"The Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People." - General Prologue to the Wycliffe Bible in 1384.
Our country and its laws were established on the fundamental belief that our morality emanates from God. While the Constitution begins with the line, "We the people," it does not contain any religious words. Some people cite this as evidence that America is a secular country. Not so. America has always combined secular government with a society based on religious values.
Many settlers in the 1600s came to what they considered this new promised land seeking religious freedom. They identified with the biblical Jewish Exodus from Egypt because they had left Europe and its values as well. Ours is the only country to identify with many Jewish beliefs, and is why our culture calls itself "Judeo-Christian." These values include the importance of laws, fighting for justice, and a belief in judgment by loving and forgiving God.
The Founders understood there is a divine order that rises above the human order. By the 1770s, they sought our freedom from the British Crown with reliance upon, what the Declaration of Independence calls, "Nature's God," the "Creator," and "the Supreme Judge of the World."
The First Amendment was never intended to exclude all references to God from government institutions and public debate. It simply says, "Congress shall not establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof." The word "establish" meant the creation of a state church, as in the Church of England. It is nonsense to say the founders intended the First Amendment to exclude all religious expression in public places.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt in Christianity, Church and State categories at 10:02 PM EDT
No Comments »
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a motion to intervene with the Federal District Court in New Hampshire today in its continuing efforts to protect the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Representing the Knights of Columbus and three New Hampshire families, The Becket Fund asked for permission to intervene and for the court to dismiss a case brought by Michael Newdow, a Sacramento physician-attorney who finds the words offensive.
“The Constitution doesn’t ban the word God from public discourse, in California or New Hampshire, in the Pledge or anywhere else” said Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, founder and president of the Becket Fund. “Every time we pledge allegiance to one nation under God, we are reminding the government that it must respect everyone’s rights – even Michael Newdow’s – because those rights are not given to us by the government, but by a source higher than the government.”
Dr. Newdow, who has a similar case pending before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, claims that the words “under God” violate the Establishment Clause of First Amendment of the Constitution. He won at the lower court, but the Becket Fund, representing the Knights of Columbus and eleven California school children, have appealed and are awaiting a decision.
In addition to lawsuits in New Hampshire and California, Dr. Newdow is also in the midst of a legal challenge to remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency. In 2004, Dr. Newdow sued to have all prayers, invocations and religious language removed from the U.S. Presidential inauguration ceremony. That suit was quickly dismissed.
Dr. Newdow’s latest complaint describes the voluntary recitation of the Pledge as “child neglect (if not child abuse).”
“Dr. Newdow’s theory that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance constitutes child abuse is his most outlandish yet. If the courts adopted his reasoning, teachers would be in danger of going to jail. The court should reject this and the rest of his unfounded theories about the Pledge,” said Hasson
The Supreme Court has repeatedly used the Pledge as the standard for what is a permissible reference to God in a patriotic exercise.
To arrange an interview with a Becket Fund legal expert, contact Tom Carter , tcarter@becketfund.org at 202-349-7205 or 202-538-2044
Posted by Walt in Church and State categories at 11:25 PM EST
No Comments »
By Robert Meyer
Typically any discussion about breaches in the so-called impregnable wall of church and state separation are associated with right-wing fundamentalist Christians. This is a gross misconception, due largely to a deconstruction of the true meaning concerning the church and state separation concept.
The "strict separatist" view of this doctrine has come into vogue, its contemporary roots were ushered in primarily by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education. The 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling gave us the "Lemon Test," further refining and codifying the requirements of the establishment clause to the satisfaction of the then current Supreme Court.
The modern application of this approach yields something almost tantamount to affirmative action for secularists.
This is accomplished by viewing the concept of separation as an ideological separation of the secular and sacred realms, rather than a functional and jurisdictional separation of the two institutions, church and state. A sociopathic conceptual divide between God and government results, rather than a healthy recognition and respect of sphere sovereignty.
We have seen the clever, but irreverent bumper sticker slogan: "The last time we mixed religion and politics people got burned at the stake."
Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn would not be impressed. He might reply that the last time a country forgot about God, millions were murdered–and that event happened more recently–in the "enlightened" 20th century. After the liberal makes his political or philosophical dissertation about getting right-wing fundamentalist thinking out of the halls of government, he is ironically ready demonstrate that he doesn’t really believe in church and state separation after all.
We find him asking rhetorical questions, such as, who would Jesus bomb, or how does Bush’s foreign policy square with the Sermon on the Mount? Viola!
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt in Christianity, Church and State categories at 6:38 AM EST
No Comments »
by Sher Zieve
Who would have thought that, after the 9/11/2001 attacks on our country, all too many US citizens would run to both accept and embrace the religion of our enemy attackers? But, that is precisely what has happened. Since 9/11, Muslims throughout the US have demanded—and received—all manner of special privileges; from intimidating businesses into accommodating Muslim prayer rooms to said businesses setting aside portions of the workday for them to engage in prayer. Note: Suffice it to say, Christian prayer has been banned in the workplace and schools—for decades. The ACLU saw to that. But, the same ACLU that bans Christian practices hypocritically—perhaps illegally—either ignores or embraces special accommodations for Islam. Christian prayers—even non-denominational—have been forbidden in school classrooms and the workplace. But, everything Islam is being increasingly accommodated and adopted. Christmas has been branded "taboo" by public school administrators. But, the Islamic celebration of Ramadan is not only being instilled in an increasing number of public schools but, has even been celebrated at the White House.
Most recently, with yet another strong backhand applied to the faces of all non-Muslims (specifically Christians), the University of Michigan has become the latest public entity to make the decision to ignore the US Supreme Court ruling concerning the separation of church and state in the US. With their actions, its leftist/liberati administrators have also made the decision that the SCOTUS decision does NOT apply to the Muslim faith. Instead, these same officials are making increasing adjustments for Muslims and their "faith" in direct conflict with the aforementioned SCOTUS decision. This is yet another example of liberals, leftists and other enemies of the United States of America being allowed to break the laws of our land, while the rest of us are subject to arrest for not being duly submissive to the lawbreakers. As yet another example of school administrators caving to Muslims’ intimidation, 23 year old Stanislav Shmulevich was arrested for placing a copy of the Islamic Koran in a toilet at Pace University. After the originated-by-terrorist-Hamas-officials group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) complained to NYPD, police authorities charged Shmulevich with a ‘hate crime’. A hate crime against a book? However, if one does the same to a Christian Bible the authorities traditionally and historically ignore it. In other words, desecrating the Bible—or for that matter the Torah—is not considered a crime by US officials. Said "hate crimes" only applies to the Islamic Koran; just as separation of church and state applies only to Christianity and Christians.
Currently, all that is Islamic or even radical Islamist is "okay" with the American Liberati. Even one of the Democrat press’ bastions of liberalism, the Washington Post, is now attempting to instruct its readers that radical Islamists are really ‘moderates’. One of that publication’s staff writers, Michelle Boorstein, tries to shove this concept down their throats in her article From Muslim Youths, a Push for Change. By their continuing capitulation actions, our feckless liberal "leaders"
appear to be her audience. Again, their appeasement-of-all-that-frightens-them mantra grows louder: "Anything and everything Islam is okay with us!" And perpetrated by these same groups, anything and everything Christian is in process of being removed from life as we know it. Christianity, which essentially preaches peace, is being barred from American life while Islam—that preaches war and death to all non-Muslims—is being deified. Note: Isn’t it the liberals and leftists who claim to be anti-war? If so, why do they support a movement—Islam and its Muslim religion—that bases its existence on death and war and ridding this planet of all non-Muslims? No wonder the Left is considered by an increasing majority of we-the-people to be insane. It is.
In regards to the above growing atrocities, we-the-people again have two choices. We can ignore these mounting perils to our existence—and choose to end our lives—or we can fight them. Unless Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and his minions are successful in shutting us up, we can still contact our elected officials—local, statewide and national—and tell them to stop this insanity! US laws either apply to everyone or they apply to no one. If our elected leaders don’t understand that—they shouldn’t be in office. We can still vote them out. And we-the-people need to continue to take a stand against all of the increasing atrocities being committed against us. If we don’t, it won’t be long before we can no longer stand at all.
References:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-muslim30jul30,1,3405928.story?coll=la-news-a_section
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state
http://avoiceofreason.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/public-schools-embrace-islam/
http://www.riseofislam.com/western_world_03.html
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/188866.php
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/07/cair_hamas_implications_and_an_1.php
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/moderate_islam_and_its_muslim.html
Sher Zieve is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. (www.thenma.org). The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.
Posted by Walt in ACLU, Christianity, Church and State, Religon categories at 5:24 AM EDT
1 Comment »
