clause. So while the current Pledge is not what Rev. Bellamy had in mind, it is constitutionally sound.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is not at odds with the current Pledge of Allegiance, or James Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance", Thomas Jeffersons "A Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom", or the Declaration of Independence.
It is the absurdly broad interpretation of the Establishment Clause urged by Mr. Newdou that is at odds with the texts and historical facts. Would Mr Newdou argue with a straight face that Jefferson's Bill For Religious Freedom, which ensured religious freedom and forbade the establishment of religion, was itself a violation of the Establishment Clause because it stated that almighty God was the source of our rights?
From 1776 to 1785, Jefferson worked to have legislation enacted to forbid the establishment of religion in Virginia. Madison also worked to have this legislation passed, and just a few years later Madison initiated the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution.
It is absurd to hold that the Establishment Clause of the US COnstitution is something completely different than what Madison and Jefferson wrote, and what the Courts have relied on since
Everson vs. Board of Education (1947) as the best evididence as to the meaning of the establishment clause. If Jefferson is not to be relied on for the meaning of the establishment clause, what then of the "Wall of Separation" doctrine?
http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
Thomas Jefferson, 1786
Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power...
Try this mind experiment:
Suppose next month the legislature of the State of Virginia were to pass Thomas Jefferson's "Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom" in its original language. Would the courts would rule it unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause? Suppose the same were done with Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance?http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/remon.html James Madison
Memorial and Remonstrance -1785
*** Quote ***
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia
A Memorial and Remonstrance
We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled "A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,
1. Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence." The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considerd as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign.....
And let's not forget this one:
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.htmlThe Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
Presented by the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain
is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
