Posted on 12/21/2005 1:12:17 PM PST by AFA-Michigan
Values group hails unanimous decision Tuesday
CINCINNATI -- In an astounding return to judicial interpretation of the actual text of the United States Constitution, a unanimous panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Tuesday issued an historic decision declaring that "the First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state."
In upholding a Kentucky county's right to display the Ten Commandments, the panel called the American Civil Liberties Union's repeated claims to the contrary "extra-constitutional" and "tiresome."
See Cincinnat Enquirer at: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051221/NEWS01/512210356/1056
See U.S. Court of Appeals decision, page 13: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0477p-06.pdf
"Patriotic Americans should observe a day of prayer and thanksgiving for this stunning and historic reversal of half a century of misinformation and judicial distortion of the document that protects our religious freedoms," said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.
"We are particularly excited that such an historic, factual, and truth-based decision is now a controlling precedent for the federal Court of Appeals that rules on all Michigan cases," Glenn said.
6th Circuit Judge Richard Suhrheinrich wrote in the unanimous decision: "The ACLU makes repeated reference to the 'separation of church and state.' This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state. Our nation's history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and in some cases, accommodation of religion."
The words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the U.S. Constitution, though according to polls, a majority of Americans have been misled to believe that they do, Glenn said.
For background information, see:
http://www.answers.com/topic/separation-of-church-and-state-in-the-united-states
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What exhibit? at the LOC?
I meant religious advice - sorry
You still avoid answering any questions concerning religious expression and 501c(3) status. If you are so concerned with religious liberties, why ignore this?
Religion exhibit on the LOC website
Did you click on the links; examine the documents; and did they support the claim made?
Did you examine the document that supports the following claim:
In his diary, Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823), a Federalist Congressman from Massachusetts and Congregational minister, notes that on Sunday, January 3, 1802, John Leland preached a sermon on the text "Behold a greater than Solomon is here. Jef[ferso]n was present." Thomas Jefferson attended this church service in Congress, just two days after issuing the Danbury Baptist letter. Leland, a celebrated Baptist minister, had moved from Orange County, Virginia, and was serving a congregation in Cheshire, Massachusetts, from which he had delivered to Jefferson a gift of a "mammoth cheese," weighing 1235 pounds.
Journal entry, January 3, 1802
Manasseh Cutler
Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Library (164)
How can requiring Churches register with the IRS for tax-exempt status be Constitutional??? Then the IRS tells Churches they can't talk about partisan politics, that if they invite one candidate to speak, they must invite his opponent or be threatened with penalties? How is it possible that these are Constitutional by the words of Madison and Jefferson? You are a phony. If you were honestly concern with religious freedom, you would be more informed on this issue. You are obsessed with suppressing religion, not with any concern about religious freedom.
I have bad news for ya dude. I heard a rumor that Madison and Jefferson opposed tax exemptions for churches. I never checked it out my own self.
Sorry, I still don't know squat about the IRS and Churches.
The established church in Massachusetts was based on" Independent" principles, which was not the same as the "separatist" principles(of the Pilgrims) or of those of the Church of England. The colony was until the 169o's ruled by a religious oligarchy who, however, unlike the bishops of the Church, did not constitute a sacerdotal order, but were essentially laymen. After the royal charter was imposed on them, they lost their political function. As far as the "definition" of Protestant, that was well understood: it meant non-papist.
Reminding me that the First Article of magna carta guaranteed the "liberties of the Church. The churches have always enjoyed special standing under English law.
“Every man has an equal right to follow the dictates of his own conscience in the affairs of religion,” Elisha Williams wrote in 1744. This is “an equal right with any rulers be they civil or ecclesiastical.”
Have you lost your enthusiasm for the "no coercion" rule?
Does being employed or involved with the government forfeit your right to express your religious views?
The fundamental problem you have selling your interpretation of the First Amendment is that you cannot explain where government derives any authority over men's duty to their Creator.
You are the one denying people the right to express their views.
You have no moral argument for government authority over men's duties to their Creator because there is none.
You are the one with no moral argument, because you conveniently forget half of the first Amendment. Your argument is shallow because you are the one giving authority to the government to suppress free exercise of religion. You are a liar in how you present your views. You call people satan worshipers, but yet you proclaim no religion. You are most likely an atheist who has no interest in protecting religious speech. Your only interest is to shut religous people up using the power of the government. You are a liberal and a fraud. Sorry to be redundant.
Your whole concept of religious liberty revolves around government officials having the authority to pass out religious advice. Why?
I pray that the Great Liberator shall free your mind from the influence of the Devil that you might gather in the gentle light that enables good men to see the difference between expressing religious views and issuing advice on them without God's permission.
That is not my concept at all. What is my concept is that the government can not squash religion. Government consumes some 40% of the GDP. Between government property, government employees, government contracts there is government everywhere. What this extreme separation of church and state does is oppress religious expression in most public forums. People who work for the government lose their religious freedom, people who contract with the government lose their religious freedom, people who are on government property lose their religious freedom. Under the the extreme separation of church and state doctrine rules, people's expression of religion can be only done at home and at church, and even the church is under the government's thumb. What happened to the part where the government is not suppose to make laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion? That is what I want to protect and the part you seem to have little concern about.
I pray that you actually pray. Somehow I doubt you actually do.
The government has no right to the free exercise of religion because religion is the duty that every individual man (not a group of men or a government) owes to the Creator.
The duty the government owes God is to protect the right of every man to obey his conscience; stay the hell out of his jurisdiction; and advise men of their duty to obey their conscience and convictions.
The duty of a government officer is to set an example for the people by obeying his conscience and informing the people to do the same.
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