Abask ye mate, I'll have at ye!
music2myear said:
I hate to sound persnickety (actually, I don't) but where in the Constitution or Declaration of Independance, or anywhere in our founding documents does it say there is a seperation between church and state?
Have at me.
From the
Cornell Law Library:
Two clauses in the First Amendment guarantee freedom of religion. The establishment clause prohibits the government from passing legislation to establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another. It enforces the "separation of church and state. Some governmental activity related to religion has been declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. For example, providing bus transportation for parochial school students and the enforcement of "blue laws" is not prohibited. The free exercise clause prohibits the government, in most instances, from interfering with a persons practice of their religion.
From
Everson v. Board of Education (Findlaw)
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.
...
The Amendment's purpose was not to strike merely at the official establishment of a single sect, creed or religion, outlawing only a formal relation such as had prevailed in England and some of the colonies. Necessarily it was to uproot all such relationships. But the object was broader than separating church and state in this narrow sense. It was to create a complete and permanent separation of the [330 U.S. 1, 32] spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion. In proof the Amendment's wording and history unite with this Court's consistent utterances whenever attention has been fixed directly upon the question.
...
'Religion' has the same broad significance in the twin prohibition concerning 'an establishment.' The Amendment was not duplicitous. 'Religion' and 'establishment' were not used in any formal or technical sense. The prohibition broadly forbids state support, financial or other, of religion in any guise, form or degree. It outlaws all use of public funds for religious purposes.
...
As a member of the General Assembly in 1779 he [Madison] threw his full weight behind Jefferson's historic Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. That bill was a prime phase of Jefferson's broad program of democratic reform undertaken on his return from the Continental Congress in 1776 and submitted for the General Assembly's consideration in 1779 as his proposed revised Virginia code. 15 With Jefferson's departure for Europe in 1784, Madison became the Bill's prime [330 U.S. 1, 36] sponser. 16 Enactment failed in successive legislatures from its introduction in June 1779, until its adoption in January, 1786. But during all this time the fight for religious freedom moved forward in Virginia on various fronts with growing intensity. Madison led throughout, against Patrick Henry's powerful opposing leadership until Henry was elected governor in November, 1784.
Each of these quotes points to the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States, charged with interpreting the Constitution, has upheld the notions that there is, in fact, a separation of church and state as has been outlined in the 1st Amendment's dual clauses regarding religious freedom. The Founding Fathers wrote the constitution so that it would be interpreted, rather than being taken word for word, which would have been very harmful to the developing nation (the same harm that comes from the Bible thumpers out there that believe the Bible is God's True Word and must be taken literally, word for word, without thinking about the underlying values.)
Since the Supreme Court believes that there is a 'separation of Church and State' contained within the Constitution, it is only appropriate to admit that, while not word for word, there is content contained within the Constitution and successive laws, that "broadly forbids state support, financial or other, of religion in any guise, form or degree." To use a quote: "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable."
Gov. Bush signing a decree that a certain day be "Jesus Day" slaps the constitution and the court rulings in the face (or pissed on them, if you would prefer that wording). Jesus is a religious figure, whether it be as part of the trinity of Christianity, or as a religious prophet in the Judaic and Muslim religions. By making his state of Texas acknowledge Jesus, even for a day, he was not only using tax-payer money to fund a religious purpose, but was imposing Jesus upon the entire state of Texas, Christians or not.
I find it hard to believe that Bush would have signed an "Allah Day" or a "Confucious Day," as they do not directly mesh with his belief system. By using his tax-payer funded time to think about the idea of a Jesus Day while he's pulling the switch on the electric chair, he was acknowledging the existance of Jesus, and therefore was promoting what Jesus stood for, namely, worshipping God (the Christian's God, not any other God).
For me personally, regardless of the HUGE deficit, which will only grow bigger in the next 4 years, regardless of the impending wars in N. Korea and Iran, and the quagmire in Iraq, regardless of the obvious scandals that have occured under Bush's watch (prison abuse, war under false pretenses, Halliburton (twice), etc.), regardless of the rest of the world (-Poland) being pissed at us, and regardless of the lack of economic recovery, Bush trying to push his religious (he calls them 'moral') views on the country is what I am most afraid of. Whether it be prohibiting abortions, establishing Jesus days, funding religious programs with tax-payer funds, or attempting to write discrimination into the constitution (to protect the 'sanctity of marriage,' whatever the f--- that means nowadays,) for the purpose of bringing out the religious zealots on voting day, those things scare me.
Maybe it's because I'm from one of those liberal elitist states in the upper northeast and western-coastal areas, and we just happen to have civil unions in my state and I can see that nothing changes the day after it becomes a law; maybe it's because I actually question the morals and validity of a book that was written (exclusively by men) during a time when slavery was the norm and women's rights were non-existant. Maybe it's because i'm bored at my job and I like to 'have at' conservatives via the internet. Maybe it's because me and my tinfoil hat are getting ready for 4 more years of Bush. But whatever it is, I don't get a good feeling when I think about what Bush has in store for us.
