First Ammendment Struggles



This week on slashdot , discussions about a story running on MSNBC about follow-up story about a southern school that decided to place a disclaimer in their textbooks. The disclaimer read (in short) that creationism was one of multiple theories regarding the origins of life (paraphrased).

Numerous discussions pursued regarding the separation of church and state.

News-flash folks - there is no such thing!

The First Amendment doesn't say that - and never intended to mean that. Here is what it does say:

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.

Ok? Got it?

Now a little bit on law. The problem with revisiting this is that law changes over time - accepted. Change is normally a good thing, except when it strays so extremely far from the intent.

According to the folks over at CaseLaw, The original proposal read:

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed

The proposal however was altered to:

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

And again to read

Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith, or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

Ad infinitum until we get what we got (see above).

Now - from all of this a thoughtful person could easily understand that the intent here was to prohibit the state from discriminating based on religious belief (or lack thereof) and from establishing the "Church of America".

However, a bunch of lawyers got together in 1947 (Everson versus the Board of Education) and decided that what the founding fathers really meant was that the government should not AID, not only one religion over another, but ANY religion at all. This decision has resulted in what has commonly been come to be called the "Separation of Church and State".

However, this phrase did not come from Everson, but rather from an 1802 letter win which then President Jefferson stated that the purpose of the First Amendment was to build "a wall of separation between Church and State."

Clearly such a decision is in fact exactly NOT what the founding fathers desired. The people who built this country built it upon deep seeded religious values. Those values were, and are, so important to the people of this nation that they are evident in many places in our society:

"In God We Trust" - US Currency
"One nation, under God" - Pledge of Allegiance
".. so help me God" - oath of office and U.S. Courts
"...separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them..." - US Declaration of Independence
"God is on our side" - (or words to that affect) Every leader ever bringing their nation to war

Examples abound regarding our nations belief in a deity. And yet, we continue to struggle with whether or not one should be recognized in any form of government.

The press rails each time the right of prayer is exercised by a government official. Our sitting President was once brought before the print tribunal for beginning meetings with prayer. Why? Yes he is the President, and yes he is praying - but let us read again:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Any law passed which prohibits the exercise of religion is exactly what our founding fathers were against. And that means passing a law which prohibits the President from praying at the beginning of a meeting, students from praying in class (even if they invite those around to join) and yes from forcing a school to remove stickers that say evolution is one theory about the origins of life. Because, doing so (to draft support from Everson) in fact promotes (aides) atheism (which is in itself a religion) and thus atheism becomes .... the Church of America.

Posted: Sat - January 15, 2005 at 08:49 PM   If this blog entry was of use to you, why not show your appreciation by donating to support the site? Just click on the MAKE A DONATION button on the right hand side of the page! It's all handled by PAYPAL.
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