Posted on 12/21/2005 1:12:17 PM PST by AFA-Michigan
Values group hails unanimous decision Tuesday
CINCINNATI -- In an astounding return to judicial interpretation of the actual text of the United States Constitution, a unanimous panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Tuesday issued an historic decision declaring that "the First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state."
In upholding a Kentucky county's right to display the Ten Commandments, the panel called the American Civil Liberties Union's repeated claims to the contrary "extra-constitutional" and "tiresome."
See Cincinnat Enquirer at: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051221/NEWS01/512210356/1056
See U.S. Court of Appeals decision, page 13: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0477p-06.pdf
"Patriotic Americans should observe a day of prayer and thanksgiving for this stunning and historic reversal of half a century of misinformation and judicial distortion of the document that protects our religious freedoms," said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.
"We are particularly excited that such an historic, factual, and truth-based decision is now a controlling precedent for the federal Court of Appeals that rules on all Michigan cases," Glenn said.
6th Circuit Judge Richard Suhrheinrich wrote in the unanimous decision: "The ACLU makes repeated reference to the 'separation of church and state.' This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state. Our nation's history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and in some cases, accommodation of religion."
The words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the U.S. Constitution, though according to polls, a majority of Americans have been misled to believe that they do, Glenn said.
For background information, see:
http://www.answers.com/topic/separation-of-church-and-state-in-the-united-states
# # #
Amen.
The complete ruling in found at the link below:
http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0477p-06.pdf
"I really wish the ACLU would be declared a terrorist group and all of their lawyers sent to one of our nonexistent prisons in Croatia or somewhere, never to be heard from again!"
Oh come on, be kind. How about some nice tropical island in the South Pacific, at least 6 inches above sea level, in an area of frequent tsunamis and lots of hungry sharks.
"The ACLU makes repeated reference to the 'separation of church and state.' This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome..."
This guy's sense is just too clear for, I'm thinking, the liberal minds of ACLU to even grasp.
I know the ACLU is now desperate because their lawyer on FOX earlier tonight continued to try to use "Irish American Catholics" as an example of their/the ACLU's interests...they're really grovelling for support and credibility.
Let them grovel. They are a group opposed to our Constitution, and in fact, work concertedly to destroy the very document that they claim to have interest in. Their "interest" is in destroying it.
DOUBLE THAT ON MY ACCOUNT!!!!!
Actually, if you read relative papers, including the letter to the Danbury Baptists by Thomas Jefferson, the "wall" referred to so often in recent years only meant that Congress could not regulate individual states' religious affairs. Individual states, according to writings at the time, were free to conduct their own religious affairs including establishing State churches.
This "wall" of separation was a quote from a letter written
by Thomas Jefferson.
That would be similar to Federal property requirements for office holders and electors. Rather than put such property requirements in the Constitution, they left it up to the States, which already had such requirements.
That is exactly right...although unfortunately mostly unknown now...less than 60 years after the Supreme Court first created the fiction that the Establishment Clause applies to the states.
Of course, the idea that the First Amendment prohibits states from compelling the Pledge of Allegiance, hanging banners that say "God Bless America" or even from establishing their own official state religions is probably the most easily proved lie of the many the Supreme Court has issued through the years.
The First Amendment, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth...commands that a state 'shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
--Justice Hugo Black, Everson v. Bd of Education of Ewing Twp., 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
This declaration by the Supreme Court was the first time it informed everyone that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was applicable to the states. Before that time, state-religion issues were not the province of the US Constitution or the federal courts. But was the Supreme Court right? Did the 14th Amendment make the Establishment Clause applicable to the states?
Go back to 1875 (7 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified)...President Grant asks Congressman James Blaine to introduce a proposed amendment, Section 2 of which reads, in its entirety:
No state shall make any law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
The Blaine Amendment (which would have been the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution passes the House but fails in the Senate. Senator Frelinghuysen of NJ, in introducing the amendment in the Senate states:
The [Blaine Amendment] very properly extends the prohibition of the first amendment of the Constitution to the States. Thus the [Blaine Amendment] prohibits the States, for the first time, from the establishment of religion, from prohibiting its free exercise, and from making any religious test a qualification to office.
Senator Eaton of Connecticut, in objecting to the Blaine Amendment states, on the Senate floor:
I am opposed to any State prohibiting the free exercise of any religion; and I do not require the Senate or the Congress of the United States to assist me in taking care of the State of Connecticut in that regard.
Senator Whyte agreed:
The first amendment to the Constitution prevents the establishment of religion by congressional enactment; it prohibits the interference of Congress with the free exercise thereof, and leaves the whole power for the propagation of it with the States exclusively; and so far as I am concerned I propose to leave it there also.
The Congressional record during the debates over the Blaine Amendment shows that not one member of Congress...the majority of whom were in either the Congress that passed the 14th Amendment or one of the state legislatures that ratified it...not a single one...mentioned that the Blaine Amendment was unnecessary...it seems that none of the Congressmen who ratified the 14th Amendment knew that they thereby incorporated the Establishment Clause against the states.
So...if the text of the First Amendment says..."Congress shall make no law...."
And if the majority of states maintained taxpayer-supported churches long after ratification of the Constitution...
And if those that ratified the same Amendment that the Court now tells us "incorporated" the First Amendment against the states...apparently had no intention of or knowledge that they had done so...
Exactly what authority do federal courts have to, on their own initiative, create a new meaning and application of the First Amendment...demonstrably contrary to the meaning and application as intended and understood by those who ratified the Constitution and its amendments?...
None...these wall of separation rulings are completely illegitimate
So many misunderstand the language and parsing used in the days of the U.S. Constitution's creation, and as used in the 1st and 2nd Amendments. So sad.
Some people read the 1st to mean that congress can't make a law that respects religious establishments; they can only be disrespectful. It's unbelievable. And scary. Thank you, public schools.
Very interesting stuff -- had never heard about that amendment. Goes to show that the understanding we are talking about persisted into the post-Civil War period.
Yes...and the understanding we are talking about was the nearly universal understanding of those who ratified the Amendment that the Court tells us made the Establishment Clause applicable against the states...and for purposes of analysis under the US Constitution...isn't that what counts?
What should we expect?.......wasn't it founded by a Communist? It's almost incomprehensible that they have so much of an effect on how this country treats certain issues.
The 14th amendment has been the source of an incredible amount of judicial abuse.
*cough* *splat* Ok man... you owe me a Heineken! :P It now resides on my computer screen!
Interesting that there's never a mention -- that the ACLU was founded by a communist -- in the media.
I read it by reading a few private webpages that expose the ACLU for who and what it is, but from the media, you'd think the ACLU was an abbreviation for "rosey kindergarten rainbows and happiness" or something.
They DO so mislead! It's time to expose the ACLU and expose it everywhere and anywhere so that the general child in school knows and understands what communist propoganda (and molestations upon our Constitution) are and they're name is: the ACLU.
"...understanding of those who ratified the Amendment..."
Sounds like you may have read a little Bradford...
"The 14th amendment has been the source of an incredible amount of judicial abuse."
And it needs to be modified so only children of US citizens get citizenship at birth.
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