Posted on 09/14/2005 11:51:27 AM PDT by Rightwingmom
SAN FRANCISCO — Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (search) in public schools was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Tell that to the folks in California, New York, and Maryland who are having perfectly legal firearms banned.
The Founders were very exact in their language. Looking at some of the debated clauses shows exactly how closely they paid attention to what they were saying. "Supreme Law of the Land" means exactly what it says. A "Bill of Rights" means a exactly what it says. These are the MINIMAL protections our Rights have as US Citizens. States were fully well allowed to EXPAND on those Rights, or their protections, but could not legislate them out of existence and still claim to be following the operating rules for the Republic.
What is it about having one minimal set of Rights, common to all US Citizens, as put forth in the various clauses of the BoR, gives some of you so much heartache that you have to use every trick in the book to try and twist the plain meaning of the words?
Art IV. Section. 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
What Privileges and Immunities? The minimum was laid forth in the BoR.
Art VI. Para 2 This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Pretty damn clear to anyone with half a brain.
Also, considering the Anti-Fed article by Brutus, the above clauses, and the Pre-amble to the BoR:
The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.
The States ratifying the Constitution knew full well that the US Constitution superseded their own. That whole underlined passage in my other post shows Brutus KNEW this to be true and wanted the minimal protections for a common set of Rights. To deny the plain language is lunacy.
They? It's one guy! Geez.
"They" would assume that there is some sort of mass communication network, where every Lib is plugged in and gets the same message instantly.
Even if it's not that sofisticated, you are really giving the libs a lot of credit. You really think "they" are THAT organized? You have a lot more faith in libs that I do if that's the case.
However, I think we can agree that the Establishment Clause (which is the issue in the Pledge cases) only applied to the federal government being that is reads "Congress shall make no law...."
So the issue is whether the 14th Amendment incorporated the Establishment Clause. The debate surrounding the Blaine Amendment in 1875 makes it pretty clear that those in Congress who passed the 14th Amendment didn't think they incorporated it...7 years after the 14th Amendment was ratfied, it appears that no member of Congress had any idea that the Establishment Clause applied to the states. So how is it that today...courts have "discovered" that it does?
Of course it is. Gold is up to $453 today.
The very definition of "establish", in todays overly lawyered and litigious society, has morphed into meaning ANY mention of religion. Much less public funding for private schools.
Because the second section of the Blaine Amendment reiterated the First Amendment Establishment Clause verbatim (just repacing the reference to "Congress shall make no..." with "No State shall...") and because the underlying purpose of the Amendment was, as you say, to end taxpayer funding of Catholic parochial schools, its clear that "establish" meant something less than official sanction of a state church
Yet when you read the Congressional Record of the debate...congressman after congressman, both those who opposed it and those who supported it, stated that it would, for the first time, make the prohibitions of the First Amendment applicable to the states.
The most outrageous aspect of First Amendment law today is that it is all based on the 1947 Everson case...a case in which the Court held that the Establishment Clause (as incorporated against the states by the 14th Amendment) prohibited the state of NJ from indirectly funding catholic schools. What's outrageous about it is that the Court in Everson did what the Blaine Amendment tried to do. Of course the Blaine Amendment failed because, as you see from some of the quotes in post #32 in this thread, many Congressman objected to an amendment to the US Constitution that would have regulated their states.
Last year the Supreme Court threw it out because Newdow, as the non-custodial parent, had no standing. This year he is representing two "families".
If my neighbor feels they are wronged, I don't believe I could sue for them. Newdow is not an attorney.
Those two families should be forced to file their own lawsuit.
While the supreme court did not rule on the Constitutionality butthis one will go down in flames.
I wrote a long expository reply - a really good one! And my computer ate it.
Will try again later.
Expat, I knew you weren't attacking me personally! It's a very important issue, which will rot this country from within.
I wrote a long expository reply - a really good one! And my computer ate it.
Will try again later.
Expat, I knew you weren't attacking me personally! It's a very important issue, which will rot this country from within.
Yes, it was.
If the USSC follows its own precedents, they will rule that the addition of "under God" by Federal statute was an example of Congress making a law respecting an establishment of religion.
How can they do otherwise? They have ruled that New York State building a school for a few handicapped Hasids in Kyrias Joel violated the "Congress shall make no law" command, even though a) it wasn't made by Congress, b) it wasn't a law, and c) nobody contends that Satmar Hasidism is now the established religion of New York.
If the USSC will act against ANY manifestaion of religion at the local level, no matter how trivial, how can they possibly overlook an Act of Congress, the one thing that the BOR actually addresses?
You have hit (Accidentally) upon the crux of the matter. That is that we are talking about "public school". You are right that I would not send my kids to a school that promotes islam, but I also do not send my kids to a "public" school that promotes humanism. If there was no "public" money there would be no issue, since the government wold not even remotely be "establishing" anything.
It's a very important issue, which will rot this country from within.
I pretty much agree.
Why?
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