Posted on 04/04/2013 12:32:35 PM PDT by SatinDoll
(Following is a brief summary of the article's contents)
Raleigh, North Carolina -
Two North Carolina legislators introduced a state resolution asserting the State of North Carolina can make its own laws regarding the establishment of religion.
[See the article for further details.]
Good. Let all of the troublemakers- the liberals, anti-Christians and welfare recipients, move OUT of North Carolina. If they won’t leave on their own- push them out. Let them to go NJ or ILL.
No yankee, me. I’m a northwesterner.
>> “Which is what I said — illustrating that there are alienable rights with legal rights. (IE The existence of alienable rights.)”
>
> Then, in what freakish reality is the right to choose to worship God in the way you choose, without interference by the state, NOT an inalienable right?
Um, you seem to be under some delusion as to what the Constitution says: it says that *congress* cannot establish a religion. If the 14th amendment means that the _states_ cannot pass such law, then that is to assert that, via “the magic of incorporation”, the Supreme Court can alter the actual text of the Constitution — precisely because the prohibition is to “congress” and not “the legislature.”
As to the States themselves, most can’t do what’s proposed because they acknowledge the right of Religion as unalienable [human] rights within their own Constitutions.
“Everyone knows what the U.S.Constitution states about the establishment of religion. This flies right in the face of that, and liberals are, ahem, upset.”
Actually, in a strict constructionist sense the position of those proposing the law in North Carolina would not be going against the U.S. Constitution.
The prohibition against THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT concerning an establishment of religion WAS againts the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, NOT THE STATES, as at the time the Constitution was ratified some states did have an established religion by their state constitution. If it was not contrary to the U.S. constitution when the constitution was ratified, how can it be counter to the U.S. constitution now.
Full disclosure: I would not support such a change, in any state. However, to say the change is prohibited by the U.S. constitution is wrong I believe.
You do realize that is the same argument used by southern states to declare slavery was a state issue and not federal?
All they had to do was deny black Africans as being human.
absolutely
Oh, I see...well sometimes it is the little things that can blow another controversy to Kingdom come!
On this thread I’m seeing arguments about alienable rights, inalienable rights, and state’s powers.
I personally want to see the Bill of Rights made inviolate. If this seemingly innocuous dispute in North Caroline ends up smashing every piece of gun control legislation in the country including Colorado, that would be great!
This case cannot do what you're suggesting; it is impossible.
Why?
Because the question of "can a State establish a religion?" cannot be answered by the USSC in a way to make the Bill of Rights stronger (to affirm the 9th and 10th Amendments would be death for the US Supreme Court*). To answer 'yes' is to destroy the 9th and 10th Amendments further, and to answer 'no' is to allow the 14th Amendment to give god-like powers to the Supreme Court (which they've already usurped a lot) over the Constitution.
To use 'incorporation' to shut this down is to [once again] affirm that the Constitution is whatever the US Supreme Court says it is -- that it, to put them in authority over it -- essentially allowing them to alter the text before applying it. [The 1st Amendment restricts "congress" and the number of states which have a "congress" is very low; 'legislatures' on the other hand...]
So in that sense, this is just a losing proposition.
* In the sense that those in power tend to view any reduction in their power as a form of death. To affirm the 9/10 Amendment[s] would be to weaken the court's golden goose** Roe v. Wade, where they essentially said to the States "F--- You, we can destroy your laws at will."
** Actually I think that's probably their "silver goose" now that Affordable Care Act lets them rewrite the law virtually at-will.
(*** Their 'bronze [copper?] goose' would be Wickard v. Filburn, which really ultimately set the stage for "everything is a federal matter" mentality.)
Jeez, no comment.
As several FReepers have pointed out, the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause applies only to the federal government, and a proper understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment and incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states would incorporate only the individual rights in tje first eight amendments to the Constitution, not a federalism clause such as the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause reads “Comgress shall make no law *respecting an establishment of religion*”; the phrasing was intended to prohibit Congress not only from establishing a particular denomination as a national established church, but also from *unestablishing* particular denominations as the state church of particular states (several, if not most, states had established churches at the time of the adoption of the Constitution). Alas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled decades ago that the Establishment Clause’s prohibitions against a federal established church were incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment and thus prohibited state establishments, which is as ridiculous as saying that the 10th Amendment is incorporated against the states. I hope that SCOTUS oberturns that silly precedent someday, not because I personally would like states to establish a church, but because I cannot countenance irrational interpratations of the Constitution.
BTW, the fact that the Constitution should be understood to permit states to establish a church does not mean that states can deny their citizens the Free Exercise of Religion (which has, quite properly, been incorporated against the states). The UK has an established church (the Church of England—the Anglicans), yet allows the free exercise of religion. All a church establishment does is permit tax dollars to aid that particular denomination; as I said, I don’t personally favor that, but don’t consider it anathema as I would a law that denied me or anyone the right to practice my religion.
“You do realize that is the same argument used by southern states to declare slavery was a state issue and not federal?”
You do realize that the U.S. Constitution did not prohibit slavery, until AFTER the civil war, and that it was NOT on the issue of slavery that Lincoln went to war, it was seccession.
“You do realize that the U.S. Constitution did not prohibit slavery,..”
Oh, please! In 1859 it didn’t prohibit a lot of things, like monopolies and polygamy, but that doesn’t mean the nation embraced or approved those practices.
What an excuse! It isn’t expressly forbid so it is OK? You really want to stand with that statement? Because it sure reads like a typical apology for barbarism against another race.
As the young Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal,..” So for you these words must be empty and are without meaning.
Slave owners justified their economic reliance upon slavery based on African blacks NOT being human. Since blacks weren’t human they could be treated like property; bought, sold, traded and bred like any other farm animal. President Thomas Jefferson discovered late in life that slavery on his plantation was quite profitable, and withdrew from his youthful idealism.
As for Lincoln, the Republican Party platform was mainly built around Abolition of Slavery (based on moral Christian values) even though for Old Abe keeping the Union together was more important. He knew that international financiers, mainly the Bank of England, sought the breakup of the U.S. and the reacquisition of its colonies in North America.
Once again, you can follow whatever twisted logic you need to defend your twisted position. I *am* stating that the states who created state “religions” prior to the 14th ammendment were twisted and, like states who legalized slavery, stood opposed to Natural Law.
It is my Natural Right as a free-born man to hold my religious faith and not be taxed to support the faith of others.
You don’t believe that is my right because because you hold, contrary to the rulings by the Supreme Court, the Constitution gives you the right via your state legislature to do dictate religion. I believe you are wrong and so does the U.S. Supreme Court.
Regardless of who is right on that point of Constitutional Law, if the Constitution stands against Natural Law, it will fail.
To find a discussion more overtly opposed to Natural Rights and the primary freedoms of men, one would have to either visit Democratic Underground or Cuba. What a strange time we live in.
“It isn’t expressly forbid so it is OK?”
Oh puleeze!!!! get a grip!@!!!. I did not say slavery was “O.K.” I did not say slavery was MORALLY O.K. just because it was NOT forbidden by the Constitution, for almost 100 years.
I said as a matter of law, Constitutional law, (a) the Constitution did not forbid slavery, the Constitution allowed slavery to be legal, until after the civil war and specifically after the post-civil-war amendments ADDED the prohibition against slavery to the U.S. Constitution and (b) Linoln went to war against seccession, not slavery; if the south had been able to accept the restrictions on the growth of slavery (which is all they were, not the extinguishing of it) that federal law was imposing, there would not have been seccession and there would not have been the civil war, though slavery in all regards would not have yet ended. That’s not a moral judgement of moral right or wrong. It’s a matter of what was and was not mandated by the Constitution.
First, my point was not a Constitutional one, it was one of Natural Rights and I stated that I thought it was "freakish" to claim that the right to choose one's faith without state interference was an inalienable right. You claimed that it was alienable.
I will let Alexander Hamilton respond:
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
While I don't completely agree with Hamilton here, your silly argument that the states have the right (I'm not talking about power here, I'm talking about the *right*) to support one religion over another (and that is exactly what taxation to support one religion over another does) certainly proves Hamilton's fears were not unfounded.
“As the young Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal”
Unfortunately the majority of the people and the majority of their represntatives did not find their way when they wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution into carrying out the translation of those words into a legally binding prohibition against slavery.
The Declaration of Independence is a wonderful document. It is not a legal document and it did not bind the states into incorporating it into their state Constitutions or the U.S. Constitution. It stated a number of broad principles which, to be legally binding, required the interpretation of those who who write, vote on and ratify the Constitution.
It is not a matter of saying that the Declaration of Independence was “wrong” and the Constitution was “right”. It’s about what the LEGAL standard is and the LEGAL standard is the Constitution.
Many States maintained a state religion well into the nineteenth century. The so-called establishment clause did not prohibit that power to the States, it prohibited the establishment of a national church.
Many of the colonies had majorities of religious dissenters. State Churches varied as a result, from Anglican in the south to Congregationalist and others in New England. The Constitution would never have been ratified if the current popular understanding actually was the legal meaning of the “establishment clause.”
I live in North Carolina. I don’t want it to have a state church. Most of my forebears were persecuted by state churches of various kinds, in the British Isles, on the European continent and even on this continent, particularly in Virginia.
But, I support any effort to return to enumerated powers. Federal overrreach has gotten truly astounding and more than a little scary.
So let me understand your position.
1. Do the states have the power under the Constitution to mandate support of a religion through taxation?
2. Do the states have Constitutional rights to mandate support of a religion through taxation?
3. Do the states have Natural rights to mandate support of a religion through taxation?
If the question is one of a LEGAL standard, then the question was clearly and unequivocally answered in Everson v. Board of Education.
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1949/1946/1946_52/
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