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Why Don’t Secularists Just Be Honest and Outlaw Christianity?
The Stream ^ | February 19, 2017 | JOHN ZMIRAK

Posted on 02/20/2017 11:59:34 AM PST by NYer

As Michael Brown wrote here last week, Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and court costs that could wipe out not just her livelihood but her retirement fund and leave her homeless — all for the “crime” of not taking part in a same-sex wedding that violated her religious beliefs. And my reaction is: “Get on with it, already! Show the courage of your convictions and just ban Christianity outright.”

I’m getting really sick of this death by a thousand cuts. The elites who dominate our society and run the U.S. government via the courts clearly do not want to tolerate Christianity. Since they don’t have the votes to amend the Constitution and outlaw the practice of that faith entirely, instead they pack the bench with leftist sophists who twist our Constitution like saltwater taffy — amending it via judicial diktat dozens of times a year (if you count lower courts as well as SCOTUS), enshrining leftist secularism beyond the reach of shuffling, deplorable voters.

Oh, they’ll make room for progressive Christians that mutate the Faith, discard whatever secularists tell them is out of fashion, and “discover” that Jesus really meant to say precisely what the world wants to hear at this very moment. (Funny coincidence, that.)

Worship Caesar

What the Ivy League, the federal bureaucracy, the media, and the courts who do their bidding will not endure is genuine Christianity, the historic faith in any form that would have been recognizable, say, in 1963, on the day C.S. Lewis died. It’s precisely that “mere Christianity” Lewis explained which Baronelle Stutzman faces ruination for practicing. It’s the same creed which the Obama administration tried to snuff out among the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Here are two Christian principles that simply will not be tolerated:

I know, I know: What’s with all the esoteric theology, John? Do you really have to try to impose things that only Roman Catholics believe, because the Blessed Virgin Mary told them to peasant kids in some apparition? Can’t you stick to something … basic, which people could know is true just by thinking about it clearly? How about something that most people in most societies, even without the Gospel, knew was true?

Okay, kidding. These aren’t Catholic-specific. The two claims above are not exclusively Christian, or Jewish. You don’t even need to be a monotheist to see these things, since the Zeus-worshipping Greeks saw them too. But they are truths which the Christian faith accepted and built on, and which it can’t live without — any more than advanced physics could survive if you outlawed simple arithmetic.

If Baronelle Stutzmann or the Little Sisters of the Poor cannot assert these truths, and act on them — by refusing to take part in fake marriages or chemical abortions — then Christianity is in effect illegal. You know, the way it was in the Roman Empire, when Christians were ordered on pain of death to worship the emperor. The parallel is exact. No one claims that Ms. Stutzmann or the Little Sisters were running around disrupting same sex marriages, or stealing people’s abortion pills. No, they faced government persecution for not taking positive action to do what they know to be evil. They wouldn’t burn incense in front of Diocletian. They wouldn’t recite the Shehada when ISIS told them to.

Ruth Bader Ginbsurg and Anthony Kennedy could come up with some narrative that “proves” that the whole Bill of Rights is really a recipe for chicken mole.

Enough Half-Measures Already

So I wish that our masters would just admit what they’re really up to and try to enact a Christian ban. All they would need to do is create a case that makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which gives the judges the pretext to exempt Christianity from the First Amendment’s protections. I am sure that the legal brains at the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center could find the right test case, and aim it at the creative jurists of the Ninth Circuit Court — confident that the same five-vote majority that issued Obergefell v. Hodges would vote their way. In fact, they really ought to, if they want to honor that precedent, as well as that shining lodestar of American moral thinking, Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

Perhaps the case could center on Christian parents who wish to home-school a child, or a Christian college that doesn’t want to hire openly homosexual faculty, or a doctor who won’t perform abortions. I leave the specifics to our betters. I know that they’re up to the task.

I have faith that Ruth Bader Ginbsurg and Anthony Kennedy can come up with some narrative that proves that the Founding Fathers really meant to ban orthodox Christianity, while protecting other creeds. Those justices could “prove” to their own satisfaction that the whole Bill of Rights is really a recipe for chicken mole. And the rest of our elites (including too many Republicans) would back them up, and call that decision “settled law.”

Decades of training and practice of modern legal theory have trained these experts to see through the tangle of messy words with specific denotations and plausible connotations, and ignore the grubby historical context and plain intentions of the Founders — and hear the clear, pure voice of our “living Constitution.” That god, whom Caesar demands that we worship, will never fail. It can be trusted. It will always tell the world just what the flesh and the devil would like us to hear.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: religion

1 posted on 02/20/2017 11:59:34 AM PST by NYer
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To: Tax-chick; GregB; SumProVita; narses; bboop; SevenofNine; Ronaldus Magnus; tiki; Salvation; ...

I wonder how the courts would have responded had she been a muslim, ping!


2 posted on 02/20/2017 12:00:09 PM PST by NYer (Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy them. Mt 6:19)
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To: NYer

“death by a thousand cuts” Is exactly right.


3 posted on 02/20/2017 12:05:59 PM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: NYer

Simple.
They don’t ban Christianity, because they don’t want to see the first multi-denominational Crusade declared against them.


4 posted on 02/20/2017 12:08:18 PM PST by Little Ray (Freedom Before Security!)
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To: NYer

Be careful what you wish for. Muslims would like Islam to be the one world religion so they could torture and dominate Christians.


5 posted on 02/20/2017 12:08:45 PM PST by jsanders2001
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To: NYer

Be careful what you wish for. Muslims would like Islam to be the one world religion so they could torture and dominate Christians.


6 posted on 02/20/2017 12:09:46 PM PST by jsanders2001
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To: trisham

Shariah Law has to proceed a little further, before Christianity and Judaism may be flatly outlawed.

But the program is proceeding with all deliberate speed.


7 posted on 02/20/2017 12:10:53 PM PST by alloysteel (John Galt has chosen to take the job. This time, Atlas did NOT shrug.)
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To: NYer

Interesting enough the Roman government would allow, and encourage, the worship of every other type of religion EXCEPT for Christianity.


8 posted on 02/20/2017 12:15:55 PM PST by HarleyD
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To: NYer
Thank you for posting!

The writer's reference to the Liberal/Progressive "living constitution" perversion of America's Founders' Constitutional protections reminds us of that idea Dr. Walter Berns addressed magnificently in his 1984 essay, reprinted below:

Perhaps that essay from the Bicentennial 1987 Volume, "Our Ageless Constitution," by Dr.Berns, may be helpful in evaluating the legitimacy of Progressivism, as it manifests itself today.

Dr. Berns quotes the Founders themselves.

 

Do We Have
A Living
Constitution?

"Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives [the executive, judiciary, or legislature]; in a departure from it prior to such an act." - Alexander Hamilton

In the first of the eighty-five "Federalist Papers," Alexander Hamilton emphasized that:

"... it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection or choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."

The Framers knew that the passage of time would surely disclose imperfections or inadequacies in the Constitution, but these were to be repaired or remedied by formal amendment, not by legislative action or judicial construction (or reconstruction). Hamilton (in The Federalist No. 78) was emphatic about this:

"Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it prior to such an act."

The Congress, unlike the British Parliament, was not given final authority over the Constitution, which partly explains why the judicial authority was lodged in a separate and in­dependent branch of government. In Britain the supreme judicial authority is exercised by a committee of the House of Lords, which is appropriate in a system of parliamentary supremacy, but, although it was suggested they do so, the Framers refused to follow the British example.

The American system is one of constitutional supremacy, which means that sovereignty resides in the people, not in the King-in-Parliament; and the idea that the Constitution may be changed by an act of the legislature--even an act subsequently authorized by the judiciary--is simply incompatible with the natural right of the people to determine how (and even whether) they shall be governed.

Unlike in Britain where, formally at least, the queen rules by the grace of God (Dei gratia regina), American government rests on the consent of the people; and, according to natural right, the consent must be given formally. In fact, it must be given in a written compact entered into by the people. Here is Madison on the compacts underlying American government:

Neither civil society (or as Madison puts it, "the people in their social state') nor government exists by nature. By nature everyone is sovereign with respect to himself, free to do whatever in his judgment is necessary to preserve his own life - or, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, everyone is endowed by nature with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of a happiness that he defines for himself. Civil society is an artificial person (constituted by the first of the compacts), and it is civil society that institutes and empowers government. So it was that they became "the People of the United States" in 1776 and, in 1787-88, WE, THE PEOPLE ordained and established "this Constitution for the United States of America."

In this formal compact THE PEOPLE specified the terms and conditions under which "ourselves and posterity," would be governed: granting some powers and withholding others, and organizing the powers granted with a view to preventing their misuse by the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches alike. WE THE PEOPLE were authorized by natural right to do this, and were authorized to act on behalf of posterity only insofar as the rights of posterity to change those terms and conditions were respected. This was accomplished in Article V of the Constitution, the amending article, which prescribed the forms to be followed when exercising that power in the future.

The Framers had designed a constitutional structure for a government which would be limited by that structure - by the distribution of power into distinct departments, a system of legislative balances and checks, an independent judiciary, a system of representation, and an enlargement of the orbit "within which such systems are to revolve" And to the judges they assigned the duty, as "faithful guardians of the Constitution," to preserve the integrity of the structure, for it is by the structure (more than by "parchment barriers") that the government is limited. It would he only a slight exaggeration to say that, in the judgment of the Founders, the Constitution would "live" as long as that structure was preserved.

The Enduring American Constitution

Now, almost 200 years later, one can read Hamilton's words in Federalist No. 1 and conclude that, under some conditions, some "societies of men" are capable of "establishing good government," but that most are not. This is not for lack of trying; on the contrary, constitutions are being written all the time - of some 164 countries in the world, all but a small handful (seven by the latest count) have written constitutions - but most of them are not long-lived.

In September 1983, the American Enterprise Institute sponsored an international conference on constitution writing at the Supreme Court of the United States; some twenty-odd countries were represented. With the exception of the Americans, the persons present had themselves played a role - in some cases a major role - in the writing of their countries' constitutions, most of them written since 1970. Only the con­stitution of the French Fifth Republic predated 1970; and the Nigerian, so ably discussed and defended at the 1983 conference by one of its own Framers, had subsequently been subverted, much as the four previous French republican constitutions had been subverted. It would seem that many peoples are experienced in the writing of constitutions, but only a few of them - conspicuous among these the people of America - have an experience of stable constitutional govern­ment. In that sense, we surely have "a living Constitution." That is not, however, the sense in which the term is ordinarily used in the literature of constitutional law as shall be explored herein.

Treating The Constitution As
A Thing Without Form or Substance:
New Definitions Of 'Living'

In the language of many today, a "living Constitution" is not first of all one that is long-lived; rather, its longevity is a secondary or derivative quality which is attributed to its "flexibility" or better, its "adaptability." It is this quality--"adaptability"-- that allows it to be "kept in tune with the times," as the members of this school of thought sometimes say. According to them, a living Constitution is first of all a protean constitution - one whose meaning is not fixed, but variable.

In this respect, it is similar to the Constitution as understood by the "judicial power" school. Some judicial power advocates go so far as to say that, until the judges supply it in the process of adjudication, the Constitution has no meaning whatever. Here are the words of judge Lynn D. Compton of California, writing in 1977 in the pages of the Los Angeles Times:

"Let's be honest with the public. Those courts are policy-making bodies. The policies they set have the effect of law because of the power those courts are given by the Constitution. The so-called "landmark decisions" of both of U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court were not compelled by legal precedent. Those decisions are the law and are considered "right" simply because the court had the power to decree the result. The result in any of those cases could have been exactly the opposite and by the same criteria been correct and binding precedent.

"In short, these precedent-setting policy decisions were the products of the social, economic and political philosophy of the majority of the justices who made up the court at a given time in history .."

So extreme a view of judicial power is not likely ever to be expressed in the official reports; there (perhaps in order to be dishonest with the public) even the most inventive judge will claim to be expounding the Constitution, if not its ex­plicit provisions then, at least its emanations, penumbras, or lacunae (Griswold v. Connecticut). What is of interest is that a judge should be willing to express it anywhere - for what it means is that a constitutional provision can be interpreted, but not misinterpreted, construed but not misconstrued. More to the point here is that it means that the Constitution is a living charter of government only because it is repeatedly being reinvented by the judiciary.

The 'Living Constitution' school and the 'Judicial Power' school may be indistinguishable at the margins, but they derive from unrelated and distinct sources. 'Judicial Power' is a product or an extension of legal realism, the school of thought whose advocates, from the beginning of the twentieth century, have argued that the essence of the judicial process consists not in interpreting law, whether statute or constitutional, but in making it. Its advocates today speak with a certain nonchalance of "creating" constitutional rights (Moore v. City of East Cleveland), and, when pressed to cite their authority for doing so are likely to point to the work of contemporary legal theorists like Ronald Dworkin and his book Taking Rights Seriously . It is Dworkin who has purportedly given this sort of "constitutional lawmaking" what it has always lacked ­ a philosophical underpinning. As he sees it, rights cannot be taken seriously until there has been "a fusion of constitutional law and moral theory," and to make it clear that he is not referring to any particular moral theory that may have informed the Constitution as written, he finishes that sentence by saying that that fusion "has yet to take place."

As it turns out, however, the moral theory he propounds, and which he hopes to "fuse" with constitutional law, proves to be nothing more than a fancy way of justifying what the judge Comptons among us have been doing all along. And what they have been doing is, essentially, treating the Constitution as a thing without form or substance, except insofar as it authorizes the judges to give it substance.

The living Constitution school also claims to have a source more venerable than legal realism or Ronald Dworkin - justice John Marshall. A former president of the American Political Science Association argues that the idea of a " 'living Constitution'...can trace its lineage back to John Marshall's celebrated advice in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): 'We must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding...intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs' " The words quoted are certainly Marshall's but the opinion attributed to him is at odds with his well-known statements that, for example, the "principles" of the Constitution "are deemed fundamental [and] permanent" and, except by means of formal amendment, "unchangeable" (Marbury v. Madison). It is important to note that the discrepancy is not Marshall's; it is largely the consequence of the manner in which he is quoted - ellipses are used to join two statements separated by some eight pages in the original text. Marshall did not say that the Constitution should be adapted to the various crises of human affairs; he said that the powers of Congress are adaptable to meet those crises. The first statement appears in that part of his opinion where he is arguing that the Constitution cannot specify "all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit;" if it attempted to do so, it would "partake of the prolixity of a legal code" (McCulloch v. Maryland), In the second statement, Marshall's subject is the legislative power, and specifically the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution" the explicitly granted powers.

Neither Marshall nor any other prominent members of the founding generation can be 'appropriated' by the living Constitution school to support their erroneous views. Marshall's and the Founders' concern was not to keep the Constitution in tune with the times but, rather, to keep the times to the extent possible, in tune with the Constitution. And that is why the Framers assigned to the judiciary the task of protecting the Constitution as written.

They were under no illusions that this would prove to be an easy task. Nevertheless, they had reason to believe that they had written a constitution that deserved to endure and, properly guarded, would endure. Hence, Madison spoke out forcefully against frequent appeals to the people for change. Marshall had this Madisonian passage in mind when, in his opinion for the Court in Marbury, he wrote:

At this point, it is well to remember Hamilton's strong warning about unwarranted presumptions by those in government of a power to depart from the people's established form as quoted in the title of this essay.

Marshall referred to the "principles" which he called "permanent," and the "basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected" Yet Marshall also chose to address the much broader issue of the general scope of the national powers. The Constitution must be construed to "...allow to the national legislature that discretion, with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people." It is these powers, not the Constitution, which are flexible and adaptable to meet the crises of "human affairs."

Ironically, the very case cited by the "living Constitution" school, when properly read, demonstrates that John Marshall, at least, saw, no need for flexibility in the Constitution.

Summary: Do We Have A Living Constitution?

What has been undertaken here has been providing (within a very brief compass indeed) an accurate statement of the principles underlying the American Constitution: pointing to (but by no means elaborating) the political theory from which they derive and the constitutional conclusions to which they lead. Among the latter is the untenability of the proposition that constitutional limitations can be jettisoned, constitutional power enhanced, or the constitutional divi­sion of powers altered, by means other than formal constitutional amendment.

It will not be argued that it may sometimes be convenient to allow the Senate to originate a bill "for raising revenue," but convenience is not a measure of constitutionality. There is much to be said in favor of the legislative veto - Who would, in principle, deny the need of checks on administrative agencies? - but, as the Supreme Court correctly said, the Framers anticipated that Congress might find reason to employ such devices and, when designing the so-called "presentment clause" in Article 1, Section 7, forbade them ( Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha). And from a particular par­tisan perspective it is understandably frustrating, simply because the required number of states had not yet ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, to be denied the power to pro­mote the cause of sexual equality; but frustration alone cannot justify a judicial attempt to preclude the necessity of for­mal ratification, as Justice Brennan is said to have wished to do. In Frontiero v. Richardson (411 U.S. 677, 1973) the Supreme Court was divided on the issue of whether sex, like race, should be treated as a suspect classification. We are told that Justice Brennan circulated a draft opinion in which he proposed to declare classification by sex virtually impermissi­ble and that he knew this would have the effect of "enacting" the pending ERA. "But Brennan was accustomed to having the Court out in front, leading any civil rights movement," a major publication stated. Hence, we are further told, he saw "no reason to wait several years for the states to ratify the amendment." No reason, that is, other than the fact, which Brennan implicitly acknowledged, that the Constitu­tion as then written, and which had not yet been rewritten by the only people authorized to rewrite it, did not support the role he would have the Court hand down.

Those who would use "convenience" or "frustration" as reason, or who insist that it lies within the powers of the Court (or the Congress or the Executive) to effect constitutional change, can be charged with a lack of respect for the principles on which, as Marshall wisely observed: "the whole American fabric has been erected."

We are told that it is unreasonable - even foolish - to expect that the Framers could have written a Constitution suitable alike for a society of husbandman and a society of multinational corporations, to say nothing of one as well adapted to the age of the musket and sailing ship as to the age of intercontinental nuclear-tipped missiles. As the problems have changed, the argument goes, so must the manner in which they are confronted and solved, and the Constitution cannot be allowed to stand in the way. Indeed, there is no reason to allow it to stand in the way, we are told, because the Framers intended it to be flexible. And we are told that John Marshall would support this position. But it was Marshall, in McCulloch v. Maryland, who stated: "Throughout this vast republic, from the St. Croix to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, revenue is to be collected and expended, armies are to be marched and supported." The United States, in this view was not intended to be a simple society of husbandmen, and Marshall Clearly saw that the Constitution empowered Congress to do what was required to meet the crises of the Republic, and to maintain the Constitutional structure intended by the Framers, changing it only when such change would be in keeping with the structure itself.

That the American Constitution is long-lived, has enduring qualities, and was intended for the ages cannot be doubted. That it was founded on enduring principles, and that it was based on the authority of a people who are sovereign has been attested to by many of its leaders. That it can be changed when, and if, the people ordain such change is a part of its own provisions. For these reasons, it can be said to be a "Living Constitution" - but let that not be claimed by those who would use the language to subvert the structure.

Our Ageless Constitution - Part VII (1987) (Publisher: W. David Stedman Associates; W. D. Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Eds.) ISBN 0-937047-01-5       (Essay adapted by Editors for publication in this Volume in consultation with Dr. Walter Berns from Berns' article by the same title in National Forum, The Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Fall 1984)


9 posted on 02/20/2017 12:17:36 PM PST by loveliberty2
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To: NYer

They’ve done it the underhanded way, and lots of Christians cheer. Once they did it to Carrie Prejean, eventually all Christians will get the same treatment.


10 posted on 02/20/2017 12:18:32 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: NYer

The heatherns have been trying to kill off Christianity for the last 2000 years and have failed miserably.

The heatherns have been trying to kill off Judaism for the last 3500 years and have also failed miserably.

What is it about the Bible, a book of myths and fables, by their own definition, that has terrified them for the last 3000 years?


11 posted on 02/20/2017 12:28:27 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (GAY MARRIAGE- Like declaring a dog's tail to be a leg giving a dog 5 legs. But it is still a tail!)
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To: NYer

“We ought to obey God rather than men.”


12 posted on 02/20/2017 12:33:20 PM PST by txrefugee
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To: NYer

The whole world is in the same boat.
Throwing Christians over board will not kill God.

Fools abound.


13 posted on 02/20/2017 12:37:59 PM PST by right way right (May we remain sober over mere men, for God really is our one and only true hope.)
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To: NYer

Honestly?

Because they don’t want to see a bunch of dead gay people, which is what would happen if they went that overt that fast.


14 posted on 02/20/2017 12:48:00 PM PST by Yashcheritsiy (Bring back lords and kings)
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To: NYer

Bttt


15 posted on 02/20/2017 1:47:06 PM PST by independentmind
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To: NYer

According to a couple of the Podesta e-mails that WikiLeaks exposed the outlawing of Christianity was one of the Dems goals. They were going to begin by abolishing the Catholic Church here in the US.


16 posted on 02/20/2017 2:02:01 PM PST by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: NYer

Hey cant just outlaw one religion. Thy know that will be shot down. Their incremetal approach has worked incrdibly well and they wont stop that.


17 posted on 02/20/2017 3:05:08 PM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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