marc9000 writes:
quote:
Separation of church and state had nothing to do with US foundings.
After all, it isn't like there is a clause in the Constitution that guarantees free exercise of religion and prohibits government from establishing religion.
Wait...there is? Damn.
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It is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or Bill of Rights.
I see we're playing the "laundry list" game, pretending as if the founding documents were a checklist and if you don't find the specifc words in a specific sequence within the text, then that means there is no Constitutional right for same.
Of course, by this logic, you don't have a right to breathe, eat, sleep, have sex, have children, read books, watch a sunset, fall in love, etc., etc. for nowhere are those things to be found in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution.
See, the problem with the "laundry list" mentality is that nobody actually believes it. The only time it gets invoked is when the person doesn't like a judicial interpretation of the Constitution. It's akin to the epithet, "activist judge": The only thing it means is that the person whining doesn't like the decision.
Of course, the Declaration of Independence doesn't really have anything to do with the way the country works. The foundational principles of our country are only to be found in the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence is, essentially, a geometry proof about why the US needs to be independent of the British Crown. This was, after all, the Enlightenment when the clockwork universe was the dominant paradigm and most of the founders were Deists, believing in a god that didn't really take any active part in the workings of the universe that was created.
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Separation of church and state was an important part of a constitution, but it wasn’t the US constitution.
And here we see the "laundry list" mentality coming up again. Indeed, you won't find the words "separation of church and state" in the Constitution. That doesn't mean the right isn't there. You won't "pursuit of happiness" anywhere in the Constitution, either, but that doesn't mean the Constitution doesn't protect it.
After all, why does the "laundry list" mentality fail?
Because the Constitution explicitly denies such an interpretation. It appears someone has completely ignored the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
In other words (damn! There I go sticking words into the Constitution as if they were part of the actual text, just like "separation of church and state"!) just because you don't find it specifically mentioned in the Constitution (because it is not "enumerated") doesn't mean you don't have a right to it ("shall not be construed to deny or disparage others").
There are plenty of rights that you do have that are not mentioned by the Constitution. In one of the many cliches we hopefully should have learned from grade school, one of the complaints about having a Bill of Rights was the very idea of enumerating rights would seem to indicate that anything not mentioned was prohibited. The joke was that "Congress shall make no law prohibiting a man from sleeping on his right side." Many of the founders didn't want such black-and-white mentality to be enshrined in the law for precisely the reaction you are having: People claiming that if it isn't specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it is prohibited.
Remember, the US system was born out of the British system of Common Law. There was no universal listing of the legal code as we understand it. The very job of the judge was to pay attention to the general principles of the law and figure out a way to apply it to a specific case. This system does not cotton to specificities because it relies upon the judge to understand that every case is unique and what works in one case will not work for another.
Now, the US system is not the same as British system. We do have more standardized laws that result in a more uniform system of justice across the land. However, we still understand that not everything can be covered, not everything can be enumerated, and thus we cannot hold ourselves slaves to specific words as if they will provide every answer to every question. We need to be able to have a system that can work with things that were never conceived of before.
For example: Abortion. Abortion was legal at the time of the founders up to the moment of quickening. So of course you're not going to find any statement in the Constitution concerning abortion. It was already legal. Why on earth put something in the Constitution about a practice everybody already understood to be legal? "Congress shall make no law prohibiting a man from sleeping on his right side."
That's the point of the Ninth Amendment: There's no way in hell that the Constitution will ever be able to enumerate every right that you have and prohibit every action you shouldn't be allowed to do. So it isn't going to try. It will put forward guiding principles and specifically and directly point out that you have rights it hasn't mentioned and they are protected by the Constitution.
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So the fact is, separation of church and state evolved in the US — it was not part of US foundings
Well, you're forgetting the Treaty of Tripoli, signed in 1797:
Article 11
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
[emphasis added]
So it would seem that one of the founding documents of the country. You see, Article VI of the Constitution talks specifically about treaties and how they affect US law:
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.
[emphasis added]
So it would seem that one of the founding documents of our country explicity and directly states that the US is not a "Christian nation."
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The scientific community really should stop implying that it was.
What does the scientific community have to do with any of this? This is basic American History. I see you did a marvelous job of quote mining, but I have to wonder: Did you get any of your information from first-hand sources or did you just do a web search, land upon web sites of a particular political bent, and cut-and-paste their out-of-context quotes? Given that one of your quotes is from the Belcher Foundation, I highly suspect that you didn't actually approach this subject with a clear head but rather went looking for material that supported your preconceived notions of how things are supposed to be.
Next time, turn off the computer, go to the library, and read the actual documents for yourself rather than relying on what someone else tells you they say.
Rrhain
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