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God is Not in the Constitution (Barf)
The Village Voice ^ | 06/28/02 | Nat Hentoff

Posted on 06/29/2002 1:57:34 PM PDT by theoverseer

God Is Not in the Constitution

We receive our rights from God. —George W. Bush, denouncing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it includes "one nation under God," CNN, June 27

This decision is nuts, just nuts. —Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle, CNN, June 26

If this decision is not overturned, we will amend the Constitution. —Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman, Fox News, June 26

In 1943, during our war against Hitler, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision concerning the Pledge of Allegiance that created fierce controversy around the country—just like last week's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

The West Virginia Board of Education had expelled children of Jehovah's Witnesses for refusing to salute the flag and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. These deviants were to be sent to reformatories for criminally minded juveniles, and their parents were threatened with prosecutions for causing juvenile delinquency.

The majority of the Court, in a decision written by Robert Jackson—later chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials—defined the very essence of Americanism as they rebuked the West Virginia Board of Education and sent those kids back to school:

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." (Emphasis added.)

Since then, there has been a long line of federal court decisions affirming the right of students to refuse to stand for the pledge or salute the flag—for a wide spectrum of reasons of conscience.

As I described in Living the Bill of Rights (University of California Press, paper), a number of principals and school boards have nonetheless punished students for following the 1943 Supreme Court decision, and these "educators" have been overruled by the courts.

Now we have nearly the entire House and Senate, along with an array of fashionable law professors and such dubiously anointed "legal analysts" as Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker and CNN, scorning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the phrase "one nation under God" puts the Pledge of Allegiance in violation of the separation of church and state.

First, contrary to such instant experts as Connie Chung of CNN, the pledge has not been banned across the nation. The decision affects only the nine states within the Ninth Circuit's purview, if it is not overruled. Second, even within those nine states, a public school student can still recite the pledge, omitting God. Or he or she can recite the pledge, including God—but not as part of an officially mandated public school exercise.

What Judge Alfred Goodwin, a Nixon appointee, did in his Ninth Circuit decision was to follow the rule set by Justice Robert Jackson in 1943:

The fact that "boards of education are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount principles of our government as mere platitudes." (Emphasis added.)

In his decision in Newdow v. U.S. Congress, Judge Goodwin—like Jackson in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette—was affirming the fundamental constitutional command that the government cannot endorse any particular religion or all religions. Otherwise, like China, we would have certain preferred religious beliefs especially protected by the state.

From Judge Goodwin's decision about why including "one nation under God" is a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment:

"Particularly within the confined environment of the classroom, the policy is highly likely to convey an impermissible message of [government] endorsement to some, and disapproval to others, of their beliefs regarding the existence of a monotheistic God."

As he pointed out, the phrase "one nation under God" was added to the pledge by Congress in 1954 to advance religion for the sole purpose of differentiating the United States from atheist Communist nations. And, Judge Goodwin emphasized, "such a purpose" is forbidden by the establishment clause, which prohibits the government from advancing religion "at the expense of atheism."

Goodwin also pointed to the "age and impressionability" of the children at the Morse School in Elk Grove, California, the site of the lawsuit. But on Friday morning, there on television were the elementary school students of that very school, with their hands on their hearts, reciting the pledge, including "one nation under God"—and to hell with the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

"Impressionable," however, is not the word for the members of the House and Senate who thronged to excoriate the Ninth Circuit. And on the Capitol steps, in a proud bipartisan display of ignorance of the Constitution's separation of church and state, the House members, hands on hearts, recited the pledge and broke into a righteous "God Bless America."

The cause of all this belligerently conformist patriotism is Dr. Michael Newdow, an atheist and emergency room doctor who also has a law degree and acted as his own lawyer. He sued to preserve the constitutional rights of his eight-year-old daughter, a second-grade student in the Elk Grove Unified School District.

For exercising his constitutional right to confront his government in court, Dr. Newdow says, he is receiving "personal and scary" threats: "I could be dead tomorrow. . . . A lot of God-loving people think that killing other people who don't agree with them is OK."

Dr. Newdow may not receive a warm, protective response from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who insists that "this decision is directly contrary to two centuries of American tradition."

An even longer American tradition is that there is no mention of God in the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence, heralded by opponents of the Ninth Circuit decision for its references to God, does not have the force of law. And the Constitution says plainly, "No religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public trust under the United States." We all have the right to freedom of belief, or nonbelief, in God.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: nathentoff; pledgeofallegience
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To: RonF
In the Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress, the Kentucky Resolution includes this little interesting portion:

"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 United States 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 United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and 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. And thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right of protecting the same, as this State, by a law passed on the general demand of its citizens, had already protected them from all human restraint or interference. And that in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which expressly declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press": thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch, that whatever violates either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion,are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals. That, therefore, the act of Congress of the United States, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, intituled "An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States," which does abridge the freedom of the press, is not law, but is altogether void, and of no force."

Letter to Samuel Miller:

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the States."

Letter to Elbridge Gerry:

"I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."

The Works of Thomas Jefferson---Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush:

"The successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the Constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment OF A PARTICULAR FORM OF CHRISTIANITY THRO' THE U.S.; and as every sect believes its own form is the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they believe that any portion of power confided in me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly."

(notice that this one indicates a view of the Establishment clause that is of a modern conservative, that it strictly refers to a legal establishment of a faith).


81 posted on 06/30/2002 3:35:37 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: f.Christian
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values GROWTH!

Read the 2nd treatise on civil government. It is the Classical Liberal equivalent of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. The opening section totally rejects traditional christian views of government and the document as a whole states in a nutshell that the only legitimate functions of the government are to protect life, liberty and property; the government has no legitimate authority to regulate public morality beyond the point of forbidding public nudity and things like child molestation. Oh liberalism, like classic Greco-Roman culture taught learning natural science as a virtue something Christianity does not. Natural science is a form of arrogance according to Christian teachings. The West was for a time period a Christian region of the world. That was during the time in which virtually no artistic or scientific advancements were made. Once we started returning to the culture of the pre-Christian West that changed.

82 posted on 06/30/2002 3:36:27 PM PDT by dheretic
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To: JMJ333
I think you would be interested in a book called "Discipling the Nations," by Dennis Woods.
83 posted on 06/30/2002 3:40:58 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: Tennessee_Bob
God is Not in the Constitution

No, but if you hold it up to the light just right, Mary is!

84 posted on 06/30/2002 3:41:59 PM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
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To: Dr. Frank
Hentoff sometimes is a good guy. But I have to say, on the church/state issue, I don't know whether to cry or gag at his utter stupidity.
85 posted on 06/30/2002 3:43:09 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: RedBloodedAmerican
No, but if you hold it up to the light just right, Mary is!

Depends on whether or not you have the copy with the tea stain on it or not.

86 posted on 06/30/2002 3:43:54 PM PDT by Tennessee_Bob
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To: Tennessee_Bob
Good point!!
87 posted on 06/30/2002 3:46:10 PM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
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To: dheretic
According to Witherspoon, a Calvinist and only signeer of the Declaration of Independence, we were within our rights.
88 posted on 06/30/2002 3:47:34 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: rwfromkansas
only clergyman signer I mean.
89 posted on 06/30/2002 3:47:52 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: JMJ333
I understand your point. It is important for nations to covenant together in the sight of God. However, just mentioning God wouldn't save the country.
90 posted on 06/30/2002 3:53:13 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: dheretic
Read the 2nd treatise on civil government. It is the Classical Liberal equivalent of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. The opening section totally rejects traditional christian views of government and the document as a whole states in a nutshell that the only legitimate functions of the government are to protect life, liberty and property; the government has no legitimate authority to regulate public morality beyond the point of forbidding public nudity and things like child molestation. Oh liberalism, like classic Greco-Roman culture taught learning natural science as a virtue something Christianity does not. Natural science is a form of arrogance according to Christian teachings. The West was for a time period a Christian region of the world. That was during the time in which virtually no artistic or scientific advancements were made. Once we started returning to the culture of the pre-Christian West that changed.

82 posted on 6/30/02 3:36 PM Pacific by dheretic

This is snail---slug history...grasshopper too!

You're nuts!

91 posted on 06/30/2002 3:56:15 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: dheretic
For the sake of argument let's accept your contention that the 2d treatise is based on a total rejection and hatred of religion, that it is a celebration of godlessness and material self-indulgence; that it captures the worldview of atheists who pride themselves on bowing to no authority but their own greedy selves. Perhaps you are wrong in your contention and it really speaks more to your own craven materialism than it does to religion. But for the sake of argument let's grant you your queer and twisted contention.

How odd that it is the religious believers in your god-hating governmental scheme who are the guarantors of your indulgence and freedom under it. The lesson history teaches about atheist societies is that they mare mass-murdering meat grinders and soffocating nanny states unparalleled in their horror by any other governments that have ever existed. Two-hundred million were beaten, shot, starved, gassed, hanged, eviscerated, and burned in the 20th Century alone in the name of atheism.

Hiss and spit all you want. But "rational" athiests walk a knife edge and are constantly at risk of toppling over into mindless anomie, cannibalism, and wholesale genocide.

You couldn't govern an ant farm with your philosophy, let alone thrive in a society made up only of sneering atheists such as yourself. In a society filled with such serpents you would be eating each other tail first as rapidly as you could gobble down the scales.

But only after you had murdered all the religious believers.

You freeload on our benevolence.

92 posted on 06/30/2002 3:59:33 PM PDT by Kevin Curry
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To: robertpaulsen
I would argue the way education is run today, we are essentially establishing secularism and thus, public education should be ruled unconstitutional altogether.
93 posted on 06/30/2002 4:00:24 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: rwfromkansas
My issue is sovereignty--specifically. And a question as to why the constitutional system eroded so quickly. Mentioning God is obviously not enough--but it certainly would have helped stating a specific belief of a supreme being in the constitution, so that the games these hypersensitive bitter atheists play would be a mute point. And natural law is important also--clear cut and defined--would have knee-capped the bozos who are out to destroy us.

Feel free to outline why you think the constitutional system was eroded so quickly if you don't believe it is a sovereignty issue! =)

94 posted on 06/30/2002 4:03:58 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: JMJ333
This idea stems from 18th century liberalism [specifically from the French revolution]

And how can anyone deny God when right here we have the miracle of effect preceding cause by several years?

95 posted on 06/30/2002 4:05:32 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: Tennessee_Bob
There is a urine stain on the wall in a restroom at Three River's Stadium that bears an uncanny resemblance to Harry Browne. Just thought you and and the sneer patrol would like to know in case you wish to kiss the floor in front of it.
96 posted on 06/30/2002 4:07:59 PM PDT by Kevin Curry
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To: JMJ333
just that it leaves God out of the equation, which then leaves questions of morality open for speculation

This assertion shows a stunning ignorance of history. People claiming to speak for God have asserted all sorts of mutually exclusive moral claims, up to and including absolute pacifism on the one hand and mass murder on the other. Thus, an invocation of God still leaves everything as up for grabs as ever.

97 posted on 06/30/2002 4:09:41 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: steve-b
I could trace it back farther to the 1500s, but liberalism wasn't fully developed nor widely accepted until the 18th century.

I didn't say that the founders based the constitution on the french revolution..but were familiar with French political philosophy and incorporated much of it into the american political system. You can sit their pontificating in your all-knowingness, but the facts will remain the same.

Up until the French revolution, God was the sovereign judge of religious truth and individual conscience. When the french intellectuals revolted they emphasized that political authority came from the people themselves--alone--as interpreted by the will of the majority. Sounds familiar.

The logical extreme was then carried out in the FR with mob rule, followed by a dictatorship of terror, all in the name of "the will of the people" and in opposition to God and of course the monarchy.

98 posted on 06/30/2002 4:20:08 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: steve-b
Your ad hominum is dull and unorigional. Ignorant? Pot meet kettle. You show a profound lack of knowledge in history. Try doing ten minutes of research before name calling. Oh wait...you have no real debate and have to resort to ridicule.
99 posted on 06/30/2002 4:26:26 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: Kevin Curry
=)
100 posted on 06/30/2002 4:27:03 PM PDT by JMJ333
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