Separation of Church and State

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That doesn't mean it should continue. But let's say it does, and the invocator calls upon whatever it is that Wiccan followers call upon. Exclusively. Would that be acceptable to you? Remember, this is the opening of a body of government. That means the invocator is acting as an agent of your government.
 
No, the invocator is an invited guest of the government. The government does not prescribe what is to be said nor do they necessarily act upon what is said.

And yes, many government bodies take a pluralistic approach, inviting people of different faiths and beliefs.
 
George Washington: ?It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.?


Thomas Jefferson: ?The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. . . . Students? perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.?


Andrew Jackson: ?That Book [the Bible] is the rock on which our Republic rests.?
 
1892 Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States: ?Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.?


1952 Zoarach v. Clauson: ?The First Amendment does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of church and state. . . . We find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence.?


1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman: ?Separation is not possible in the absolute sense. Some relationship between government and religious organizations is inevitable.?


1985 Wallace v. Jaffree: ?The ?wall of separation between church and state? is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.?
 
In the words of the man who wrote the first amendment.....Fisher Ames:

?Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school
book? Its morals are pure, its examples, captivating and noble.
In no book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant;
and by teaching all the same book, they will speak alike, and
the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well
as of faith.?
 
Maybe Fisher Ames had it right here:

We are sliding down the mire of a democracy that pollutes the morals of the people before it swallows up their freedoms.
 
Dreadsox said:
George Washington: ?It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.?


Thomas Jefferson: ?The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. . . . Students? perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.?


Andrew Jackson: ?That Book [the Bible] is the rock on which our Republic rests.?

Dread let me ask you, how many different religions do you think were seriously being practiced in the US at the time these men spoke?
 
Dreadsox said:



That does not change that "separation of church and state" meant something different for 150 years.


The wall of separation was meant to keep governement out of religion and people's lives......not the other way around.

Isn't that the beauty of the Constitution though? It was designed to change and evolve. The drafters of this document knew they weren't perfect.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Dread let me ask you, how many different religions do you think were seriously being practiced in the US at the time these men spoke?

That argument is moot. The wall of separation is supposed to keep Government out of religion. Not the other way around. People practicing their religion have every right to try and make laws, or amendments to the constitution. Nowhere does it say that they cannot. If the voters are against it....then let the voters decide. Unfortunately the people do not get to decide.
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Isn't that the beauty of the Constitution though? It was designed to change and evolve. The drafters of this document knew they weren't perfect.

It was not designed to have courts throw out 150 years of judicial rulings....consistent judicial rulings. The Court, based on what I know, is supposed to be ruling based on past rulings and decisions. I am not a lawyer....NB?
 
Dreadsox said:


It was not designed to have courts throw out 150 years of judicial rulings....consistent judicial rulings. The Court, based on what I know, is supposed to be ruling based on past rulings and decisions. I am not a lawyer....NB?

Didn't Brown vs The Board throw out Dred Scott? Weren't the rulings determining black Americans to be fractions of people consistent?
 
Dred Scott was thrown out by the Thirteenth and Fourteen Ammendments, long before Brown v. Board of Education. However, in 1883, the Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (which guaranteed equal treatment of blacks in public places and on public transportation) unconstitutional, stating that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to state governments and political freedoms for blacks, and was inapplicable to social freedoms and discrimination by businesses and individuals. In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was not unconstitutional as long as facilities for blacks and whites were equal ('seperate but equal'). So it seems those Supreme Court decisions were all pretty consistent....
 
martha said:


Didn't Brown vs The Board throw out Dred Scott? Weren't the rulings determining black Americans to be fractions of people consistent?


Dred Scott had nothing to do with the Board of Education. Dred Scott was the case that ruled Scott was not a citizen, but property. In 1847 I believe.


Brown VS Board of Education overturned Plessy V. Fergusson.

There were MANY cases involving education...6 I believe in which Plessy V. Fergusson was upheld. I have not examined every case. I can say that the other three cases were at the graduate level. The two public school cases that challenged Plessy V. fergusson involved taxes, the classification of a Chinese child as "colored". The court had not been challenged to view Plessy V. Ferguson in light of inequality before for Public Education. There was NO case history to go on. This was a landmark case. The Court In Brown V. Board, did indeed find that there were inequalities, and also made the ruling that Plessy V. Fergusson, a case that had nothing to do with education, but railway cars, was not applicable in the case of Education.

Again, Plessy V. Fergusson was not more than a 50 year old ruling. There was very little court history to rule on.
 
meegannie said:
Dred Scott was thrown out by the Thirteenth and Fourteen Ammendments, long before Brown v. Board of Education. However, in 1883, the Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (which guaranteed equal treatment of blacks in public places and on public transportation) unconstitutional, stating that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to state governments and political freedoms for blacks, and was inapplicable to social freedoms and discrimination by businesses and individuals. In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was not unconstitutional as long as facilities for blacks and whites were equal ('seperate but equal'). So it seems those Supreme Court decisions were all pretty consistent....

You are quick girl!!!!:wink:
 
Dreadsox said:


That argument is moot. The wall of separation is supposed to keep Government out of religion. Not the other way around. People practicing their religion have every right to try and make laws, or amendments to the constitution. Nowhere does it say that they cannot. If the voters are against it....then let the voters decide. Unfortunately the people do not get to decide.

So then your quotes were there for what? I'm trying to figure out where they belong in this debate.
 
Point blank...my point is this......Religion was never meant to be kept out of governement. Governement was meant to be kept out of religion. There is a big difference. The quotes demonstrate that the intent was NOT to remove God from Governement. The intent was to make certain that the governement was not imposing a religious doctrine on the people. The Bible is not a doctrine, it is a book. Prayer is not a doctrine either.
 
Dreadsox said:


You are quick girl!!!!:wink:

:p

I did an essay a few months ago on how and why Jim Crow laws were maintained in the South throughout the 50's and 60's (and covered the origins of Jim Crow in the intro), so I still remember a lot from it.
 
Dreadsox said:
It was not designed to have courts throw out 150 years of judicial rulings....consistent judicial rulings. The Court, based on what I know, is supposed to be ruling based on past rulings and decisions. I am not a lawyer....NB?

The "living Constitution" arguments have been used over the last fifty years to effectively legistlate through court ruling. The idea is to bring an extreme case, with a particularly moving set of facts, then in front of a friendly judge begin amending the Constitution in the courtroom. Today, both liberal and conservative groups use these methods, though I'd say the ACLU is the grandaddy in this arena.
 
Dreadsox said:
Point blank...my point is this......Religion was never meant to be kept out of governement. Governement was meant to be kept out of religion.

So if religion was never meant to be kept out of government, which religion? All the quotes you showed mentioned the Bible which is specific to a religion. So once again it's OK if it's your religion, but what about everyone else?
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


So if religion was never meant to be kept out of government, which religion? All the quotes you showed mentioned the Bible which is specific to a religion. So once again it's OK if it's your religion, but what about everyone else?

The Bible is not specific to ONE religion.
 
And no one is forcing it on you. There is NO national Denomination.
 
Do you know who Fisher Ames was?

In an effort to delete religious expression from our public life, secularists have long used the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads ''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,'' to demand a strict separation of church and state. People would be surprised to learn that the man who wrote the First Amendment had an entirely different view of the Establishment Clause from modern day secularists.
Fisher Ames, 1758-1808, was a Massachusetts Congressman. In the United States' First Congressional Session, Ames suggested the words, which were adopted by the House and slightly modified, on August 20, 1789:

Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe the right of conscience.

Contrary to the view that no religious expression should exist in public schools, the view of modern day secularists, Ames believed the Bible should play a key role in the education of our school children:

Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble?. The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and, probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind?. In no Book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant, and by teaching all the same they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as faith.

In September 1789, Ames stated in Palladium magazine:

We have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education. We're starting to put more and more textbooks into our schools?. We've become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children containing fables and moral lessons?. We are spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principal test in our schools?. The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other manmade book.

It is interesting to note that the words ''separation of church and state'' appear nowhere in the Constitution, as secularists commonly imply. The words originally appeared as ''wall of separation between church and state'' in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.


Source: America's God and Country by William J. Federer
 
So Dread do you believe we should use the Bible in our schools and government? So people of other religions will have to read, learn or have laws based on a religion that's not theirs and may actually conflict with theirs?
 
Dreadsox said:
And no one is forcing it on you. There is NO national Denomination.

So as long as the government doesn't adopt one of the 33000 denominations which profess to be "Christian" it's not infringing on anyone's rights? :huh:
 
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