Posted on 09/11/2007 7:37:47 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Our Constitution holds that all religions are equal, and must be treated equally. None may be favoured, none supressed.
In reality, they are not all equal ...
Bingo.
And the one that trumps them all is the worship of Caesar.
The Constitution says no such thing.
L
Means precisely what I said it means.
And it's wrong.
Although, as Alex correctly notes, the (metaphorical) worship of Caesar is favoured.
No it doesn't. If they'd meant to say that "all religions are equal" they would have said that. Instead they said "Congress shall make no law..." That's why they used different words.
L
This is disgraceful!
And why, pray tell, shall congress make no law? What shall congress make no law respecting? Why is that topic off limits for lawmaking?
islamists are just using our system against us to destroy us and laughing about it the whole time. The problem is having islam classified as a religion instead of the deluded ravings (by mohammed’s own admission I hear) of a tribal warlord.
Fine, so “Congress shall make no law”, but it doesn’t way anything about private organizations or other forms of government.
I don’t see that every governmental agency is required to treat all religions equally. So let the jails and prisons ban islam if they’ve become a hotbed of terrorist recruiting.
Bingo ... if it's a religion, it cannot (legally) be treated differently from other religions. But it presented itself as a religion for many centuries before these United States were even dreamt of. Mohammedanism was counted as a religion when the Constitution was written.
Deluded ravings? I agree. I think the same of the Book of MXXXXX. Other folks disagree. Some folks would describe the Holy Gospel according to St. John as deluded ravings. I disagree. Who's to judge? The Supreme Court? I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea.
My point stands. The presumptive equality of all religions is a fundamental flaw in our constitutional republic.
Sadly it appears so. I somehow suspect that if the founding fathers knew how that would be used, they might have worded it different.
Actually, it does only restrict Congress from making laws meddling with religion. It doesn't say anything else about anyone else. Assuming that this restriction on Congress in regards to making laws regulating religion should apply to every one else, is a misinterpretation of the First Amendment.
Actually, it doesn't say anything about executive agencies or the judiciary. Governmental entities that are purely the creatures of congress cannot have authority to favour or suppress a particular religion; congress cannot give them authority which congress itself lacks.
Furthermore, the main body of the constitution enumerates the powers delegated to the judiciary and to the executive. I do not find establishing a religion (or preventing the free exercise thereof) to be among the enumerated powers of the President, the Vice President, or the courts. I believe, therefore, that they lack the authority to do such. In many respects, I think that the first 8 amendments are superfluous. They explicitly deny the congess (or the rest of the government) powers that it never had in the first place. But we start to go far afield ...
L
>> Our Constitution holds that all religions are equal, and must be treated equally. None may be favoured, none supressed. <<
No, it doesn’t at all. It says, “CONGRESS shall make no LAW respecting an ESTABLISHMENT of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof.”
What the prisons have done is exacty opposite: recognizing 20 establishments of religion.
Instead, what should have been done is this: the federal government should have authorized prisons to remove books solely based on the criteria that call for violence. What are donated to the prison library by outside groups would continue to have nothing to do with acts of Congress, even under the broadest sense of that term.
L: You lecturing me on context is laughable.
D: I disagree ... the prisons seem to be allowing any religion to “minister” to the inmates, declining to inhibit the free exercise of any. One could reasonably argue, however, that the inmates have forfeited that right. It wouldn’t be the only right they have forfeited.
Apparently it's wasted rather than laughable.
L
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