Quote of the Week.
Posted on 12/26/2005 1:05:25 AM PST by NapkinUser
A federal appeals court has upheld a Ten Commandments display identical to one ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, rebuking the American Civil Liberties Union in the process.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, affirmed Dec. 20 a federal judge’s decision that a courthouse display in Mercer County, Ky., of nine documents, including the Ten Commandments, is constitutional. In a unanimous opinion by a three-judge panel, the court agreed with the lower court that the inclusion of the Decalogue does not violate the Constitution’s establishment clause because the display has a secular purpose. The panel also ruled the display does not endorse religion.
The Mercer County display that the Sixth Circuit upheld does not differ from the final version of displays in Kentucky’s McCreary and Pulaski counties, which the Supreme Court invalidated in June, upholding an earlier decision from the Sixth Circuit. In a 5-4 decision, the high court ruled the history of the courthouse displays in McCreary and Pulaski counties should be weighed. In both cases, the Ten Commandments stood alone before other documents were twice added. The final version still had a “predominantly religious purpose,” Associate Justice David Souter wrote.
In Mercer County, however, the Ten Commandments and the other documents -– including the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Magna Carta -– were displayed together in frames of equal size from the start. A Mercer County resident, Carroll Rousey, received permission from a county court to put up the display and paid for and hung it himself in 2001.
In contrast to the exhibits in McCreary and Pulaski counties, the Mercer County display “lacks a similar sectarian pedigree,” Judge Richard Suhrheinrich wrote for the Sixth Circuit panel in ACLU v. Mercer County. “A reasonable observer would not view this display as an attempt by Mercer County to establish religion. Instead, he would view it for what it is: an acknowledgment of history.”
Not only is the Mercer County display different from the ones previously rejected by the Supreme Court, but it also survives the Lemon test, the panel said. That test has largely guided the justices’ decision-making in such cases since it was outlined in the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman opinion. According to the Lemon standard, government does not establish religion if its action has a secular purpose, does not promote or inhibit religion and does not create an excessive entanglement with religion.
In his opinion, Suhrheinrich pointedly wrote about what he described as the ACLU’s flawed arguments.
He called “the separation of church and state,” which the ACLU referred to repeatedly, an “extra-constitutional construct [that] 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.... Thus, state recognition of religion that falls short of endorsement is constitutionally permissible.”
“If the reasonable observer perceived all government references to the Deity as endorsements, then many of our nation’s cherished traditions would be unconstitutional, including the Declaration of Independence and the national motto [“In God we trust”],” Suhrheinrich wrote.
The ACLU “does not embody the reasonable person,” he said.
The American Center for Law and Justice and the Liberty Counsel, two religious liberty organizations that assisted Mercer County, hailed the decision.
In a written release, ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow called it a “big victory for the people of Mercer County and Kentucky generally. For too long they have been lectured like children by those in the ACLU and elsewhere who claim to know what the people’s Constitution really means.”
Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver said in a written statement that the decision “begins to turn the tide against the ACLU, which has been on a search-and-destroy mission to remove all vestiges of our religious heritage from public view. Federal courts are beginning to rightfully reject extreme notions of ‘separation of church and state.’”
In March, a split, three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit upheld the constitutionality of an Elkhart County, Ind., display identical to the one in Mercer County.
On the same June day that the Supreme Court ruled against the displays in McCreary and Pulaski counties, the justices decided a stand-alone monument of the Decalogue on the state capitol grounds in Austin, Texas, is constitutional.
The ACLU: Now ridiculous by Court Finding
Let Freedom Ring!!!
And the very concept of rights would be unconstitutional. Thus the only purpose of the Constitution would be the establishment of atheism as the state ideology.
Secularists want to recreate Soviet Union in another place.
Judge calls ACLU ’tiresome,’
how about ' Treasonous ' ?
About time. If you want to believe in something different, or nothing at all, this is your right. But just as I cannot force my views on you, you cannot force yours on me.
My nation has a rich heritage, which includes foundation upon the principals that God gave to us. These principals have withstood the test of time as not only fair-minded, but loving and liberating. I want these documents and commandments displayed as daily reminders of what our ancestors fought for, and how to behave today.
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights Exactly, without allowance for religion, we the people would be left with absolutely nothing. The remainder (ergo, Everything) would revert to government.
Let's just be generous for now and just say "tiresome",
which is the exact word I have always used for the ACLU.
Does the following mean that the entire court/religion field is in total disarray?
He called “the separation of church and state,” which the ACLU referred to repeatedly, an “extra-constitutional construct [that] 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.... Thus, state recognition of religion that falls short of endorsement is constitutionally permissible.”
The ACLU “does not embody the reasonable person,” he said.
That's for sure!
And some freepers as well. :)
Quote of the Week.
Tagline change time
ACLU are a bunch of fanatics. No country has a wall of separation, all control religions, except the US of A, and this is what bothers them.
Removing God from mentions is irrelevant of religion specifics and is only cosmetic fanatic superstition. The conflict of interest is what we have to look at, and ACLU is indeed an atheistic religious dogma just as any other Gaia or statue worshiper out there, because they reject the word God out of a fundamental personal conflict of interest in seeing it removed for thei own personal sectarian membership agendas
THEY HAVE TO KEEP DRUMMING THEM UP OR THEY DON'T GET PAID!
Even if you're an atheist you can not deny the fact that this country has acknowledge GOD(Creator)as the ultimate giver of rights...
It was set in stone from the beginning, so if you try to take God out of this idea of America, or shun the acknowledgement of his way from public display, (sorry, J. Jackson moment) the IDEA will no longer exist.
And what these pompas assed prix fail to see if America fails so will the freedoms they enjoy to bring these law suits and protest angrily at the government and God. The ACLU would also cease and desist!
What they are too arrogant to realize is with these stupid lawsuits, they're litigating the direct opposite from what they are supposed to protect. The acknowledgement of God or public prayer is NOT an endorsement of religion by the government...it's is however the public's ultimate compliment to government for recognizing our freedoms.
Brit Hume hosted an excellent FOX special on Religion in America yesterday. Try to get a tape if you missed it. Justice Black, a former KKK member who was prejudiced against Catholics, is the father of the so-called "wall of separation between church and state" that exists no where in the Constitution and was never considered until Black sited this phrase from a letter by Thomas Jefferson in a ruling against Catholic schools in 1947. That's when Christians should have howled and protested, but there were enough similarly prejudiced Protestants who thought it was fine that the Catholics were being affected. Of course, the ACLU got on the anti-Christian bandwagon that has been rolling ever since and the Protestants soon found their right to the free exercise of their religion was next on the list.
This special was a real eye-opener for me, and I hope it gets wider exposure than just being shown on Christmas Day.
Kinda sums it all up for me. Finally........a court with common sense........
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