[RonF]

You state, in support of the thesis that for the state to require teachers to lead the recitation of the PoA in the public schools is not unconstitutional:

"With due respect, the Establishment Clause does not mention "religious speech". It does refer to an "establishment of religion", which I believe at that time referred primarily to an ecclesiastical establishment of a national Christian denomination, ...."

You then quote Thomas Jefferson, as saying:

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted [prevented] by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline or practices. Clearly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the States. "

Isn't requiring a teacher to lead the PoA with the words "under God" intermeddling with religious institutions, doctrines, disciplines, or practices? It's not a religious exercise? Looks like one to me.

I'm also finding it interesting that many people seem to think that the several States are, under the Constitution, free to establish a State Church. Do you really think it's a good thing, and constitutional, for a State to establish a Church? To require every citizen of a State to attend (for example) Roman Catholic Mass every Sunday morning on pain of fines or imprisonment? To support their clergy with your tax money? Think about that....

[Diamond]

Isn't requiring a teacher to lead the PoA with the words "under God" intermeddling with religious institutions, doctrines, disciplines, or practices? It's not a religious exercise? Looks like one to me.

I think the phrase, "establishment of religion" means something different to you in the modern era than it meant at the time it was written. The phrase originally meant ecclesiastical control over Christian institutions, doctrines, disciplines or practices, NOT religious SPEECH by agents of the state. Additionally the words used by Jefferson, "religious institutions, doctrines, disciplines or practices" were imbued with the specific theological meaning of the Christian context and millieu at the time, and it is mistaken eisegesis to simply read into them the modern, more generic meaning. In other words, the phrase "under God" would NOT have been considered by the founders as establishing ecclesiastical control over Christian institutions (intermeddling), doctrines, disciplines or practices, favoring one denomination practice over another, because all Christian denominations believe they are under God. So to answer the question, it is unimaginable that the Founders would have considered a state teacher requiring her pupils to recite the words "under God" in the PoA as unconstitutional, if for no other reason than they thought the national government had no jurisdiction in such matters, not to mention the previously mentioned mistake of interpreting an historical text by mere reading into it of one's own, modern ideas.

I think the States are, under the Constitution as it was written, free to establish State Churches. I don't think it's a good idea, but if they want to amend their State Constitutions, they are, or should be free to do so. I personally would not like my State government to establish ecclesiastical control over churces, church doctrines, church discipline, or church practices. And I am absolutely affirmed in my belief every time I have to go to the state license bureau. But that is a completely different matter than a government school teacher uttering the phrase, "under God" or requiring her pupils to do so.

I think it very ironic that the 9th Circuit, which is part of a branch of the national government, has twisted the meaning of the First Amendment into its exact opposite by in effect proclaming that they have secret theological knowledge about what is "religious" and what is not, and that they, the national governnent, not we of the several states, will arogate to themselves the jurisdiction explicitly denied to them in the Amendment to act as infallible national school and theology board, determining what speech we and our children and state teachers can utter, and what speech is forbidden.

Which is why I included the quote from T.J.:
""The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in . . . the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is merely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States."

Cordially,