Actually, it is no accident that both Free Speech *and* Freedom of Religion are in the SAME Amendment! Hello?!
Free speech from the pulpit was always was the of the First Amendment.
Letting the boys separate the two into a ‘media’ right and a ‘religious’ right is a mistake.
More info:
http://64.203.107.114/histdocs/jefferson_letter_to_the_danbury_baptists.asp
http://64.203.107.114/histdocs/jefferson_letter_to_the_danbury_baptists_unedited.asp
http://64.203.107.114/histdocs/jefferson_letter_to_the_danbury_baptists_history.asp
There were many state laws associated with Religion...No travel on Sunday in Vermont as late as 1791.....The old Blue Laws...All state!!!
A sad fact that is over the heads and hearts of so many Americans. Too many people want “separation” to mean the Soviet style freedom FROM religion. We need to stand up for the truth but in a loving and not lording-over way.
One of the greatest lies of this century is this “Separation of Church and State” issue. If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the “truth.” It’s very sad that so many people have bought into this lie.
The Establishment Clause clearly separates church from state; however, most government employees don’t understand what that means, so they’ve winged it. Badly. If they would just read it in context with the Free Exercise Clause all of this foolishness would end. Let me spell it out for any government employees who might read this: No religious organization is to have a greater voice in government than that afforded by the votes of its adherents, and in no case shall an official religion (such as the Church of England) be established. Simple. Government employees can individually practice and endorse whatever faith they want—even at work—to the extent it does not interfere with their duties, but they can’t stifle the beliefs and practices of other citizens either directly or by advantaging the exercise of their own faith. Now, would some Supreme Court clerk please plagiarize the above and drop a footnote in an opinion somewhere?
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUITThis got lost due to the date this ruling was reached -- 12-20-05, right before Christmas.
ACLU v Mercer County, Kentucky
Decided and Filed: December 20, 2005~~~ snip~~~ Page 13 of 14
Were we to focus on the perceptions of individuals, every religious display would be “necessarily precluded so long as some passersby would perceive a governmental endorsement thereof.”... Thus, we find unavailing the ACLU’s own assertions that it finds the display offensive and that the display “diminishes [its] enjoyment of the courthouse.” Religion does not become relevant to standing in the political community simply because a particular viewer of a governmental display feels uncomfortable.
[see Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 597-98 (1992)]
(“People may take offense to all manner of religious as well as nonreligious messages, but offense alone does not in every case show a violation. We know too that sometimes to endure social isolation or even anger may be the price of conscience or noncomformity.”).Our concern is that of the reasonable person. And the ACLU, an organization whose mission is “to ensure that the government [is kept] out of the religion business,” does not embody the reasonable person.
The ACLU’s argument contains three fundamental flaws. First, 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.
Great post!