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To: Conscience of a Conservative; Captain Kirk; xzins
The government (Federal, under the first amendment, and state/local under the 14th) may not require the exercise of religion - including the use of particular religious imagery - as a condition of issuing a license, including a building permit.

Really?

Gee, here is the text of the 14th amendment.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

.

Please point out the clause or section of that amendment that says that a city can't require that a building in a historical district of a city must have a designated symbol commemorating and honoring the deaths of 3000 people on the top of their new building as a condition to getting a building permit.

I don't see it there. I suspect it must be somewhere in the pneumbras (the empty space between the lines).

Tell me does the Constitution also guarantee a woman the right to kill her unborn baby? Is that in that amendment somewhere?

91 posted on 07/23/2010 1:23:54 PM PDT by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: P-Marlowe
Please point out the clause or section of that amendment that says that a city can't require that a building in a historical district of a city must have a designated symbol commemorating and honoring the deaths of 3000 people on the top of their new building as a condition to getting a building permit. I don't see it there. I suspect it must be somewhere in the pneumbras (the empty space between the lines).

It is well-settled law that the 14th Amendment "incorporated" the First Amendment (and several others) against the states. To the same extent that the Federal government cannot establish a religion or restrict the free exercise thereof, neither can the states/localities. Are you suggesting that the states may establish a religion or restrict the free exercise thereof? Could a city require a person to sign a statement attesting to the fact that they believe that Christ is their lord and personal savior, as a condition of receiving a building permit?

You still have not answered my question - under your law, would a synagogue built near the WTC site be required to have a 40-foot cross on it?

92 posted on 07/23/2010 1:37:14 PM PDT by Conscience of a Conservative
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