Well, properly understood (not that the SCOTUS has a great track record of that), yes, there is NOTHING in the Federal Constitution proscribing that.

Now, many states (I am not sure if Utah is one of them or not) have similar restrictions in their own constitutions, but there is still nothing in the U.S. Constitution that proscribes them establishing or supporting religion.

No, it is a personified noun, were they speaking of a general right that we have merely because or our existence (rather than being endowed with by an specific entity), it would have said endowed by our CREATION, not Creator.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

It is not "respecting an establishment of religion". The text is clear, it prorscribes laws respecting the ESTABLISHMENT of religion.

Furthermore, your interpretation is contradicted by contemporaneous acts, such as the appointment of a Congressional Chaplain (of a Christian denomination), the use of Federal buildings for religious services, etc.

First of all, the incorporation doctrine is one of the worst and most baseless bits of jurisprudence in our history. Second, one only has a right not to be forced to practice a state established religion or prohibited from practicing the one of their choosing (with the exception of acts otherwise proscribable under the traditional police powers of the state...i.e. human sacrifice, drug usage, etc.). A monument to the Ten Commandments neither forces one to practice any religion, nor in any way shape or form restricts their freedom to practice their own any more than the existence of a Congressional Chaplain, and no more so than the government issuing a statement you disagree with violates your freedom of speech would.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

You're not qualified to ascertain the meaning of the text of the establishment clause. You still haven't demonstrated a working knowledge of the well established law of legal instrument interpretation, as it existed at the time the clause was made.

Where did you get the cockamamie idea that "contemporaneous acts" trump the will of the lawmakers? If the supreme law of the land was going to be established by "contemporaneous acts", what was the point of making a Constitution?

Without a good knowledge of the law of legal instrument interpretation, at the time the establishment clause was made, you're just spinning your wheels trying to trying to ascertain it's meaning.

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I find it appalling that Justice Antonin Scala, in his dissenting opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, constructed his model of "the relationship between church and state" in America without even considering the actual text of the Constitution. How do incompetents like him get on the U. S. Supreme Court?

Blah, blah, coming from someone who has posted some of the most stupid statements about the supposed meaning of the constitution. Someone whose own statements can't hold up to the scrutiny of the very same questions he spews out. PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

So, the people who actually PASSED the First Amendment in Congress immediately turned around and violated it? What kind of friggin' idiot would draw the conclusion that people would violate their own "will". Unlike some people, they weren't that fucking irrational and stupid.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Which is exactly what posting the Ten Commandments in a courtroom would do. Note that the 1A doesn't say "Congress shall make no law establishing a state religion," but rather "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a religion" -- no law that even squints that direction, is how I would interpret this. I'm entirely with Jefferson on this question.

Congress in its own internal workings is not governed by the same laws that apply between the government and the people.

I was unaware that federal buildings could be used for religious services. Can you give a specific example?

If federal buildings can be rented for religious services, that might be acceptable provided they are available equally to all comers. This would not in itself imply government endorsement of any religion.

Your opinion notwithstanding, it remains the law of the land. And clearly the 14th amendment DID intend that no state could deny the rights of citizens as guaranteed in the Constitution. That much it says unambiguously.

One has an implicit right to whatever the government is explicitly enjoined from denying. Thus, one has an implicit right not to have the government make any law "respecting" an establishment of religion, and specifically not to have another religion endorsed by the state over one's own.

Again, the language of the First Amendment is "respecting an establishment of religion," not merely "establishing a state religion."

As the Constitution does not require the government to be neutral on all subjects but only on that of religion, this is not a good comparison.

You can't even find Blackstone's comments on interpretation of laws.

Politicians do stuff like that, Marcus.

Politicians, trying to please everyone.

However, they were practiced at the art of finessing controversial issues, especially religion.

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I find it appalling that Justice Antonin Scala, in his dissenting opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, constructed his model of "the relationship between church and state" in America without even considering the actual text of the Constitution. How do incompetents like him get on the U. S. Supreme Court?

What kind of fucking retard can't understand the clear and unambiguous text when I wrote that I have a leather bound set in my personal possession. Hmmm, my guess would be the same kind who doesn't understand the distinction between commentaries ON the law and rules providing guidance on how to interpret legal texts in particular

Until you cite a specific passage in Blackstone that articulates a general rule for the interpretation of legal texts, PUT UP OR SHUT UP!

Whatever, why would they pass a law preventing them from doing what they have the will to do? That is just fucking stupid. What is LESS stupid and irrational is the likelyhood that YOU are utterly clueless and completely fucking wrong in YOUR understanding of their "will".

So, is it your belief that the very people who passed the 1st Amendment, and the people who ratified it, did so with the express WILL to subsequently violate it? What kind of idiot concludes such nonesense?

What evidence do you have that when they did things that YOU think violates their "will" that YOU are correct in interpreting their "will" and that they wilfully disregarding their own "will" rather than you having your head completely up your ass?

If it is the WILL of the legislators that is the proper meaning, and their WILL was to not follow the amendment, doesn't that mean that was their will by your own idiotic reasoning?

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

So, why can't you tell us what Sir William said about the interpretation of laws?

http://www.clipartof.com/images/emot...y_laughing.gif

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I find it appalling that Justice Antonin Scala, in his dissenting opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, constructed his model of "the relationship between church and state" in America without even considering the actual text of the Constitution. How do incompetents like him get on the U. S. Supreme Court?

You mean the Jefferson who attended church services in a building of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT the same week he wrote the utterly misinterpreted words (which by the way are nowhere in the Constitution) "wall of separation between church and state"? Even Jefferson's own actions indicate that Jefferson didn't mean his words to be as draconian in scope as you would interpret them.

Really? CONGRESS shall pass no law. Where does the First Amendment say (except for where it concerns the internal workings of Congress?).

From the earliest days of our Republica, and until anti-religious idiots started pervading the courts, public buildings were routinely used for religious services. As I mentioned previously, the same week Jefferson wrote the letter containing the "wall of separation between church and state" he attended just such a service.

They weren't rented out,t hey were made available, without reimbursement. NOBODY seemed to think this violated the constitution, INCLUDING the man who wrote "wall of separation between church and state".

Also, there were chaplains paid for in the military from the earliest days, early congresses paid for bibles for distribution in the territories, etc. etc. ALL of which show that they did not understand the Establishment Clause to mandate nuetrality between secularism and religion.

Really? Curious how it didn't use the word RIGHTS. Guess that was a typo!

And again, you ignore the plain meaning of the word ESTABLISHMENT. And the fact that the very congress that passed the Bill of Rights routinely did things which contradict your interpretation of the expansiveness of that clause.

Then why did they keep doing things that YOU claim were prohibited by the amendment THEY passed? What is more rational to believe, that they either wilfully violated the very law the passed and sent to the states for ratification, or were somehow less aware of what it actually met that somebody born over a century and a half after it was ratifiedl; OR that they actually knew what the hell they had written and followed it accordingly, and that any interpretation of it that would contradict that is a bit unreasonable? Seriously!

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Gee, a cartoon....just what one expects from a clown!


I have asserted that Blackstone is NOT a list of general rules for the interpretation of legal texts, rather it is a series of commentaries ON the law as it existed, and not on how to interpet legal texts generally.

As anyone with a clue about basic logic knows, one doesn't prove a negative. YOU on the otherhand insist that Blackstone DOES provide rules for the interpretation of legal texts. That is a positive declaration, ergo it is YOU who bears the burden to show clear quotes from the text which shows it DOES what you say it does, and I assert it does not. PUT UP OR SHUT UP!

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Congress does not have to pass laws in regulating its own internal behavior. Members of Congress are bound by the rules adopted by Congress governing itself, but you and I as citizens are not. The Bill of Rights restricts what Congress may do affecting you and me as citizens; it does not apply to what Congress chooses to do to itself.

Doesn't matter; making them readily available to all equally is the important point, not payment asked.

Or, that the country was sufficiently close to 100% Christian in those days that nobody saw fit to challenge the practices. It's not a violation of the Constitution (in effect) if it's never brought to court.

"Privileges and immunities" will do.

I'm curious as to why you have a problem with incorporation doctrine, actually. How can something which better protects the rights of the people be a bad thing? If we agree that it is (for example) bad for the federal government to restrict free speech or violate due process, why is it a good thing to allow state governments to do these things? The legal basis for it in the 14th Amendment is obvious, but more to the point, why do you become incensed with it? Is the Bill of Rights not to your taste, that you wish state governments to be exempt from it?

No, I merely point out that it is accompanied by other words which render the meaning something different, and more restrictive, than you are suggesting.

How about a third possibility, as stated above: that the U.S. in those days was so close to 100% Christian that many government practices were acceptable which today are not?

How did that change the words of the Constitution to say "Congress shall have the power to establish religion?"

They let a notorious atheist use a federal building in the 1820's to give lectures and the second President Adams even let him set up an exhibit in the White House. Did that change the words of Constitution to include an endorsement of atheism?

You need to research the law of legal instrument interpretation as it prevailed at the time the Constitution was made in the late 1780's.

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I find it appalling that Justice Antonin Scala, in his dissenting opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, constructed his model of "the relationship between church and state" in America without even considering the actual text of the Constitution. How do incompetents like him get on the U. S. Supreme Court?

You're a hoot, dude, claiming to be an expert on the history of Constitutional Interpretation, yet totally clueless as to the great Blackstone said in the Introduction, on page 95, of his Commentaries, about the interpretation of laws.

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I find it appalling that Justice Antonin Scala, in his dissenting opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU, constructed his model of "the relationship between church and state" in America without even considering the actual text of the Constitution. How do incompetents like him get on the U. S. Supreme Court?

I was wondering if someone would point out his silliness. Thanks !

They do not have the the power to pass rules for its own internal behavoir where such rules contradict the Constitution.

If the posting of the Ten Commandments outside a courthouse is "establishment" of religion, how is paying for a chaplain not also?

Please cite some historical evidence for this interpretation?

So, then you believe that the very people who wrote and passed in Congress the Bill of Rights, turned right around and started to knowingly violate it? That is supremely stupid and irrational compared to the far more reasonable and sensible interpretation that THEY understood what the amendment meant and you do not.

If "privileges and immunities" will do? then why do we need the 14th Amendment to "incorporate" the Bill of Rights when the original Constitution contained the following text:

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

If privileges and immunities is synonymous with "rights" in your view, why weren't the citizens of each state entitled to


I have a problem with the incorporation doctrine because it is not what the 14th Amendment was understood to mean or do by those who ratified it. I don't care whether or not something is a "good idea" when it comes to interpreting a legal text, I care that judges are adhering to the original understanding of the text. I think it would be a good idea to have a flat tax, but I would have a HUGE problem with judges interpreting the equal protection clause as requiring it.

The Preamble to the Constitution says "in order to create a more perfect union", but I would have a HUGE problem with judges interpreting that as license to second guess the wisdom of otherwise duly enacted public policy by the elected branches. Say for example 5 Supreme Court justices decided that Free Trade policies were bad, and thus didn't make us a "more perfect union" and struck them down on that basis, would that be a legitimate exercise of their power even if you happened to think it a good idea as a matter of policy?

I might also have somewhat less objection in practical terms to the incorporation doctrine if it was the original understanding of the applicable amendments that was being "incorporated" rather than modern mis-interpretations of them (such as the utterly ass-backwards notion that political speech and activities have LESS protection than pornography)

When it comes to a judge's role in applying the law it is about correct and incorrect, not good or bad.

When Samuel Alito was going through his confirmation hearings, one of the democrats went on a pissy lit