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| DaveSZ |
My own experience in public school, and meeting many people with diverse beliefs, has convinced me that people like Bush who wish to tear down the wall between church/state are in the wrong.
This case was the last major church/state separation case that I remember made headlines (before the pledge case):
http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/06/19/s...choolprayer.01/
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Supreme Court bars student-led prayer at high school football games
By Raju Chebium
CNN Interactive Correspondent
June 19, 2000
Web posted at: 1:10 p.m. EST (1710 GMT)
The central question was whether allowing prayer violates the First Amendment's establishment clause, which states that Congress "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
"We recognize the important role that public worship plays in many communities, as well as the sincere desire to include public prayer as a part of various occasions so as to mark those occasions' significance," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
"But such religious activity in public schools, as elsewhere, must comport with the First Amendment," he added.
The school district policy
Two students and their mothers filed suit in 1995 and were joined by the American Civil Liberties Union. The students, one Mormon and one Catholic, and their mothers were not named in court papers.
The 4,000-student southern Texas school district, until 1995, had a policy in which students elected student council chaplains to deliver prayers over the public address system before the start of high school football games.
While the lower courts were considering the legal challenge, the school district adopted a new policy under which student-led prayer was permitted but not mandated. Students were asked to vote on whether to allow prayer and to vote again to select the person to deliver them.
A lower court retooled that policy to allow only non-sectarian, non-proselytizing prayer. An appeals court found the modified policy constitutionally invalid. The nation's highest court agreed with the appeals court Monday.
Details of the majority ruling
The high court rejected the argument that the pre-football prayer was an example of "private speech" because the students, not school officials, decided the prayer matter.
But Stevens wrote that the students were able to deliver only religious messages deemed "appropriate" by the school district. That meant, he wrote, "that minority candidates will never prevail and that their views will be effectively silenced.
"Even if we regard every high school student's decision to attend a home football game as purely voluntary, we are nevertheless persuaded that the delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship," he wrote.
The other justices in the majority were Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
The dissent
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing a strongly-worded dissenting opinion, accused the majority of "distorting existing precedent" to rule that the policy violated the First Amendment, which gives the freedom of speech.
The Supreme Court says prayer led by student representatives during public school events are "not properly characterized as private speech"
"But even more disturbing than its holding is the tone of the Court's opinion; it bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life. Neither the holding nor the tone of the opinion is faithful to the meaning of the Establishment Clause," Rehnquist wrote, noting that the nation's first president, George Washington, himself had called for a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer."
Rehnquist also pointed out that the Santa Fe policy allowed students to discuss purely secular topics, not just prayer, though he acknowledged prayer would be the topic of choice nine times out of 10. He said the choice of topics and speakers was to be made by the students, not the school.
"The students may have chosen a speaker according to wholly secular criteria -- like good public speaking skills or social popularity -- and the student speaker may have chosen, on her own accord, to deliver a religious message. Such an application of the policy would likely pass constitutional muster," he wrote.
Joining him in the dissent were justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs and the school district were not immediately available for comment on the decision.
Previous prayer cases
School prayer opponents protest pre-game prayer in Texas
The current Supreme Court has been steadfast in its objection to large prayer ceremonies in government-funded schools.
In the 1992 Lee v. Weisman case, the court said no to a rabbi's prayer at a public middle school.
The next year, the Supreme Court refused to hear the Jones v. Clear Creek Independent School District case, in which the lower court allowed "non-sectarian, non-proselytizing, student-initiated, student-led" prayers at graduation ceremonies.
The Santa Fe case was filed to challenge both the Supreme Court's decision to reject the Jones case and to void the Santa Fe district's policy.
In 1963, the Supreme Court banned prayer in public schools.
The case is Santa Fe Independent School District v. Jane Doe.
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by djsubsonik
when the pilgrims came here in the 1600s they came for religious freedom
so i cant stand that people have went to the extent to separate church and state,
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^^
How do you reconcile these two statements in the same breath?
That they knew the perils of religious persecution is the reason why you and I are free to believe as we wish in this country.
I don't know what is so hard to understand about that, but clearly our president doesn't understand it either.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/d...ry/bar1796t.htm
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The Barbary Treaties :
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796
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.
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http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl...er_tripoli.html
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President Adams signed the treaty and proclaimed it to the nation on 10 June 1797. His statement on it was a bit unusual:
"Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof." |
| quote: | Originally posted by arctic
Looks like someone doesn't know their history. Under god was added in the 1950s, the original pledge didn't have any religions references in it, period.
Yes, they believed in god, but there were numerous deists. Thomas Paine is a prime example of this, he was vehemently opposed to Christianity, hell - he even wrote a book on it.
Further to that - if you'd ever read your own constitution you'd realizer that there is strict separation of church and state enforced. I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean I yearn for the day when every school will coerce students into saying a pledge that affirms the non-existence of god. Government should remain neutral on all matters religious.
They're doing that because the founding fathers wrote it into the constitution.
Once again, the original pledge did not contain 'under god'. It was added in the 1950s.
Again, utterly irrelevant. The founding fathers believed in god (although not the same gods as each other), but unfortunately for you - they realized that the government and religion should be kept strictly separate. They didn't try and push their 'god belief' onto others.
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I think it's more accurate to say that our Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment as sanctioning church/state separation, but the court has used the guidance and wisdom of the Founding Fathers as their methodology.
:);)
http://atheism.about.com/library/FA...sep_danbury.htm
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Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
Jefferson
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| DaveSZ |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...004Jun14_2.html
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Ruling in favor of Newdow last year, the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit cited a 1992 decision by the Supreme Court that said a rabbi's nonsectarian prayer at a public high school graduation violated the First Amendment clause that prohibits the establishment of an official religion -- because nonreligious students might feel psychological pressure to join in, even if not formally required to do so.
Though public school students have long been free to remain silent during the recitation of the pledge, the 9th Circuit Court ruled that since Newdow's daughter in elementary school had to choose between saying "under God" or risking ostracism by skipping it, his right as a father to instruct her in religious matters without state interference was violated.
Even some conservative legal analysts called the 9th Circuit's ruling a plausible reading of the Supreme Court's precedents. Indeed, in his concurring opinion yesterday, Thomas said that the 1992 ruling "would require us to strike down the pledge policy," which is why, he said, the 1992 precedent should be overruled.
Still, the 9th Circuit decision sparked a political uproar, as the ruling was denounced by the president and nearly the entire membership of Congress. All 50 state governments, the National Education Association and the National School Boards Association also weighed in at the court in favor of the existing pledge.
An April Gallup poll showed that 91 percent of the public wanted the pledge to remain as it is, while 8 percent wanted to see "under God" expunged.
Thus, the court was under intense pressure to uphold the pledge, but a satisfactory legal argument for doing so was not readily apparent.
Lawyers for both the Elk Grove schools and the Bush administration urged the justices to find that "under God" was not a religious affirmation, but, as the administration's brief put it, a simple acknowledgement of "the role that faith in God has played in the formation, political foundation, and continuing development of this Country."
But in the end, only Rehnquist and O'Connor adopted such an interpretation, in concurring opinions that referred to Newdow's suit as a bid for a "heckler's veto" over a widely accepted patriotic exercise.
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| It's funny that in America many people would like to see strong integration between the state and fundamentalist branches of the church, yet the state and religion are more seperated than they are in Europe where noone really cares about religion anymore. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
Wait a tick - our country was founded in the 1950's? It was founded in rebellion against godless Communism?
Goodness, we all learn something new every day, don't we? |
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