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To: Jim Noble; strela
Government officials are not Congress.

And it could only be so construed if you dishonestly distort the clear meaning of "establishment".

"You" means the US Supreme Court?

I'm not a lawyer, so I will post a few comments I found through google. As you probably know, the SCOTUS has its own 'logic,' therefore don't blame me for posting their contradictory reasonings ;-)

AMENDMENT XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.



Although the 14th Amendment to the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, ratified in 1868, was designed to restrain state governments from abridging the rights of former slaves after the Civil War, it has been used to extend virtually all of the personal liberties and rights granted in the BILL OF RIGHTS to protection against infringement by state governments. The amendment itself defines citizenship and restrains states from abridging the privileges or immunities of a citizen, requires Due Process of law and equal protection of the laws to persons under its jurisdiction, reduces representation in for states that deny voting rights, disqualifies for office certain officials of the Confederacy, and invalidates any war debts of the confederate states.

The amendment was first construed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) and then in Hurato v. California (1884) to deny that all personal rights and liberties extended by the Bill of Rights were protected from impairment by a state. In cases such as these the basis was laid for Government Regulation. In LoOchner v. New York (1905), however, and in other decisions through the 1930s, the Court interpreted the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to invalidate state legislation regulating working conditions, hours, and minimum wage laws. Many of the notable dissenting opinions of Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Louis Brandeis, and Benjamin Cardozo, which later became law, can be found in decisions of this era relating to issues arising under the 14th Amendment.

It was not until 1925 in Gitlow v. New York that the Court used the due process clause of this amendment to incorporate a provision of the Bill of Rights by extending the FIRST AMENDMENT protection of freedom of speech to persons against abridgment by state action. By 1937 (Palko v. Connecticut), all of the 1st Amendment protections were binding on the states under the theory that those provisions of the Bill of Rights "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" were included in the due process guarantee of the 14th Amendment. The Court has gradually included all amendments of the Bill of Rights except the SECOND, THIRD, SEVENTH, TENTH, and the requirement of grand jury indictment in the FIFTH Amendment in its "selective incorporation doctrine," protecting individual rights from state encroachment. The due process clause has also been used to acknowledge the right to privacy (Roe v. Wade, 1971).

The equal protection clause has been used to limit racial discrimination (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 1954), maintain fair legislative apportionment (Baker v. Carr, 1962), and to forbid the use of rigid quotas in public equal opportunity programs (University of California v. Bakke, 1978). The 14th Amendment has been both praised and vilified over the years. While proponents point to advancement in standards of justice and civil liberties, critics assert that the Supreme Court interpretations of the due process and equal protection clauses have inappropriately broadened the scope of judicial review to the examination of the substance of much state and federal law, a responsibility that these critics assert is properly the responsibility of legislative bodies.


113 posted on 09/11/2003 10:38:49 AM PDT by george wythe
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To: george wythe
Establishment of religion is an affirmative act by a People (in the West, through an act of legislation) to set one church above the others and to require all, including non-members, to pay for the expenses of said, "established" church.

Roy Moore or George Bush could confine their public utterances to verses from the gospel, exhort Jews, Muslims, and athiests to convert to Christianity at every opportunity, hold Easter sunrise services at their respective offices, and announce that they would only appoint Bible-believing Christians to offices under their jurisdiction without infringing the First Amendment.

They might be breaking the law, and insofar as they need votes to stay in office they would be most unwise-but it would not constitute Congress (or, if you accept the absurdity of "incorporation", the Alabama legislature) establishing a religion.

120 posted on 09/11/2003 11:55:06 AM PDT by Jim Noble
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