Alabama SC justices cave, order Ten Commandments removed

AP on Fox News ^ | 8-21-03 | AP on Fox News website

[rwfromkansas]

MONTGOMERY, Ala.

[general_re]

Is the display of the Ten Commandments constitutionally protected or not.

That's a little bit like asking if shooting people is legal or not - depends on how it's done. Context is everything.

[jwalsh07]

Not necessarily.

Come on General, I have always found you an honest guy. You know as well as I do that "not necessarily" is a sophist statement.

Oaths to God were required in all courtrooms, federal and state.

[WOSG]

Thanks for the great post!

[inquest]

Afoul of the Lemon test? But Lemon had nothing to do with the 14th amendment, so how's that going to help me?

[hobbes1]

Justice William Rehnquist made an extensive study of the history of the First Amendment. In his dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree (472 U.S. 38, 48, n. 30 [1984],) he stated: `There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the `wall of separation' that was constitutionalized in Everson. . . . But the greatest injury of the `wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. . . . [N]o amount of repetition of historical errors in judicial opinions can make the errors true. The `wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history. . . . It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. . . . Our perception has been clouded not by the Constitution but by the mists of an unnecessary metaphor. It would come as much of a shock to those who drafted the Bill of Rights, as it will to a large number of thoughtful Americans today, to learn that the Constitution, as construed by the majority, prohibits the Alabama Legislature from endorsing prayer. George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God. History must judge whether it was the Father of his Country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the Establishment Clause.'

[jwalsh07]

Context is everything

Ah I see, you have to check with the feds to see if they match the curtains.:-}

[lugsoul]

"No, I didn't say that lack of belief was a religion."

You are right, you didn't. You repeatedly asked a question with that statement as a premise. Which, if you are not saying it, is merely an exercise in sophistry because I certainly am not advocating that position.

[commonerX]

This is an arguement that can not be provin one way or another. My main point is that people of history used religion to justify the murder and killing of people that didn't believe in the same.

I will contend that most wars were fought over power by the rulers in charge, but what was the motivation for the masses to accept this or that war. In many of these cases they used religious diference as a reason.

[WOSG]

Ah, thanks to Jwalsh, I can cut-n-paste my way to a decent retort to that bizarre notion that religious motivation in a public official makes otherwise legal action illegal ...


"
I cannot join for yet another reason: the Court's statement that the proposed use of the school's facilities is constitutional because (among other things) it would not signal endorsement of religion in general. Ante, at 10. What a strange notion, that a Constitution which itself gives "religion in general" preferential treatment (I refer to the Free Exercise Clause) forbids endorsement of religion in general. The attorney general of New York not only agrees with that strange notion, he has an explanation for it: "Religious advocacy," he writes, "serves the community only in the eyes of its adherents, and yields a benefit only to those who already believe." Brief for Respondent Attorney General 24. That was not the view of those who adopted our Constitution, who believed that the public virtues inculcated by religion are a public good. It suffices to point out that, during the summer of 1789, when it was in the process of drafting the First Amendment, Congress enacted the Northwest Territory Ordinance of that the Confederation Congress had adopted, in 1787 - Article III of which provides, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Unsurprisingly, then, indifference to "religion in general" is not what our cases, both old and recent, demand. See, e.g., Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 313 -314 (1952) ("When the state [508 U.S. 385, 401] encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions"); Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U.S. 664 (1970) (upholding property tax exemption for church property); Lynch, 465 U.S., at 673 (the Constitution "affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions. . . . Anything less would require the `callous indifference' we have said was never intended" (citations omitted)); id., at 683 ("Our precedents plainly contemplate th that, on occasion, some advancement of religion will result from governmental action"); Marsh, supra; Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus christ of Latterday Saints v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987) (exemption for religious organizations from certain provisions of Civil Rights Act). " - Justice Scalia

[lugsoul]

Neither your freedom of expression nor Judge Roy Moore's requires that you be given the unfettered use of the resources of the state to exercise your freedom of expression.

[inquest]

You repeatedly asked a question with that statement as a premise.

That statement was not my premise. 1. My premise was that lack of belief in a Creator (or, perhaps I should say, belief that there isn't a Creator) is a religious belief. 2. I also said that religious beliefs are not religions. Now put Statements 1 and 2 together, and what do you come up with?

[lugsoul]

Now you are just playing silly semantic games. I STILL disagree with your premise. If lack of belief in religion is a "religious belief" then, by your logic, an organization of non-believers is a "religion." I don't buy it. So your question is meaningless to me. But, to get to the core of what you were asking, I repeat again that the Bill of Rights is not religious law, and the Sharia is.

[WOSG]

By your reasoning, if the Alabama legislature outlawed stealing, with the majority of lawmakers saying 'because it is in the Ten Commandments', the law should be declared Unconstitutional.


Extremist Pretzel logic strikes again.

Feh!

[WOSG]

"Neither your freedom of expression nor Judge Roy Moore's requires that you be given the unfettered use of the resources of the state to exercise your freedom of expression. "

Strawman and further evasion of my question.

What is "unfettered" about one room, and one monument?
And if it was *donated*, does that make it better and therefore legal?

[lugsoul]

Nope. That's not my logic, nor have I claimed such. But if they adopted the Ten Commandments as statutory law, then it absolutely would be unconstitutional.

Perhaps you have hit on the difference. Adoption of religion by government does not mean expressing that they like pieces of a religion, rather than the whole thing. Saying the Ten Commandments are good and we use some of them in our law, then, is not adoption of religion. Saying the God I believe in governs the affairs of the state and all its citizens is.

[lugsoul]

If the monument does not present any constitutional problem, why could it not be paid for out of the state treasury?

[inquest]

If lack of belief in religion is a "religious belief" then, by your logic, an organization of non-believers is a "religion."

So are you saying they're not entitled to the protection of the first amendment?

[lugsoul]

No. I am saying that they have a right to free speech, and assembly, but that the fact that they gather together to express a common view does not entitle them to the protection of "free exercise" of religion.

[lugsoul]

Fine - change my choice of words to "fettered or unfettered." I don't care. Your free exercise does not have to be state-supported. And neither does Judge Moore's. Nor mine.

[general_re]

Like I said before, I think that the Court will revisit and revise Lemon before too much longer - Lamb's Chapel is one of the reasons I say that.

Won't come in time to save Judge Moore, though.