk highly religious; we usually call them secular.
There's been a social breakdown around here -- not to the advantage of those who believe prayer is a useful addendum to public discourse. We're not totally secular. Didn't Billy Graham wow 'em in New York City last week? It's merely that religion -- such is the backwash of the 60s -- often seems less central to national purpose than it used to seem. Into this environment barges the Supreme Court, engraving our doubts in marble without making at all clear just what we are to aim at -- some God, no God, just enough God? And how much is "enough"?
Incoherent the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence may be. Incoherent is likewise the way to describe the American people's attitude toward the religious tradition on which their nation was founded.
As a result of the Government rejecting the Rule of Law and
prosecuting the constructios of the Court (in the ouster of
the Honorable Roy S.Moore) I began a tradition of NEVER going to any Court without wearing a Ten Commandments Project t-shirt and my Red,White,and Blue patriotic pants.
I carry a WWII era New Testament (like the government gave
my father,and grandfather) and a copy of the US Constitution
(Which nowhere declares our Government may not acknowledge God by display of the Ten Commandments (or The New Testament according to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.--as displayed in the rotunda of the US Capitol)IT is my way
of reminding the Court that htey have perpetrated Fraud in
McCreary County v. the ACLU.
If you take God (I mean the Judeao/Christian) God, and his precepts and commands away from this gov't and public to acknowledge you are destroying the idea of America and what it essentially is.
"A case by case basis." Egad! These fools remind me of Islamic Mullahs who pontificate on whether or not it is permissible to remove a fly from your throat on the Sabbath. Congress should put the apellate courts out of their misery and order them not to rule on any more Ten Commandments cases for about the next 25 years. They have better things to do, and they should be about doing it.
Troublemaker! (Hee hee hee, good for YOU!)
My 9 SCJ:
Scalia, Thomas, Thomas, Scalia, Scalia, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Scalia
The Supreme Court is assuming the fecal position.
And that is just what the left intends. From the article:
Incoherent is likewise the way to describe the American people's attitude toward the religious tradition on which their nation was founded.
That is because in the last 50 years the left has successfully and stealthily taken over our education system and the MSM. The seeming disconnect between the people and the politicians, as reflected in the courts, is the confusion between what the people are told and what they instinctively know is right.
Add the funding of the labor unions, a communists concept by nature, and foreigners, like Soros and the Chinese government, to fund the propaganda campaign, in addition to control of the MSM, and it is easy to see how we are where we are.
I don't see our society having any problem proclaiming its will. There are no popular uprisings to remove prayer from school, christmas trees from town halls, or the Ten Commandments from the courthouses.
No, Society is quite comfortable with expressions of religion in public. It is a very vocal but extremely small minority, represented by some of the finest lawyers our tax dollars can buy in the ACLU, that is causing all the "trouble". The ACLU hardly represents any significant portion of society.
To understand the activism of the courts we have to look at the people who apathetically endure court decisions that let judges do as they will without accountability, and then whine about it but do little else.
The judges tell us to take down a 10 commandments display, and we do; the judges tell us that cities can take our private property, and we let them. Where is the outrage? Where are the crowds in the streets protesting these decisions?
In a government that's run by the people, only the people can be blamed for these recent turn of events.
> a copy of the US Constitution
(Which nowhere declares our Government may not acknowledge God by display of the Ten Commandments
And nowhere does it say the Gubmint should or even *can* display such things. A proper view of the Constitution is that the Government can only do those things that are specifically called out for it to do in the Constitution. Anything else is, by definition, un-Constitutional.
Clearly, the nation was founded on Christian leaning principles, yet there are many humanist principles too. Each faction believes that one or the other holds the keys to the religion aspect in the constitution. Each wants to cram its version of their belief and life values on everyone else. Frankly neither does hold the keys or should they hold the belief and life values hammer. Common sense says a creche on the public square hurts no one. But then again, Christians will get their underwear in a wad if a non_christian symbol is placed on public grounds that represents the religion sacredness of another non Judeo Christian faith.
How can a court serve two masters? Each faction does have rights, but they are always at polar opposites of the other. Is it any wonder the supremes looked bad in these decisions.
This decision does have that "divide the baby in half" type of tone to it. By trying to please everybody, Breyer pleases nobody.
This is not a religious neutral statement. In order for this to be carried into society, the people as a whole must acknowledge the exhistence of God. If there is no GOD, this statement is usless and void.
So the question becomes how do you protect and maintain the rights of all the populace?
When the foundations are destroyed ,what are the righteous to do?There is nothing to support this modern myth that Government cannot acknowledge God.The intnet of the Capitol
architect I am certain was to display the phrase The New
Testament according to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."in
the permanent display of the Capitol Rotunda.Equally certain th eintent was to display Moses and the Ten Commandments in predominant display in th eUS Supreme Court Bldg.
We must continue to stand for what is right and just...and stay steadfast upholding the biblical principle as to be as light to the world.
Especially right in our own back yard.
Clearly, we're going to have to govern by Constitutional amendment. Yes, it's difficult, laborious, etc., but with the SCOTUS so far out of control, I see no alternative. And this is with a Court that was substantially appointed by Republicans!
I'm thankful every day that Jimmy Carter never made any SCOTUS appointments, think how very much worse it would have been without the early Reagan years appointments.
Scalia, Thomas, Thomas, Scalia, Scalia, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Scalia
You forgot Bork!
Full Disclosure : Sigh.
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