Did congress make a law? (Establishment Clause)

Now add... in theory. I wish it was true in practice but we do have congressional ministers, "under God" placed in the pledge of allegiance, and the ability of Congress to alter free speech rights based purely on moral concerns.This last point I made in a recent thread which has gone almost completely unnoticed. In 1998 the Congress proved it has the ability to censor, and at least one major organization has been pressed into censoring, scientific literature in order that all scientific results fit popular moral views and political policy.This is a done deal, and with the gov't completely able to alter science (repress free speech) to reinforce policy, there is no stopping them from riding over any and all other rights. And that is at the national level. Now states can use this precedent to easily dismiss evolution and accept ID theory.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

While this is true, it was going to have an effect on those that thought they based their moral and legal classifications on "harm". Many people wanted to pretend that they did just that, and certainly the Congress wanted to have a legal argument that their policies were based on actually protecting people from harm, and so this paper did have an effect, even if they were mainly concerned with how Psychology should treat that issue.If you want to talk more about that case, you can go to the thread. I didn't want to get into the actual specifics of it here, just point out that it is an example of Congress defying the Constitution's theoretical limitations on their power. Please read my thread for further info. They did not pass a law, but instead passed a resolution stating that the gov't should reject any findings such as these. That has the indirect effect of "banning" the speech before lawmaking bodies, and thus is as good as killing it outright.But that was not as significant as what else went on around it. Without passing any laws, and before the resolution was passed, the Congress put political pressure (one can only assume that would include monetary blackmail) on the APA to change its position and reject the study. That was direct coercion which resulted in the APA stating in the future it would make sure science matched public policy before printing. If that is not a chilling effect on free speech through Congressional funding mechanisms, I am unsure what one would consider it.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)