Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: merlyn@digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: 1st amendment (was: religious courses in a secular school) Message-ID: Date: 6 Apr 91 06:37:06 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: DigiBoard Incorporated, St. Louis Park, MN Lines: 92 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) writes: >As I read it, the Constitution says that CONGRESS cannot make a LAW >establishing a STATE RELIGION. It also says that CONGRESS cannot make a >LAW abridging the practice of a religion. Got it on line, here's the first: 1st Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. >The Constitution also reserves for the states all rights not assigned to >the Congress. The states AND THE PEOPLE. 9th Amendment The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 10th Amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. >So, what does allowing people to pray at graduation ceremonies have to >do with the 1st Ammendment? Congress isn't passing a law stating that >there shall be prayers at graduation ceremonies! They (hopefully) >aren't passing a law that prevents them either. The issue is not "allowing" people to pray; people can pray at graduation ceremonies all they want. The issue is having someone up at the microphone *lead everyone in prayer*, at the *behest of the state*, which is an establishment of religion by the state. The state is upholding *one particular* religion over all others. Would you object to someone leading all the students in: a Christian prayer? a Jewish prayer? a Moslem prayer? a Wiccan prayer? a Satanist prayer? or an atheist leading all the students to recite "there is no god, there is no god..."? If your answer to these questions are not ALL "yes" or "no", you are answering *depending on whether you like the religious views being presented*, and are "allowing" only *those religious views you approve of*. >It even appears to me that if A STATE wanted to establish a STATE >RELIGION that that right has been reserved for them. (Extreme, I'll >grant you, but constitutional the way I read it!) It was, and Massachusetts (for one, at least) HAD a state religion. But if you read all of the constitution, you would've found the 14th amendment: 14th Amendment Sect. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State -> shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges -> or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction -> the equal protection of the laws. The parts marked -> are most appropriate. The 14th prevents states from establishing official state religions. >As I read it, the new Congress wanted to make sure that this new country >didn't establish a state religion as England had, this would make sense >since so many of our founders had left England so they could freely >practice their religion. That was a large part of it. Official prayers at graduation ceremonies feel a lot like a state religion to me. After all, no one else gets to present their religious views, only the people invited by *the state*. >Does anyone know when this present >interpretation of the 1st Ammendment became vogue? Does the name Thomas Jefferson ring a bell? Granted, it wasn't until the 1950s that most justices agreed. --- Merlyn LeRoy