Alan Keyes: On the establishment of religion: What the Constitution really says

Worldnetdaily ^ | 08/26/2003 | Alan Keyes

[tpaine]

You claim:

"-- the 14th Amendment was never intended to make the federal 'Establishment Clause' binding on the states.
-ginosko-


On its face, The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment binds the federal government:

"Congress shall make no law ... ."

As a general statement of religious liberty, however, the First Amendment also binds state governments.

For religious liberty is part of the body, the corpus, of fundamental liberties guaranteed by the 14th Amendment: "No state shall deprive any person of ... liberty ... without due process of law."


Why would you WANT a state to have the power to deprive any person of ... [a religious] ... liberty ... without due process of law?

[tpaine]

Behind the Lines in CA wrote: The "persons" the 14th Amendment sought to protect were not the Citizens of the several States. They already had such protections as Citizens, via their respective State Constitutions.
Go read Dred Scott and you'll have a better understanding of the unfortunate class of "persons" the 14th Amendment was addressing.
-behind the times-


Good lord....

After the repeal of slavery, there supposedly were no 'classes' of persons under our constitution.

[tpaine]

It's a given that the courts are frequently wrong. That's the issue.

[tpaine]

Actually, 34 is posted by a person that disagrees with you...
99 -rw-


That's what makes the post so amusing. They destroyed their own point [and Keyes point] by putting up that quote about the 14th.

[tpaine]

It has been demonstrated that Keyes INcorrectly observes, "No language in the 14th Amendment deals with this power of government."



On its face, The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment binds the federal government:
"Congress shall make no law ... ."

As a general statement of religious liberty, however, the First Amendment also binds state governments.
For religious liberty is part of the body, the corpus, of fundamental liberties guaranteed by the 14th Amendment:
"No state shall deprive any person of ... liberty ... without due process of law."

[tpaine]

The 14th was preceded by freeing the slaves.

[tpaine]

Ok, you've made some sort of point about freed slaves bring 'persons' with no citizenship.

So? -- What now?

[fatidic]

Allen Keyes should be on the Supreme Court.

[Ginosko]

"For religious liberty is part of the body, the corpus, of fundamental liberties guaranteed by the 14th Amendment: "No state shall deprive any person of ... liberty ... without due process of law."

That is precisely the heart of the argument. In my view Emerson was flawed. How can an Amendment, to wit the 14th, which was never intended to extend the reach of the 1st, now apply to the states? And upon what possible legal ground was incorporation of the first clause of the 1st Amendment actually made? The liberty propounded in the 1st clause of the 1st Amendment is a collective right granted to the people and to the state- not an individual liberty as is expressed in the second clause of the same amendment.

[djf]

The 14th is inapplicable.

SECTION 1. RIGHTS GUARANTEED: PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES
Unique among constitutional provisions, the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enjoys the distinction of having been rendered a ''practical nullity'' by a single decision of the Supreme Court issued within five years after its ratification. In the Slaughter-House Cases,15 a bare majority of the Court frustrated the aims of the most aggressive sponsors of this clause, to whom was attributed an intention to centralize ''in the hands of the Federal Government large powers hitherto exercised by the States'' with a view to enabling business to develop unimpeded by state interference. This expansive alteration of the federal system was to have been achieved by converting the rights of the citizens of each State as of the date of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment into privileges and immunities of United States citizenship and thereafter perpetuating this newly defined status quo through judicial condemnation of any state law challenged as ''abridging'' any one of the latter privileges. To have fostered such intentions, the Court declared, would have been ''to transfer the security and protection of all the civil rights . . . to the Federal Government, . . . to bring within the power of Congress the entire domain of civil rights heretofore belonging exclusively to the States,'' and to ''constitute this court a perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States, on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to nullify such as it did not approve as consistent with those rights, as they existed at the time of the adoption of this amendment. . . . [The effect of] so great a departure from the structure and spirit of our institutions . . . is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character. . . . We are convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress . . . , nor by the legislatures . . . which ratified'' this amendment, and that the sole ''pervading purpose'' of this and the other War Amendments was ''the freedom of the slave race.''

From Findlaw.

[GulliverSwift]

In fact, why would any rational conservative WANT the states to have the power to violate our BOR's?

It isn't a matter of wanting or not wanting states to violate the BOR. It's simply that most of the amendments do not apply to actions of the state governments.

You're forgetting that the BOR was designed as a concession to people who feared an all-powerful FEDERAL government. The motive behind the amendments was to put the kibosh on federal abuse of individual rights. The constitutions of each state had already established rights for their citizenry. The U.S. Constitution did not provide any such protections from the national government and thus the BOR was written.

[Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS]

WASHINGTON – A leading scholar of the First Amendment says if he were Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, he would "rather go to jail" than allow the Ten Commandments to be removed from his court building.

In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Dr. David Lowenthal, emeritus professor of political Science at Boston College, said the Founding Fathers would be appalled at the federal court order for the removal of the Ten Commandments monument.

"I would not want to go to jail," he said, "but if I had to, I wouldn’t give up on the principle" that Justice Moore is defending "that cuts across all lines that [concern] first of all, states’ rights, and ... the proper interpretation of the First Amendment."

To compare Moore’s refusal to bow to the atheist/left-wing/ACLU axis with George Wallace’s standing in the schoolhouse door to preserve segregation in 1962 is ludicrous, declares Lowenthal, author of the new book "Present Dangers: Rediscovering the First Amendment."

Furthermore, this "present danger," as he calls it, predates the uproar that began 40 yeas ago when the courts started chasing religion out of classrooms. For 70 years, he argues, the courts have willfully misinterpreted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in an attempt to banish religion from public life. Such court decisions betray "a gross misunderstanding" of the Constitution, Lowenthal says.

No 'Separation' Is Mandated

Contrary to federal court decisions, Lowenthal says, the First Amendment to the Constitution does not require "a perfect separation of church and state, that there be no vestige of religion in the state or in public life or in government." Furthermore, "even the [U.S.] Supreme Court has edged away from that view in recent decades."

Note that the phrase "separation of church and state" parroted by anti-religious extremists appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, a fact that many Americans miseducated by government schools do not know.

It is not only the First Amendment that is distorted beyond its meaning by the courts, but the Fourteenth Amendment as well. And that raises the question in this scholar’s mind as to whether the Supreme Court of the United States has jurisdiction over the Alabama Supreme Court in matters of this kind. Lowenthal agrees with Moore that it does not.

Ratified after the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment says that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or due process of law, the noted authority notes.

"The word ‘liberty’ there has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include" a meaning far beyond what was intended.

"You see, originally that was intended to simply make sure that blacks and whites were treated equally under the law, particularly in the Southern states after the Civil War," Lowenthal explained to NewsMax. "It was not meant for the Supreme Court to be the judge of what constitutes human liberty. That was left to the states just so long as they treated people equally." Thus, the court "has enormously expanded its authority over the states."

As for the decision by Moore’s colleagues on the Alabama Supreme Court to oppose him: "It seems to me that any state worth its salt would not submit to this kind of thing."

Lowenthal said: "Obviously Justice Roy Moore believes that it’s wrong. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this. He would bow down to the federal judiciary. But he doesn’t think that he has to. I don’t think so either."

[GulliverSwift]

Why are you stilling using that out-of-context quotation? Your excerpt is not relevant to your point. See #76.

[tpaine]

For religious liberty is part of the body, the corpus, of fundamental liberties guaranteed by the 14th Amendment:
"No state shall deprive any person of ... liberty ... without due process of law."

That is precisely the heart of the argument.

Indeed it is. How can you argue against the principle of religious liberty? Why would you want a state to have powers to deprive anyone of them?

How can an Amendment, to wit the 14th, which was never intended to extend the reach of the 1st, now apply to the states?

It was WRITTEN to apply ALL of the BOR's to the states. - Sheesh.

And upon what possible legal ground was incorporation of the first clause of the 1st Amendment actually made? The liberty propounded in the 1st clause of the 1st Amendment is a collective right granted to the people and to the state-

Ahh, comes the dawn. You believe in "collective" rights that are "granted". Who does the 'granting'?

not an individual liberty as is expressed in the second clause of the same amendment.

Odd, fractionated view of religious rights.
Where did you come up with this 'collective' idea?

[tpaine]

Yep, that was a fine example from Findlaw of the outrageous unconstitutional hype from the 'states rightists' of its day.

I'm surprised you posted that nasty bit about:

"-- the sole ''pervading purpose'' of this and the other War Amendments was ''the freedom of the slave race."