Did congress make a law? (Establishment Clause)

In the 1987 Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard, SCOTUS ruled that teaching creationism alongside evolution in state classrooms was "establishment" and therefore unconstituional.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard.html#Held

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The Establishment Clause forbids the enactment of any law "respecting an establishment of religion" (4). The Court has applied a three-pronged test to determine whether legislation comports with the Establishment Clause. First, the legislature must have adopted the law with a secular purpose. Second, the statute's principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Third, the statute must not result in an excessive entanglement of government with religion. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-613 (1971) (5). State action violates the Establishment Clause if it fails to satisfy any of these prongs.

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But, the 1st Ammendment to the US Constituion reads:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmenti

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

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I'm definitley no lawyer, but I'd like to know how the Justices interpreted "Congress shall make no law..." as "No state legislature may pass a law..." or the actual wording "The Establishment Clause forbids the enactment of any law "respecting an establishment of religion"

Is there something I'm missing here?

added Establishment Clause to title - The Queen

This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 02-25-2005 17:47 AM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Yup. Article VI Clause 2

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Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

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Thank GOD the founders were smart enough to have considered that the states might do something as stupid as try to establish a state religion.

This message has been edited by jar, 02-25-2005 17:52 AM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

It has been a while since I tried to read that document.

I personally notice

is facially invalid as violative of

&because it lacks a clear secular purpose. regardles of the "law".

Then I noticed

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In sum, even if one concedes, for the sake of argument, that a majority of the Louisiana Legislature voted for the Balanced Treatment Act partly in order to foster (rather than merely eliminate discrimination against) Christian fundamentalist beliefs, our cases establish that that alone would not suffice to invalidate the Act, so long as there was a genuine secular purpose as well. We have, moreover, no adequate basis for disbelieving the secular purpose set forth in the Act itself, or for concluding that it is a sham enacted to conceal the legislators' violation of their oaths of office. I am astonished by the Court's unprecedented readiness to reach such a conclusion, which I can only attribute to an intellectual predisposition created by the facts and the legend of Scopes v. State, 154 Tenn. 105, 289 S. W. 363 (1927) -- an instinctive reaction that any governmentally imposed requirements bearing upon the teaching of evolution must be a manifestation of Christian fundamentalist repression. In this case, however, it seems to me the Court's position is the repressive one. The people of Louisiana, including those who are Christian fundamentalists, are quite entitled, as a secular matter, to have whatever scientific evidence there may be against evolution presented in their schools, just as Mr. Scopes was entitled to present whatever scientific evidence there was for it. Perhaps what the Louisiana Legislature has done is unconstitutional because there is no such evidence,

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&

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Infinitely less can we say (or should we say) that the scientific evidence for evolution is so conclusive that no one could be gullible enough to believe that there is any real scientific evidence to the contrary, so that the legislation's stated purpose must be a lie

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Now Scalia thought-

Since the existence of secular purpose is so entirely clear

from which I WAS FORCED TO READ either IT was in truth NOT violative or was facially say SNOOPDOGONSLOPEDAY@CU or else the law involves an intricate differnce of teleonomics and teleomatics. The record doesnt seem to support my reading so I suppose the purpose was contained in the document as documented thus if the PURPOSE of adding information not formerly available IS to enhance both creation and evolution hermenutics then I can see that it might have a just spectralization on are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. where the disposition set up how in this future of c/e we might show what IS TO THE PEOPLE.

That's how I like to read it and had read it perhaps it is time for me to revist my reading.

I dont know if that helps - THE FACE OF STATE AND THE STATE OF STATE's people's faces are two different things. I doubt the use of infinity by Scalia is able to support this. I havent read all the words though.

BY ammend 1 we had

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make no law respecting an establishment of

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and that is about all santa clause brought. So did they "make this law?"- well no-
It is not really true that

scientifically valuable information was being censored and students misled about evolution.

because the nature of the information needed to write this Santa was not included as far as I know.I think it was a mistake to focus on motives when it was the students perspective that should have become established rather than the teacher's need of freedom. That might be a little unfair to the people and I'll be willing to retract that and reread if that gave offense.

There IS a clear secular purpose and from reading ICR material I think they were aware of it, at the time, so it is still somewhat a mystery to me how polItics trumped technology in the case, in my case how at the time, I was being prosecuted psychologically and against my will, for what is not evidentiary.

My guess, and dont ""quote me on it, lets say lets keep it off the record, is that the justices could only write "of" and not comma

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n, nor prohibited by it to the states, are

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. Two letter are easier to comprehend than words between two commas.

My feeling is that the lack of a clear secular USE OF THE BIOLOGY by the "seculars" and this includes faith people as well, as I spoke with one supporting the plaintiffs, who preached in my local church in Ithaca was more clouded than what we students can bring today and thus the judges "shortcircuited" the decision.

This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 02-25-2005 19:57 AM

This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 02-25-2005 19:58 AM

That clause doesn't seem to affect the phrase "Congress shall make no law..."

What that clause says to me is that when Congress does make a law, then all the states have to abide by it. If a state enacts a law, Congress (US Congress) wasn't involved in the slightest. Congress made no law and that's the only thing that the 1st ammendment forbids. It forbids Congress from establishing a religion, but it doesn't say anything about individual states establishing them.

I really apologize, but I'm not following your post one bit.
:confused:

just ignore it then. thanks for giving me the links. Ihavent read that in some time.

What isn't clear? The clause clearly states that it is the supreme law of the land, and that the state laws, whatever they may choose to say, can't break the precepts of the constitution.

Thus, when the national congress is (thankfully) prohibited from taking part in religion, so by extension are state legislatures. It is exactly this clause that disallows a state from, for instance, passing a law that says that only adult white males can vote.

What it does say is that a State cannot pass any laws that are in conflict with the Constitution, Federal Laws or Treaties. The 14^th. extended that protection to include State Legislatures under the Equal Protection Amendment.

Amendment 14: Section 1

Section 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 to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Fortunately, those two along with the decisions of SCOTUS such as:

LEMON v. KURTZMAN, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), LEE v. WEISMAN, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), ALLEGHENY COUNTY v. GREATER PITTSBURGH ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989) and Engel v. Vitale have upheld and strengthed that position.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

14th ammendment. incorporation. applying federal constitution to the states. the same reason states can't forbid minorities etc from voting or allow polygamy and so forth.

the supreme court has made a habit of slowly incorporating this and enforcing the principle on a case by case basis rather than making all the states simply ammend their constitutions to include the federal articles.

This message has been edited by brennakimi, 02-26-2005 12:06 AM

yeah... what you said.

The Bill of Rights isn't just a description of what the government can't do. It's an open-ended list of what rights we, as citizens of the United States, have that cannot be abridged.

So when the First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law", it's saying that we have an inalienable right. Therefore a law by any government organ that abridges that right is unconstitutional.

The Bill of Rights isn't just a description of what the government can't do. It's an open-ended list of what rights we, as citizens of the United States, have that cannot be abridged.

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)

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.

Well, yes. Unfortunately, in practice, the Constitution doesn't interpret itself; it has to be interpreted by the Supreme Court, who decide what is consistent with it, and what is not.

And since almost all politicians are Christians, its no surprise to find that the rights of atheists count for shit when it comes to the Supreme Court. Combined with the fact that we don't have a free press in this country, and you may very well be right about where we're headed.

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