Did congress make a law? (Establishment Clause)

And the precept only states that when it comes to establishment of a religion, the US Congress shall make no law to do so. In the 1987 case, congress made no law. The state law was not in conflict with the constitution because it is not the US Congress. Congress did not make a law prohibiting teaching of creationism in state schools, so the Louisiana law was not in conflict with the supreme law of the land by the second clause of Article VI. See, that's what's not so clear. There's no explicit statement in the Constitution that says that state legislatures are extensions of Congress. Congress is the only body explicitly restricted from establishing a religion. Right, because in that situation the constituion explicitly mentions the states:

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Amendment XV

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Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

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Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation

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Amendment XIX

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The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

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Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation

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Right, and the La. law was not in conflict because the La. legislature is not Congress.Yes, I'm afraid it appears that the other cases are also examples of the Supreme Court legislating from the bench.From LEMON v. KURTZMAN, 403 U.S. 602 (1971)

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The entanglement in the Pennsylvania program also arises from the restrictions and surveillance necessary to ensure that teachers play a strictly nonideological role and the state supervision of nonpublic school accounting procedures required to establish the cost of secular as distinguished from religious education. In addition, the Pennsylvania statute has the further defect of providing continuing financial aid directly to the church-related schools. Historically governmental control and surveillance measures tend to follow cash grant programs, and here the government's post-audit power to inspect the financial records of church-related schools creates an intimate and continuing relationship between church and state.

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So what if there is an intimate relationship between church and state? As long as it's not a church owned state or a state owned church, there's no conflict with the 1st ammendment. Actually, now that I think of it, that STILL wouldn't be a conflict. Congress was STILL not involved.

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Political division along religious lines was one of the evils at which the First Amendment aimed, and in these programs, where successive and probably permanent annual appropriations that benefit relatively few religious groups are involved, political [403 U.S. 602, 604] fragmentation and divisiveness on religious lines are likely to be intensified.

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Well, than maybe we should ammend the 1st ammendment because nothing in it states that the court has a right to strike down state laws just because it sees the potential for political division along religious lines.

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Unlike the tax exemption for places of religious worship, upheld in Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U.S. 664 , which was based on a practice of 200 years, these innovative programs have self-perpetuating and self-expanding propensities which provide a warning signal against entanglement between government and religion.

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Here is more legislating from the bench. Nothing in the constitution says anything about "there should be as little entanglement of govt and religion as possible." No, it says "Congress shall make no law..."
That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. It seems the Supreme Court in this situation is reading more into it than there is.This one is worse:
LEE v. WEISMAN, 505 U.S. 577 (1992),

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The principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of religion does not supersede the fundamental limitations imposed by the Establishment Clause, which guarantees, at a minimum, that a government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which "establishes a [505 U.S. 577, 578] [state] religion or religious faith, or tends to do so." Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 678 . Pp. 586-587.

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The Establishment Clause, at a minimum, only applies to laws that Congress makes. It says NOTHING about "a government."It does refer to its own precedent ruling LYNCH v. DONNELLY, 465 U.S. 668 (1984)
Here they overturn a court of appeals ruling that said exactly what the framers intended:

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(a) The concept of a "wall" of separation between church and state is a useful metaphor but is not an accurate description of the practical aspects of the relationship that in fact exists. The Constitution does not require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any. Anything less would require the "callous indifference," Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 314 , that was never intended by the Establishment Clause. Pp. 672-673.

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(b) This Court's interpretation of the Establishment Clause comports with the contemporaneous understanding of the Framers' intent. That neither the draftsmen of the Constitution, who were Members of the First Congress, nor the First Congress itself, saw any establishment problem in employing Chaplains to offer daily prayers in the Congress is a striking example of the accommodation of religious beliefs intended by the Framers. Pp. 673-674.

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They overturn this ruling and make up their own version of the first ammendment.

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This Court has explained that the purpose of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment is

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"to prevent, as far as possible, the intrusion of either [the church or the state] into the precincts of the other." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 614 (1971).

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At the same time, however, the Court has recognized that

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"total separation is not possible in an absolute sense. Some relationship between government and religious organizations is inevitable." Ibid.

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In every Establishment Clause case, we must reconcile the inescapable tension between the objective of preventing unnecessary intrusion of either the church or the state upon the other, and the reality that, as the Court has so often noted, total separation of the two is not possible. [465 U.S. 668, 673]

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Right, it's highly improbable that you will ever separate the two completely. But, they say that the establishment clause is there to prevent the intrusion of state into church or vice versa. WRONG. That's not what it says at all. It only restricts the laws that congress can make, period. Not state laws, not local laws, not school regulations, only congress.

The 14th ammendment does say that every person gets equal protection under the law in each jurisdiction. Ok, what law says that a state legislature can't pass a law involving teaching creationism in public schools? There is none. Unless you re-work the 1st Ammendment to say what it does not say.

That is a classic example of re-working the 1st ammendment to say what it doesn't say."When it says this what they really mean is that. Don't you see?"Any fundamentalist christian is not going to see it that way, since they are so used to reading things literally. And in the case of the constitution they are right. There is no reason to suppose that the very deliberate wording of the constitution doesn't mean precisely what it says, word for word. They don't like to make metaphors out of things unless it has something to do with saying that we are in "end times."

I see you did not address the 14^th. Amendment. Any particular reason you're ignoring it? Doesn't matter. The 14^th. Amendment made it quite clear that State Courts or Legislatures could not discriminate against its citizens. That's the 1^st.. Fortunately, there is also the 14^th. to protect us from acts like the La. Law.So the rulings from SCOTUS were simply upholding the Constitution.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This is apples and oranges, really.I think the objections raised by people came from the paper's assertions about what jargon should and should not be used in the psychological field:
From: The Paper

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If a young person felt that he or she
did not freely participate in the encounter and if he or she experienced negative reactions to it, then child
sexual abuse, a term that implies harm to the individual, would be valid. Moreover, the term child should be
restricted to nonadolescent children ( Ames & Houston, 1990 ). Adolescents are different from children in that
they are more likely to have sexual interests, to know whether they want a particular sexual encounter, and to
resist an encounter that they do not want. Furthermore, unlike adult-child sex, adult-adolescent sex has been
commonplace cross-culturally and historically, often in socially sanctioned forms, and may fall within the
"normal" range of human sexual behaviors ( Bullough, 1990 ; Greenberg, 1988 ; Okami, 1994 ). A willing
encounter between an adolescent and an adult with positive reactions on the part of the adolescent would
then be labeled scientifically as adult-adolescent sex, while an unwanted encounter with negative reactions
would be labeled adolescent sexual abuse. By drawing these distinctions, researchers are likely to achieve
a more scientifically valid understanding of the nature, causes, and consequences of the heterogeneous
collection of behaviors heretofore labeled CSA.

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I think many people were reading this as if it were a law telling people how they should see sex between a person >18yo and someone <18yo. It was merely a suggestion on how to clear up psych jargon and not to lump cases together that don't belong together. I think certain people took it to mean that they themselves should change the way they view the world.Was there some law passed that actually said that this paper had to be retracted and couldn't be published, or that future research could not be published if they had certain findings? I couldn't find anything that said that. They were "condemning" the findings, which is a pretty funny thing to do, like in the evo case.The reason I say that this is apples and oranges is that here Congress IS involved. They may make a law, or they may not. If they make a law that restricts free speech, and especially scientific findings, then it would be unconstitutional.

Oh, really? That's cool. I was really looking for one of the artist's renditions on the National Geographic website, but I came across this one and went with it. I think it's one of those pictures that says everything. Well, not the little avatar sized one. But if a creationist were to see the real fossil up close (as I have not) and could be shown the microscopic structure of the quite modern looking feathers on this therapod dinosaur (which I just totally buy and swallow without seeing it myself), then what other explanation could there be but that birds evolved from dinosaurs? (Except, of course, that it was a species that didn't make it in the flood.)

I did address it, just not with you. Sorry, reading those long court cases distracted me.I'll say it again. The 14th says that every citizen will have equal protection under the law. There is no law restricting the La. legislature from forcing schools to teach creationism so there is no protection to be equally distributed. If the 14th ammendment is saying that all laws are in effect federal laws (which it's not), then what's the point in having states? Why not just do away with them all and have one centralized govt since all citizens should have the exact same laws? But that's not what the 14th says. It says that within whatever jurisdiction you are in, you are equally "protected" by the laws of that jurisdiction. No law applies to a black person that does not also apply to a white person.The 14th really has nothing to do with this, unless there would be some kids in La. not under the "protection" of the creationism law. And that doesn't matter, because discrimination has nothing to do with teaching creationism in public schools, unless teaching evolution is also discrimination somehow. If you didn't live in louisiana (as I actually did in 1987) then you needed no protection from its laws. I think you are reading the 14th like it's the first Clause you quoted. They are two different things. One says that US laws are supreme over state laws. The other says that all citizens are to be treated equally by the law in each jurisdiction. Now, that doesn't mean that a law in Louisiana can't be opposed to a law in another state. So, the La. Law, which is not in conflict with the 1st ammendment and not in conflict with any federal law is also not in conflict with the 14th. There is nothing in it that says that some students have to be taught creationism while other students do not, so everyone still has "equal protection." Actually, it seems they are re-writing it.

Teaching Creationism is discriminatory by definition. It discriminates against every non-Christian and also most Christians. Nonsense. There is at least a vast body of evidence in support of the TOE and Evolution itself is a fact. Teaching Creationism though presupposes that there is a GOD. It's pretty obvious that the GOD is the Raven but still, it's discriminatory to teach kids that humans exist only because witelin Tsta mated with poyan T'Chu.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

the school system is a government body. the state government decides what is taught in schools. by law. teaching christian-based creation science in schools is equal to the state establishing christianity as a preferred religion. the first ammendment says that congress can make no law establishing a religion. the 14th ammendment says that states cannot break the federal constitution. therefore. this education is unconstitutional. teaching public school children about christianity is not an example of the free exercise of it. it is imposing one's beliefs on others.if you do not understand how this works, i suggest you take a conlaw class or one on civil liberties. i'm about to start my masters in political science.

since when are fundamentalists literalists? they don't read the bible for what it says, they read it for what pastor bob says it says.

Yes, exactly. The lack of that law is an unequal protection under the law.Because there is no law preventing the La. legislature from doing that, there is unequal protection - people subject to that action by the La. legislature are less protected than others, and less protected than they would be if it was Congress trying to do that. Thus, the 14th Amendment prevents the legislature from doing that.

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)

Forcing someone by law to believe or to testify that they believe Creationism would be discrimiation. Merely teaching it in class as an alternative "theory" to evolution doesn't in itself make it discrimination. A lot of what we learn in school is plain wrong, especially when it comes to history. Should we teach multiple revisionist versions of the history of the American Revolution because teaching that George Washington was a great man discriminates against current members of the Native American nations that he decimated?Just teaching something that someone doesn't agree with isn't discrimination. Well, see above. It doesn't matter how "right" the lesson is when it comes to deciding whether it is discriminatory or not. Teaching one, two, or three of the numerous versions of "biological theory" is limiting the scope of the lesson, discriminating (in the general sense) between the two versions. This may be a matter of opinion, but there is still no violation of the Establishment Clause, which is the reason behind the 1987 ruling. It had nothing to do with the 14th Ammendment either, which is also not violated by merely teaching inaccurate lessons in school.

Yes, it is establishment of a religion BUT it doesn't violate the 1st ammendment as it is worded.I know the supreme court would never allow this but if a state decided that it did want a state-run church or a church-run state, the way the 1st Ammendment is worded, it would not be un-constitutional simply because the 1st ammendment is worded the way it is. It sure does. And, if a state establishes it's own church, congress doesn't have to lift a finger. Well, sort of. But, as I keep saying, a state would not break the constitution by establishing a religion. Only congress would. Would teaching evolution, no matter how "right" it may be, be an example of not allowing the free exercise of religion? It's the same both ways. If a fundie kid wants to exercise his religion by not attending classes where evolution is taught, would he be freely exercising his religion? Maybe. No offense, but you might want to brush up yourself before the test!
Nah, what am I saying? The profs probably read the same thing into the 1st ammendment that most people do, which totally re-writes it in their head for them.