Posted on 02/07/2013 8:27:54 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
CINCINNATI – A portrait of Jesus that hangs prominently in an entranceway at a rural Ohio public school is in violation of the U.S. Constitution and should be removed, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday says.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation say the large portrait at Jackson Middle School unconstitutionally promotes religion. The two groups seek a court order requiring the school to remove the portrait and prohibiting its re-hanging or any substantially similar display in the future.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
They should put up a Mad Mo’ pic where he is wearing one of those bomb turbans with a lit fuse.
Ohio Ping
Really! I would think that this country would have many traditions that date before the 1960’s
Next, regardless what activist justices wanted the country to believe about Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation" words, the real Thomas Jefferson had clarified the following concerning government power to regulate (cultivate) religious expression. Jefferson had noted that the Founding States had made the 10th Amendment in part to clarify that the states had reserved the power to regulate our freedom of religious expression uniquely to themselves, regardless that the states had made the 1st Amendment to prohibit such powers entirely to Congress.
"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed (emphasis added); …" --Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.
And regardless that Sec. 1 of the 14th Amendment applied constitutionally protected privileges and immunities to the states, John Bingham, the main author of Sec. 1, had officially clarified that the 14th Amendment took away no rights that belonged to the states.
"The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights (emphasis added) that belong to the States." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 1866. (last paragraph of first column)"No right (emphasis added) reserved by the Constitution to the States should be impaired…" --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 1871. (first or second paragraph of first column, depending on how you count paragraphs.)
"Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State? God forbid. I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existance." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe (second paragraph from bottom in third column)
So not only had Jefferson clarified that the states had retained uniquely to themselves the power to regulate religious expression within reason, power now limited by the honest interpretation of the 14th Amendment instead of how activist justices have spun it, but Bingham had clarified in general that the states sill had this power.
So the Jesus portrait is constitutional, imo, as long as it doesn't violate anybody's 14th Amendment protections. I'm sure that atheists can ignore portrait just like Christian students undoubtedly do.
Obama
How do you know?
Jamie Foxx said so /s
The constitution explicitly states that the fed cannot establish a religion or deny freedom of religion. It doesn't say anything about what states can do.One way to disentangle ourselves from the beast that is Washington is to stop accepting their money.
In order to make up the cash loss simply encumber a portion of the locally generated federal revenues. In opther words, keep the locally generated money and cut the fed out of the loop.
BTW:Make sure your state militias and the state national guard are up to speed first.
Jesus is their enemy. It’s as simple as that. There are all sorts of religious references throughout our society. Jesus is singled out for special treatment for a reason.
Freedom From Religion Foundation: Oy vey gang and Ron Reagan
I can recall a time when they would not be so rude
FFRF board:
Ron Reagan, media commentator, describes himself in a radio ad he taped for FFRF as: “Unabashed atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.”
Richard Dawkins, probably the world’s most famous contemporary atheist and a distinguished evolutionary biologist, is Oxford professor emeritus. In his blockbuster book, The God Delusion, Dawkins writes: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.”
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of 36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction and a research associate in Harvard’s psychology department, is FFRF Freethought Heroine of 2011. Goldstein is a 1996 MacArthur Fellow (the “genius” award). She has taught at Barnard and in the Columbia MFA writing program and the Rutgers philosophy department. She’s been a visiting scholar at Brandeis and at Trinity College in Hartford.
Julia Sweeney, comedian and actress, is writer/performer of the play, “Letting Go of God”: “How dare the religious use the term ‘born again.’ That truly describes freethinkers who’ve thrown off the shackles of religion so much better!”
Daniel C. Dennett is Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Tufts, and author of the bestselling book about religion, Breaking the Spell. In a newspaper article about his nonbelief, Dennett once wrote: “I’ve come to realize it’s time to sound the alarm.”
Katha Pollitt, “Subject to Debate” columnist for The Nation, author and poet, has spoken out regularly and energetically as a freethinker, in such columns as “Freedom From Religion, Sí!”
Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard, is author of The Blank Slate: “I never outgrew my conversion to atheist at 13.”
Oliver Sacks, M.D., the compassionate neurologist and bestselling author, describes himself as “an old Jewish atheist.”
Jennifer Michael Hecht, poet, historian and author of the acclaimed Doubt: A History and The End of the Soul, told the FFRF 2009 convention audience: “If there is no god — and there isn’t — then we [humans] made up morality. And I’m very impressed.”
Edward Sorel, satiric cartoonist and irreverent illustrator who is a regular contributor to The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and whose caricatures have been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, has been a Foundation member since the 1980s.
Mike Newdow is working pro bono to challenge such violations as the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. He told the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments: “I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God. And every school morning my child is asked to stand up, face that flag, put her hand over her heart, and say that her father is wrong.”
Robert Sapolsky, a neurologist, Stanford professor and bestselling author, once suggested FFRF put up a sign at its conventions: “Welcome, hellbound atheists.”
Ernie Harburg, a retired research scientist, is president of Yip Harburg Foundation and co-author of Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz? Ernie has dedicated his retirement to furthering the lyrics, music, memory and progressive views of his freethinking father, the lyricist Yip Harburg, author of classic songs such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and of Rhymes for the Irreverent, recently republished by FFRF.
Susan Jacoby, bestselling author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, and program director of the Center for Inquiry-New York City, told FFRF convention-goers in 2004: “[President] Kennedy had to speak about his religion because he was suspected of insufficient dedication to the Constitution’s separation of church and state. Today’s candidates are suspect if they display too much dedication to secular government.”
The Taliban smashing statues got nuthin on the ACLU.
I don't believe in the Easter Bunny, but I'm not going to waste even 30 seconds of my valuable day to go punch the guy in the costume at the mall.
Or if McGruff the crime dog showed up at a public school I wouldn't "sue" over what I consider a fictional character.
McGruff doesn't scare me. For some reason a picture of Jesus really scares this group.
If there is no God and it’s all nonsense as the quoted atheists propose, then what’s the big deal? A picture of an imaginary character named Jesus who’s the son of a God that doesn’t even exist? Again, what’s the big deal for a true atheist?
I, for example, find Christ to be quite credible. I can’t prove Christ was right, but I think His points at least deserve a fair hearing. Personally? I think He described this world very accurately and provided excellent examples, the parables, as to why things work the way they do. So I could be wrong, but I believe Him. On the other hand, I don’t want to squash atheists or agnostics who disagree with me. They’re entitled to believe as they wish. All I ask is for the same courtesy.
A portrait of Jesus that hangs prominently in an entranceway at a rural Ohio public school is in violation of the U.S. Constitution
WHY? Read the Constitution. Its not in there............
I studied Constitutional law in law school, and I understand First Amendment jurisprudence— I have come to disagree with most of it. I respect the law and the courts, but the chain of opinions on religious freedom have eviscerated the plain meaning of the provisions, which read:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...”
This is the very first right protected in the Bill of Rights. To me that suggests its importance to our founding fathers.
We have now devolved into squabbles about posting a painting of Jesus Christ. No action by Congress; No law; No establishment of religion— no consideration of the second clause about freedom of religion “...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...”
It is time to go back and read the First Amendment, then analyze the case law that purports to interpret it, and RESCIND all cases that veer away from the simple words used in BOTH the establishment clause and the free exercise clause.
The ACLU and the WFFRF don’t even know what Jesus looks like.
No one knows what Jesus looked like.
By ‘blasphemous idol’ you are referring to the picture of Jesus?
To be fair if we remove the picture of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Praise Him forever!) then any public building that has a portrait of Trojan horse Hussein, the ACLU’s lord and savior (Let his works be promptly and soundly halted!) remove it, as he is the head of their religion. Keeping his portrait in a building promotes the worship of his religion: Marxist Nazi Communism where government if god.
I’m talking about the blasphemous idol that the idolators chose to call “Jesus.”
It obviously is not “Jesus.”
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