This article is a good analysis of the attitude of the losing side. [Bold, underlining and color-blocking added by me.]
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If teaching religion is forbidden in the classroom, why is my child taught in school about Mecca, the beliefs of Islam, and some of their practices? Why is the creation story of the Cheyenne taught in school, but the creation story of Christians forbidden?
Must be some more of that mystery fine print in the constitution that only liberals can read.
It's also a good analysis of the encroaching uselessness of the term "judicial activist." As the author noted, judicial activism is an actual problem, with an actual definition. Unfortunately, it is quickly becoming a meaningless epithet tossed at any and all judges whose rulings don't happen to coincide with a particular ideology.
This dissimulation over religion has been at once the funniest and most disturbing aspect of this whole affair.
This same mindset is going to torpedo Samuel Alito. The last thing he needs is a bunch of--dare I say it--activists holding rallies in churches, braying about how the confirmation of Alito is the first step in bringing religion back into the public sphere. With friends like these, Alito needs no enemies.
Driving "nonsense" out of the classroom, huh?
Until evolutionists can demonstrate how a strand of DNA can self-assemble, survive in a hostile chemical environment, and purposelessly begin to reproduce and form the form the first living cell, I'd say the theory is baloney.
People need to learn to think for themselves and reject the "received knowledge" from evolutionists with their own stubborn belief system.
There are at least two separate issues here, although they are interlinked.
First of all, there is NO SUCH PHRASE in the Constitution as "Wall of separation between Church and State." That phrase was in a private letter from ONE of the numerous authors of the Constitution, is not part of the Constitution, and cannot be used to define the First Amendment EXCEPT BY ACTIVIST JUDGES.
The First Amendment says that there shall be no "establishment of religion" on a national level. The meaning of "establishment" historically is well known. It means a single state church, a single official church. The model the Founders were clearly thinking of was the Church of England, which at times the English monarchy had tried to foist on the American colonies as their official church.
At a secondary level, they were probably thinking of the Catholic Church in France, also an established national religion at that time, or the Lutheran Church in one of the Protestant German states.
The Constitution could and did permit establishment of religion within the states, if the citizens of those states chose to do so. Massachusetts had an established religion, as did several other states, and people who didn't like it were welcome to move to Rhode Island and Connecticut with Anne Hutchinson.
In later times, the citizens of the states freely and by their own votes ended these established churches. But there is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent them from reestablishing a religion in any state in the unlikely event that they chose to do so.
Still less is there anything in the Constitution that forbids praying in public, putting up Christian monuments on state or municiple land, or (probably) putting up nondenominational Christian monuments on federal land. There is nothing to forbid teaching of or about religion in the public schools. There is nothing to forbid saying that God created the universe. That was taught in all of our public schools until activist judges and closed minded fanatics managed to outlaw it.
The second issue is whether Darwinism has a monopoly on the truth, and should be enabled to demand that no competition will be permitted. I don't think so. But I've argued that on other threads and will not do so here. All I will say is that every one of these threads make it evident that Darwinists are closed minded, refuse to brook any competition, insist on a monopoly to brainwash our children who must never be permitted to hear any alternative views or questions, and ARE CLEARLY NOT CONSERVATIVE on any of these issues.
Perhaps they should wonder why they inevitably find themselves allied with the ACLU every time the issue of public school teaching arises.
....this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on intelligent design, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop, which has now been fully revealed through this trial.[emphasis added]
When a Bush appointed conservative Republican judge rules against ID with language like that, you know IDs time has come and gone. Defendants who lied under oath, expert defense witnesses who admitted there was no positive evidence for ID published in peer-reviewed science journals nor any experiments or research to back it up, and an activist law firm that shopped ID policy to school boards around the country to "gen up" a court challenge; ID's demise was orchestrated by a conspiracy of clowns, nitwits, and agenda-driven fanatics -- all of whom were on the pro-ID side.
Stick a fork in ID; in time, Dover will be seen as ID's Waterloo..... ID's demise will be recorded as a case intellectual suicide.
It is not the questioning of the Theory of Evolution that is unconstitutional, it is the teaching in public schools of religious concepts for religious reasons. The book "Of Pandas and People" was shown by trial evicence to be a creationist book through and through, published by a religious organization for religious purposes and containing a religious message. It was introduced by the Dover Area School Board for religious reasons to accomplish a religious goal. The Dover community understood that the controversy was over a religious question, as the judge noted by pointing out that letters to the editor in the York newspapers (both pro and con) where overwhelmingly discussing the religious aspects of the controversy.
Like an activist judge is going to admit to being one. Only an activist judge would feel a need to offer up such a comment.
Judge John E. Jones III should be the next nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
In addition, as a matter of principle, it is inconsistent with the American system of government to use the power of the state to promote a sectarian religious viewpoint; which as Jone's decision laid out, was what the Dover school board was attempting. And as Jones found the Board's actions violated the constitution of the State of Pennsylvania.
However, I am sympathetic to the views expressed here that power of the Federal courts has become extended beyond the original intent of the framers...not just on this issue by on a broad range of issues. How many Creationists while bitterly critical of Jones's and other Federal court decisions forbidding local governments from indulging in religious promotion happily cheer the DEA and the WOD?
The contest between whether religion should or should not be promoted in public schools cannot be fairly resolved within the current institutional system.
The 19th Century public school and compulsory attendance laws were motivated at least in part as an attack on earlier more-religious oriented education, most of it in non-public schools, and later as a way of as simulating the children of Catholic immigrants.
Are Compulsory School Attendance Laws Necessary? Part 1 by Samuel L. Blumenfeld, March 1991
Rather than a focus on the separation of church and state; the real focus should be on the separation of school and state.
Alliance for the Separation of School & State
That way, parents who want their children to receive a religiously oriented education can do so; and if their religion includes a literal creation of all "kinds" 6,000 years ago, and no evolution or common descent; they can do so with using the subterfuge of "Intelligent Design." Parents who want their children to receive a sound scientifically based education can arrange for that; without having the texts and classes watered down under pressure from fundamentalists.
With parental (consumer) choice, we should expect that both the religiously-orientied and non-religious private schools would produce much better education and student achievement than the current near-monopoly, politicized government school systems.
Sorry, but it is not the prerogative of any judge to aid in the establishment of atheistic principles. Weaselly disclaimers notwithstanding, those who do so should be considered "activist" judges, because the people of the United States have not given government the authority to establish and maintain only atheistic principles. By law judges are obligated to protect the free exercise of religion in public and in private. Science is not entitled to have its biases protected by law. If it wants wholly atheistic science to be taught, then it is free to establish its own private school system where atheistic principles are established and maintained.
When will he order Global Warming out of the classroom?
Jones goes overboard in presuming to "settle" the issue of Intelligent design. That is an umbrealla term that covers arange of opinion. He could ruled on the narrower issue of the wording of school board's policy. Instead, he had to prove himself among the "enlightened "
Highly debatable. More likely scenario: "Jones knew his name would be reduced to a shibboleth in every cranny of tony liberaldom if he didn't treat ID with high judicial dudgeon."
It is true that many learned people claim that ID is not to the level of a scientific theory yet (and they may be right.) However, I continue to object to a public school system that I am forced to pay for, yet will accept no challenges to the theory of evolution. In my opinion it is not only bad science but bad policy.