I am sick of the same old shit. Flat tax, non confusing tax code, less military spending, and the rest.

I am also sick of the Conservatives diluting the protests with their Xenophobia and stupidity.

People ask me what I support and I saw I am a constitutionalists. To which I hear oh your are a conservative right winger. To which I say, hardly. I support marijuana legalization, the bill of rights for every one, even if they aren't citizens, and Ethical Taxes. I am also a huge supporter of Science, and the Establishment Clause.

Then I say maybe you know something about me now. But you do know one thing, don't judge a book by its cover. Read the goddamn flyleaves.

As long as an atheist doesn't try to...de-theist? de-theize??? turn me away from religion I don't care.

Well, that's kind of a sticky wicket sometimes. Not all atheists are like this, but there definitely ARE some atheists using the courts and the political system to de-theize as much of society as possible. They do so under the rubrick of separation of church and state. Yet the establishment clause was never meant to imply the removal of religion from the public discourse, nor even the expression of religion by government entities. Yet the thought process of the militant atheist states that any expression of religion in a public place violates the separation clause. It's total baloney, but that's what they're trying to do.

Well, since we are SUPPOSED to have separation between church and state, his statement is theoretically valid...

No - there is no statement in the Constitution or any of its ammendments that says there is a 'separation of church and state'. That is a projected desire of certain people based on a comment made in a letter by Thomas Jefferson while discussing the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Ammendment.

The Establishment Clause does not mean that religion and government will be completely utterly 100% seperate. It only means that the government of the United States will not pass laws that seek to establish a national religion by congress or pass laws that will allow one religion to be preferred over another. At no point in time does the Constitution ever state that religion and government will be 'seperate'.

Quite to the contrary. Many of the documents of our founding clearly are rooted in religious practice, morality, and philosophy. The concept that government is supposed to be populated by non-religious persons is some sort of atheist fantasy that is fabricated from threadbare piecemeal stray comments.

But that does not mean that Obama was wrong. Nope. He was correct. We are not a 'Christian' nation because the government is not run by 'Christianity'. There is no such thing as a 'Christian' church. Christianity has thousands of factions. There is no single Christian faith. Therefore it is impossible for America to be a 'Christian' nation, because there is no such church. But it is silly to dicker. Over 70% of the nation belong to various Christian denominations, and it can be accurately said that America is a "Nation of Judeo-Christians".

You know I've been thinking about the Establishment Clause for a while now, and I'm really starting to wonder if it means what we think it does.

We assume that it means that the Federal government can't form a national religion, but I'm thinking it's a lot more simple than that. The words "respecting an establishment of religion" could mean exactly that. I think it might have meant that the government should not endorse any actions or tenets of any religion, and that in doing so they are in violation of the constitution. Making federal funding of faith based programs, bans on stem cell research/human cloning, abstinence only sex ed, "in god we trust" & "one nation under god", the whole myriad of things that are only based on religious dogma unconstitutional.

And yeah, by my interpretation, having an invocation prior to the inauguration would only violate the first amendment if it was a requirement of the ceremony. Which to my knowledge it is not.

I've never minded the invocation before, the choice of Rick Warren though infuriated me. It was blatant pandering to evangelical Christianity, a group that after the last 8 years doesn't need any more encouragement from our Presidents. And sadly it made me think less of Obama for it.

qm is, as usual, lying and/or misinformed. While the phrase "separation of church and state" was indeed first traced to Jefferson's letter, he is obviously oblivious of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (...)".

>> ^quantumushroom:
Newdow is just another intellectually dishonest attention-seeker, basing his claims on the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" which appears nowhere in the Constitution but was written by humanist Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Baptists.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'atheist, michael, newdow, FOX, establishment clause, pledge, constitution' to 'atheist, under god, newdow, FOX, establishment clause, pledge, allegiance, constitution' - edited by jwray

Tags for this video have been changed from 'atheist, michael, newdow, FOX, establishment clause, constitution' to 'atheist, michael, newdow, FOX, establishment clause, pledge, constitution' - edited by jwray

>> ^MarineGunrock:
I'll let wikipedia do the talking.


Of course you will. Sheesh. You really have no clue what the Establishment Clause is or refers to, do you? Just another self-righteous Wiki-jockey. "Keep trying". LOL, that's rich!

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

That's it (at least the religious portion). Everything else... the Lemon Test, Souter's opinion, etc., are interpretations of the clause and the subsequent laws/decisions based upon them. The contents of EDD's comment violate exactly the same thing as prayer does. The Lemon Test is an Establishment Clause test, as far as it refers to religion. "The opposite of what prayer violates"? Clueless...

Stick to your strengths, hero. Guns, patriotism, toadying, and early release from active duty.

>> ^MarineGunrock:
What exactly does it violate?


It violates the Establishment Clause and the Lemon Test, which I mentioned in the comment right before yours. Congress spends tax money to hire clergy for these things. Exclusively, Christian clergy. This serves no secular purpose, has the primary effect of promoting Christianity, and results in government entanglement with religion. Nearly every meeting of Congress or of the Supreme Court is punctuated with prayers by official chaplains employed by the state, which give the appearance that the USA is officially Christian. Congress does not have the right under the constitution to spend my tax money on a chaplain.

I'll let wikipedia do the talking.

"The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another, or religion over non-religion. Originally, the First Amendment only applied to the federal government. Subsequently, under the incorporation doctrine, certain selected provisions were applied to states. It was not, however, until the middle and later years of the twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by state governments. For example, in the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994), Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion"."

>> ^BisH0p69:
>> ^spoco2:
Brilliant... I mean really, all well and good if you're Christian, Muslim, whatever... but keep it OUT of a swearing in of a president... MAN, PLEASE... can we get rid of this singular belief crap from these ceremonies?
Upvote this all the way to the top? Please?

I gotta say this felt so out of place during the ceremony. I don't understand, the US, being supposedly secular by design, has these VERY religious bits during the swearing in of its president (seperation of church and state anyone?)


On the same principle as a judge not being allowed to put up a monument to the ten commandments in his courtroom, religious content in the inauguration could not not withstand legal challenge. The president can believe whatever privately and worship however he wants privately, but he can't use his position of governmental power to grandstand for a religion during official government ceremonies. It violates the establishment clause in the same way as a Judge putting up a monument to the 10 commandments in his courtroom. The way the inauguration has been conducted violates at least two prongs of the Lemon test.

Yeah, it's not only the last line of the sign. The entire sign is exactly like the atheist sign. I can't fathom how he believes he is less derogatory than the atheist sign. If the atheists are being bigots, then he is being just as much of a bigot.

I'm also very interested on how they could word a law to get rid of the atheist sign. It's surely not "hate speech". I don't see how they can write a law to remove only that sign while respecting the establishment clause.

Is BillO really this ignorant of the establishment clause?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause

Punisher -

That's EXACTLY what they should do - ignore the complaints.

When you are a government official (elected or otherwise) you are not to intervene in issues such as this. I know this having held elected office in my community.

If the sign was in any way lewd or vulgar, it would more than likely be addressed under a public nuisance ordinance, in which case the city would be duty-bound to address it. Under any other circumstance it potentially amounts to violating the establishment clause.

Passing this on as a private individual is one thing but as a representative of the government, pulling crap like this leaves you (justifiably IMHO) wide open for a lawsuit and that's precisely what's happened.

buttfist:
"Jefferson was for state rights. Remember he ran against the "Federalists"."


Jefferson wasn't for states rights when they went against our "inalienable rights". That's why the establishment clause was and is #1 in our constitution.

And the libertarian sham that Ron Paul is, wants to abuse the concept of "states rights" to allow discrimination, and fundamental christianism to run rampant through the states that push it. Which, under article 1, is against federal law. So which way do we go? Give the states the "right" to segregate, or follow the constitution?

Oh wait, I'm supposed to be ignoring you =]