9TH CIRCUIT COURT: PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Fox News ^

[Recovering_Democrat]

UNBELIEVABLE. BREAKING ON FOX: SF APPEALS COURT SAYS PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE ENDORSES RELIGION, AND IS THEREBY UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

[lepton]

John Adams could sign a treaty affirming that the United States Government was in no way founded upon the Christian religion, while remaining a devout Christian himself.

This is out of context. The treaty with the Sultans and Beys had to do with an inherent animosity with Islam that was part of the relationship between the Islamic powers and many of the European powers, and that both of these sides regarded as an underpinning of their nationhood.

[LarryLied]

But no particular religion should be endorsed implicitly or explicitly in a public school.

And from what mountain top did you bring down this edict?

What are you going to do if a teacher wants to pray? Thrown him or her in jail? And what if they do it again? More time in jail?

There was never any intent to drive religion out of government by our founders. Church services were held every Sunday in the House of Representatives until after the Civil War. Jefferson attended many times. Jefferson also signed a bill giving land to Christian missionaries so they could more easily convert Native Americans to the Christian faith.

Separation of church and state was written into first amendment law by anti-Catholic bigot Hugo Black in 1947. When Black was head of membership for the largest KKK cell in the South, made new recruits swear to Separation before they were admitted to the Klan.

The Supreme Court in the last four years has not endorsed Separation , whether holding for religious groups or against them. The SCOTUS has dropped the Separation metaphor. They have not yet replaced it with anything. So we had Separation from about 1947-98, not before and not since.

Most people who don't follow the Supreme Court don't know that Separation is probably no longer the law of the land.

That you think "no particular religion should be endorsed implicitly or explicitly " in public school is meaningless. You want to censor religious speech, do it honestly. Start a movement to repeal the first amendment.

[Dimensio]

What if you don't worship any gods OR you believe that the name of god is too sacred to profane by including it in a secular pledge?

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

"...This is good. I support damned near anything that helps bring on the demise of our private corporate foundation's mass psychology/indoctrination experiment known as forced government schooling...."

What a brilliant insight.

This court decision is the greatest consciousness-raising tool ever handed to ersatz Americans on a silver platter. Apparently, almost everyone on this thread in on some sort of strange diet and won't eat anything offered to them on a silver platter.

Hey everybody! Great comment on pst #129.

[Dimensio]

What are you going to do if a teacher wants to pray?

This would be entirely dependent on context. If a teacher is praying in a fashion that is seperate from his or her teaching responsibilities (ie, not using the prayer as part of a class lesson) then I would hardly call it an endorsement of religion by the school.

[lepton]

I don't understand that logic, but there it is.

A ^= B does not mean that ^A = B.

[FormerLurker]

You didn't include some important parts of the letter. From Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists

Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists

The Final Letter, as Sent

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

---

Somehow I don't see this as justification for removing ANY and ALL references to God from government funded schools. And as I stated earlier, the concept of the existence of God is not a religion, but a commonly held belief amongst mankind.

In any case, I'd hate to see the repurcussions if this ruling is allowed to stand. It would be a declaration that we are no longer a Nation under God. As such, I'd bet there would be some serious consequences associated with that.

[lepton]

As the SCOTUS has ruled before, the term "God" is sufficiently nebulous as to refer to whatever entity the speaker wishes it to mean - and therefore in itself is not an establishment of religion.

[MJY1288]

Who is Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler was born in Budapest as the son of Henrik K. Koestler, an industrialist and inventor, and Adele (Jeiteles) Koestler. His parents were Jewish, but later in 1949-50 Koestler 'renounced' his religious heritage. As a businessmann Henrik Koestler was unprejudiced - he financed disastrous inventions like the envelope-opening machine and radioactive soap. In 1922 Koestler entered the University of Vienna (1922-26), and became attracted to the Zionist movement. During this period he worked with the revisionist, militant Zionist Vladimir Jabotinsky. Koestler left for the Palestine in 1926 without completing his degree. First he worked as a farm laborer and then as a Jerusalem-based correspondent for German newspapers. In 1929 he was transferred to Paris, a year later to Berlin where he became science editor of Vossische Zeitung and foreign editor of B.Z. am Mittag.

From 1932 to 1938 Koestler was a member of the German Communist Party, but left the party during the Moscow trials. He lived in France in 1932-36, earning his living as a free-lance journalist. Koestler travelled in the early 1930s Mount Ararat, Baku, the Afghan frontier, and Turkmenistan (then the Turkmen Soviet Republic), composing propaganda on Soviet progress. In Turkmenistan he met the American poet Langston Hughes, who later portrayed Koestler in his autobiography. In Paris Koestler edited the anti-Hitler and anti-Stalin weekly Zukunft.

Google Search on Koestler Click here for more info on Koestler, Hardly a U.S. Constitutional authority

[Moose4]

What if you don't worship any gods OR you believe that the name of god is too sacred to profane by including it in a secular pledge?

I friggin' mumble, that's what I do. And I let the other kids in the class, the ones that believe in God, say what they want instead of letting my arsehole father and two-and-a-half imperial judges change the Pledge of Allegiance for fifty million Americans (and several million illegal aliens).

}:-)4

[lepton]

If a teacher is praying in a fashion that is seperate from his or her teaching responsibilities (ie, not using the prayer as part of a class lesson) then I would hardly call it an endorsement of religion by the school.

Though it often is called just that - and forthwith banned.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

And you Californians wonder why everyone east of you wants that big earthquake so your sorry state and the judges and politicians out there all sink to the bottom of the sea.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Why would any demomination of Christianity want to be associated with American government schools?

Sometime in the 1880's the last township in Massachusettes resisted the imposition of government schooling---at gunpoint.

But I realize these were the backwards days when people were not concerned overmuch with pledging allegiance to a flag.

[lepton]

Why would any demomination of Christianity want to be associated with American government schools?

I think the main thing is because the Government takes the funds - under threat of gunfire - to send your kids to such schools whether you send your kids there or not.

[tpaine]

Hardly a U.S. Constitutional authority

---

I 'hardly' said he was, did I, my little tar-baby?

-- I said he gave some insights into incomprehensible devotion, as expressed by fanatics like you.

[MJY1288]

LOL, You call me a finatic LOL, who you gonna quote next....... Rev. Farakan?

[LarryLied]

Why would any demomination of Christianity want to be associated with American government schools?

Doesn't matter to me what they or any other religion does or does not want. That is their business. What is important is they can do what they want.

Three nationwide purges of libraries and schools occurred in Soviet-occupied Poland (1949, 1950, 1952). Excerpt from an order for the first purge:

DATE: 1949
FROM: J. Albrecht, Director of the Department of Propaganda, Education
and Culture [of the Central Committee of PUWP(1)
J. Kowalczyk, Director of the Department of Education [of the Central
Committee of PUWP
TO: First Secretaries of the District Committees of PUWP

The school and general libraries are still polluted with books whose content is politically harmful or hostile. The Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Culture have undertaken the task of purging the library collections. This work is to be performed in July, August and September of this year [1949].

The party cells are to conduct this action and make sure it is efficiently performed. . .
More here

Among the books purged:

Christmas Star
The Catholic Action for Youth
The Confessional School According to the Teachings of
the Church and the Synod of Bishops
Civic Education
The Boy Scout Almanac
Life of Father Basil
Girl Scouts
The Blessed Night

[MJY1288]

"I said he gave some insights into incomprehensible devotion"

You definately gave some insight, but not about incomprehensible devotion, More like where you are coming from. A finatic quoting a finatic!!!

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

"...Among the books purged:

Christmas Star
The Catholic Action for Youth
The Confessional School According to the Teachings of the Church and the Synod of Bishops...
Life of Father Basil
The Blessed Night
....

Indeed.

And who was hugely responsible for the defeat of soviet communism in Poland?

Hmmmmm. Is there a connection?

[tpaine]

No, no, kiddo, -- Koestler gave us the insight, -- I just pointed out you as a fanatic.

-- Thanks for the conformation.