Posted on 08/21/2003 6:41:35 PM PDT by sheltonmac
By defying a federal court's order to remove a public display of the Ten Commandments from state property, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has been compared to the late Gov. George Wallace. Apart from the fact that both men were taking a stand against what they believed to be the unconstitutional federal encroachment upon the sovereign rights of their state, the similarity ends there.
Wallace, as you may recall, blocked the doorway of a schoolhouse in 1963 to protest a federal judge's decision to force the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa to admit two black students. Justice Moore simply wants to acknowledge the one set of written laws that, more then any other, has profoundly influenced our modern legal system.
The controversy generated over Justice Moore's decision to place a two-ton monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments on state grounds is founded on a myopic view of the First Amendment. Some are under the impression that the actions of this rogue judge violate the sacred wall that separates church and state. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In a recent column entitled "Atheists, Activist Courts and Constitutional Ignorance," I pointed out the common misconception many Americans have in believing that the First Amendment applies to the states. Many argue that the ratification of the 14th Amendment forced all states under the umbrella of the Bill of Rights, but that just isn't the case.
As late as 1922, in Prudential Insurance Co. v. Cheek (259 U.S. 530), the Supreme Court held that "neither the 14th Amendment nor any other provision of the Constitution of the United States imposes upon the states any restrictions about 'freedom of speech'..." That interpretation radically changed in 1925 with the Court's ruling in Gitlow v. New York (268 U.S. 652): "For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press—which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress—are among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment from impairment by the States." The bottom line is that because of an activist Supreme Court, displaying the Ten Commandments on state property is now considered an egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution.
You may disagree with my assertion that the so-called "separation of church and state" does not apply to the states, but even if it did, no intelligent argument can be made that displaying the Ten Commandments on public property constitutes an "establishment of religion." On the contrary, any court decision that deems such an act unconstitutional is itself unconstitutional in that it "prohibits the free exercise thereof."
It will be interesting to see how the federal government handles this potentially volatile situation in Alabama. Will armed U.S. marshals be sent in to oversee the monument's removal? Will Justice Moore be arrested? Will the state be fined thousands of dollars per day as long as the offensive monument remains in its present location? Can we look forward to the federal courts seizing even more power and strengthening their stranglehold on the rights of the states?
This is the kind of government tyranny our forefathers had hoped to avoid. Had they foreseen the effects that federal courts would have on our freedoms, the framers of the Constitution might have included a provision explicitly limiting their powers. But then again, hindsight is always 20/20.
Fortunately, there is a glimmer of hope. This past Saturday over 4,000 people converged on the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery to show their support of Justice Moore's principled and constitutional stand. They sent a message that black-robed elitists in the federal judiciary cannot thwart the will of the people.
You can be sure that civil disobedience has not been eliminated as an option, and if people decide to prevent the removal of the monument, they will be well within their rights. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."
If it does come to that, I certainly hope and pray that those people will have the courage to stand firm in their convictions. After all, God's law preceded our constitution by several millennia. Perhaps it's time we get in touch once again with our roots.
Actually, it was indeed true during the early years of the republic. No less a source than John Marshall explicitly ruled that the bill of rights restrictions applied only to the general government, not the states. See Marshall's ruling in Barron v. Mayor and City of Baltimore for the details.
http://www.constitution.org/ussc/032-243a.htm
Another myth. TJ attended church services regularly - services held in the chambers of the House of Representatives.
Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, 21 Apr 1803:
To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.On 4 Mar 1805 President Jefferson prayed a National Prayer for Peace:
"Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners."Thomas Jefferson to Charles Thomson:"Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues."
"Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whome in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of earth."
"In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."
Monticello, January 9, 1816.Thomas Jefferson was NOT a deist. He believed in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. A Christian.I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw.
"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."
In a 1798 letter to American military officers, President John Adams declared that "The Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the governance of any other." Chief Justice Roy Moore's installation of the Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Judicial Building recognizes this truth. Chief Justice Moore does not violate the U. S. Constitution. The two federal courts who have ruled against him do. SUMMARY: Chief Justice Roy Moore's Case Defending The Display Of ...
HOSTETTLER AMENDMENTS PROHIBIT FUNDS TO ENFORCE COURT DECISIONS AGAINST PLEDGE, TEN COMMANDMENTS The amendment prohibiting funds for enforcement of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance passed 307-119. The second amendment, which blocks enforcement of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Ten Commandments cannot be posted in the Alabama Supreme Court building, passed 260-161. United States Representative John N. Hostettler
The Congressional testimony presented in Congress, the Court, and the Constitution, explains how your representatives can ensure the federal courts comply with the Constitution.
Those who support Federalism contact your representatives about voting for Ten Commandments Defense Act of 2003 & Religious Freedom Restoration Act
Those who want incompetent federal judges removed, contact your representatives:
The following will educate all but the most implacable anti-Christians on the Church/State issue:
Solzhenitsyn's consistent resort to the context of religion for his social and political pronouncements is apparent in his Templeton Address of 1983, in which he speaks about his own country. He rehearses how he heard his elders explain all the horrors that that the Bolshevik Revolution had inflicted upon the citizenry by saying, simply, "Men have forgotten God. That is why all this has happened." And he goes on to say that if he were to give an account for all the horrors of our terrible twentieth century, he could do no better to provide a pithy explanation than to repeat what he had heard from his elders: Men have forgotten God" Solzhenitsyn On America
1785, If men are so wicked with religion,what would they be if without it? Franklin's Advice to Thomas Paine Regarding the Age of Reason
Thomas Jefferson was NOT a deist. He believed in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. A Christian.Read carefully...he considered himself a follower of the doctrines of Christ, but not a worshipper of Christ as a divine figure. He believed that Jesus did not want to be worshipped. He did not appear to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
-Eric
TEN COMMANDMENTSAmendment I
King James Version
Exodus 20:1-17
1. And God spake all these words, saying,
2. I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
13. Thou shalt not kill.
14. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15. Thou shalt not steal.
16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I would say that the bolded parts of the Ten Commandments conflict with the First Amendment "free exercise" clause.
-Eric
I must have been asleep when the 1st amendment was changed. I remember when there was a Free exercise thereoff clause in the amendment.
Most people change or simply drop the parts of the Amendment that do not fit in with their political philosophy:
Congress shall make no lawThou shalt not have any public displayrespecting an establishment of religionthat is even remotely religious in nature,or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
A disciple of Christ is one who
(1) believes his doctrine,
(2) rests on his sacrifice,
(3) imbibes his spirit, and
(4) imitates his example
(Matt. 10:24; Luke 14:26, 27, 33; John 6:69).
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
The quote cited nails the original meaning down to a tee. No sense in trying to reinvent the wheel.
True enough. Congress could not 'respect an establishment' [a precept, dogma, rule, etc.] of any specific religion.
Second, it was designed to safeguard the right of freedom of conscience in religious beliefs against invasion solely by the national Government.
Solely? There's the rub. -- Our BOR's are part of the supreme law of the land, to which the states are bound therby. [Art. IV]
Third, it was so constructed in order to allow the States, unimpeded, to deal with religious establishments and aid to religious institutions as they saw fit.
The states must have a republican form of government. Thus they are impeded from establishing theocratic forms. [Art IV, Sec 4]
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