John R. Houk
© July 4, 2016
I’m not a huge believer in the American’s Left
interpretation of the Disestablishmentarian Clause of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or … (Amendment I: FREEDOM OF RELIGION, SPEECH,
PRESS, ASSEMBLY, AND PETITION; National Constitution Center)
The Left and Secular Humanists interpret this clause as
meaning religion (Founding Fathers meant Christian Church) and State must be
absolutely separated from each other. No government in the Church and no Church
in the government. But you can read the clause. Tell me where it is written
that a separation must exist. YOU CANNOT because there is no such wording!
All the clause says is that the Congressional Branch of the
Federal government shall make NO LAW establishing a state religion or as the
Founders understood, no state Church established by the Federal government.
In fact, did you know that several of the original 13 States
retained their Established Christian Church for some time after the U.S.
Constitution became the law of the land for the United States of America? The
Federal government was constitutionally forbidden from enacting any law
pertaining to religion on State level because of the Disestablishmentarian
Clause in the 1st Amendment and the 10th Amendment which
states:
“The Tenth Amendment was intended to
confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was
adopted, that powers not granted to the
United States were reserved to the States or to the people. It added
nothing to the instrument as originally ratified.” – United States v.
Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733 ([SCOTUS
Decision of 2/14] 1931). – “About
the Tenth Amendment”; Tenth Amendment Center)
It is a bit interesting that the Tenth Amendment Center in
the quote above, that a 1931 SCOTUS decision is used as an affirmation of the
purpose of the 10th Amendment. Why is it interesting? Because SCOTUS
is the very reason that the Left has successfully utilized the term Living Constitution
to make laws not authorized by the Original
Intent of the U.S. Constitution.
Of the Thirteen Original States after the Constitution was
ratified in 1789, several had Established Churches even after the Civil War.
Here is post-ratification State Established Churches with the year
Establishment ended:
11) South Carolina – 1868 (Actually
a SCOTUS decision ended all State
support of Christian institutions in 1925 to be retroactive to 1868: “14th Amendment to US Constitution was
ratified by South Carolina in July 1868. The US Supreme Court ruled that this
amendment ended state support of religion in all US states in ruling of Gitlow v. New York, 1925” [The
link within the quote is by the Blog Editor])
I believe most of these states disestablished soon after the
Constitution was ratified but was involved in some kind Church oriented support
via organizations until the end date list above. In all cases it was the state
legislature that ended Church Establishment and not SCOTUS. Primarily in the
early 20th century SCOTUS began extra-constitutionally whittling
away at the religious freedoms of the Christian Church influencing government
on the local, state and federal level.
Here is an excerpted short scope on how SCOTUS evolved to
acquire more power than intended by the Framers of the Constitution:
Marbury v. Madison, 1803
“A law repugnant to the Constitution is void.”
With these words, Chief Justice
John Marshall established the Supreme Court’s role in the new government.
Hereafter, the Court was recognized as having the power to review all acts of
Congress where constitutionality was at issue, and judge whether they abide by
the Constitution.
…
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857
“The Constitution does not consider slaves to be U.S. citizens. Rather,
they are constitutionally protected property of their masters.”
Chief Justice Roger Taney authored
this opinion— one of the most important and scorned in the nation’s history.
Dred Scott, a slave, had moved with his master to Illinois, a free state. He
moved again to a slave state, Missouri, and filed suit to gain freedom, under
that state’s law of “Once free, always free.” Taney held that Scott had never
been free at all, and cited Constitutional grounds for placing the slavery
decision in the hands of the states. In trying to put an end to the slavery
controversy, Taney instead sped the nation toward civil war. The decision was
later overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment.
…
Roe v. Wade, 1973
The
Constitutionally implied right to privacy protects a woman’s choice in matters
of abortion.
Norma McCorvey sought an abortion
in Texas, but was denied under state law. The Court struck down that law, on
grounds that it unconstitutionally restricted the woman’s right to choose. The
opinion set forth guidelines for state abortion regulations; states could
restrict a woman’s right to choose only in the later stages of the pregnancy.
Later modified but not overruled, the decision stands as one of the Court’s
most controversial.
Specific to throwing
out Original Intent Disestablishmentarian Clause:
Everson v. Board
of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
Court finds that a New Jersey law
which included students of Catholic schools in reimbursements to parents who
sent their children to school on buses operated by the public transportation
system does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
…
McCollum v. Board
of Education Dist. 71, 333 U.S. 203 (1948)
Court finds religious instruction
in public schools a violation of the establishment clause and therefore
unconstitutional.
…
Engel v. Vitale,
82 S. Ct. 1261 (1962)
Any kind of prayer, composed by
public school districts, even nondenominational prayer, is unconstitutional
government sponsorship of religion.
Abington School
District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)
Court finds Bible reading over
school intercom unconstitutional and Murray v. Curlett, 374 U.S.
203 (1963) - Court finds forcing a child to participate in Bible reading and
prayer unconstitutional.
…
Lemon v. Kurtzman,
91 S. Ct. 2105 (1971)
Established the three part test for
determining if an action of government violates First Amendment's separation of
church and state:
1) the government action must have a secular purpose;
2) its primary purpose must not be
to inhibit or to advance religion;
3) there must be no excessive
entanglement between government and religion.
Stone v.
Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980)
Court finds posting of the Ten
Commandments in schools unconstitutional.
Wallace v.
Jaffree, 105 S. Ct. 2479 (1985)
State's moment of silence at public
school statute is unconstitutional where legislative record reveals that
motivation for statute was the encouragement of prayer. Court majority silent
on whether "pure" moment of silence scheme, with no bias in favor of
prayer or any other mental process, would be constitutional.
Edwards v.
Aquillard, 107 S. Ct. 2573 (1987) Unconstitutional
for state to require teaching of "creation science" in all instances
in which Uncons[titutional] evolution is taught. Statute had a clear
religious motivation.
Allegheny
County v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989)
Court finds that a nativity scene
displayed inside a government building violates the Establishment Clause.
Unconstitutional for a school
district to provide any clergy to perform nondenominational prayer at
elementary or secondary school graduation. It involves government sponsorship
of worship. Court majority was particularly concerned about psychological
coercion to which children, as opposed to adults, would be subjected, by having
prayers that may violate their beliefs recited at their graduation ceremonies.
I find it ironic
that an atheistic group like the Secular
Web provided the information I needed to demonstrate the manipulation by
SCOTUS of the 1st Amendment Disestablishmentarian Clause away from
the Founding Fathers’ Original Intent.
You have to realize
that the Leftist transformation agenda implemented strongly by Obama would
continue if Crooked Hillary is elected by either adoring Dem voters and/or
duped anti-Trump voters. A Crooked Hillary Administration would certainly nominate
more SCOTUS Justices that would adhere to the Living Constitution principles
over Original Intent principles. It is the Living Constitution principles is
what has allowed SCOTUS to successfully erode the U.S. Constitution as the
Founding Fathers intended it as a tool of limited government by We The People as opposed to the ruling
elites of the Establishment from both the Democratic Party and the Republican
Party.
The elitist Establishment
is very supportive of the globalist agenda of the United Nations. It is my
humble opinion the Left of America and the globalist Left of the UN is using Islam
as a tool to completely disenfranchise Christianity as the moral influence of
the Western World. This is the reason the Multiculturalists of Europe, the
American Left and the UN is hot to encourage Muslim migration to Western
nations. The Leftist gamble to use Islam as a tool is dangerous to the point of
idiocy.
The purists of Islam
– often called Radical Islam by blind PC
Westerners – have their own agenda. These adherents of the literal
wording of the Quran, Hadith and Sira desire to establish a global Caliphate
under the submission principles of Sharia Law. There is no room for Western
Liberty or the U.S. Bill of Rights in Islam. Western principles of Liberty and
the rule of Law are absolutely contrary to Islamic principles of submission. By
the way, the Arab to English of Islam is peace is a lie. The phrase is
better rendered Islam is submission is the more accurate translation.
So when I read that
the UN
is giving special privileges to Islamic worshippers over Christian
worshipper (as well as excluding other non-Muslim religions), it chaps my hide
a bit.
In case you don’t
follow the duplicitous hypocrisy of the United Nations, that world body has
elevated “radical” Muslims to high positions. Notoriously Saudi citizens are on
the United
Nations’ Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in leadership positions.
And more recently I
discovered from Eagle Rising that the
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Evidently UN globalism is
dictating to sovereign nations how they teach Christianity to children in
private and public schools. In this report on the UNCRC is saying children
experiencing compulsory Christian rituals is violating their freedom of
conscience:
…
the CRC said that demanding that children engage in daily acts of Christian
worship at school may go against their “freedom of thought, conscience and
religion.”
…
“The Committee is concerned that
pupils are required by law to take part in a daily religious worship which is
‘wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character’ in publicly funded schools
in England and Wales, and that children do not have the right to withdraw from
such worship without parental permission before entering the sixth form,” …
Here’s the full article.
JRH 7/4/16
********************
The United Nations Said Teaching Christianity to Kids is
Wrong for This Reason
By Tim Brown
July 1, 2016
Here is just another in a long line of examples of why the
United States needs to not only defund the United Nations, but remove ourselves
from it and the organization from our soil. In a recent paper put out by the UN Committee on
the Rights of the Child (CRC), the CRC said that demanding
that children engage in daily acts of Christian worship at school may go
against their “freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”
The Telegraph reports:
Britain must stop forcing
children to attend Christian school assemblies because it undermines their
human rights, a United Nations committee has said in a controversial new
report.
The authors called on
ministers to repeal a law demanding a daily act of Christian worship at schools
because it may contradict a child’s “freedom of thought, conscience and
religion”.
The report was produced by an
18-person group of “independent experts” of “high moral character” including
representatives from Bahrain, Russia and Egypt.
Critics dubbed the demand
“ludicrous” and said the government should responded by “respectfully” putting
the report “in the bin”.
It was just one of 150
recommendations about where Britain could be contravening the UN Charter on the
Rights of the Child.
“The Committee is concerned that pupils are required by law
to take part in a daily religious worship which is ‘wholly or mainly of a
broadly Christian character’ in publicly funded schools in England and Wales,
and that children do not have the right to withdraw from such worship without
parental permission before entering the sixth form,” reads a portion of the
report.
Surely, Oliver Cromwell
is rolling over in his grave
as he was one who defended Protestant Britain from King Charles’ tyranny and
treason.
is rolling over in his grave
as he was one who defended Protestant Britain from King Charles’ tyranny and
treason.
“The Committee recommends that the State party repeal legal
provisions for compulsory attendance at collective worship in publicly funded
schools and ensure that children can independently exercise the right to
withdraw from religious worship at school,” the report added.
Britons called the report “ludicrous” and “mad.”
“The collective act of worship is not an indoctrination
exercise,” Parliament Minister David Burrowes told The Telegraph. “It is
recognizing and respecting the Christian heritage of the country and giving
people an opportunity to reflect before the beginning of the day. The UN should
spend more time doing its main job of preventing war and genocide rather than
poking its nose in other countries’ classrooms. We can respectfully put those
kind of reports in the bin where they belong.”
However, some in the UK were all too happy with the report,
namely anti-theists.
The British Humanist Association Director Pavan Dhaliwal said,
“The UK state fails its young people in far too many ways today. Almost
uniquely among economically developed countries, it segregates them in schools
along religious lines. We are pleased to see the UN agree with us that UK law
needs to change.”
So, parents have been sending their kids to school knowing
full well that this has been going on, but don’t have a problem with it because
they hold to Christianity, right? On what authority does the UN act to even
recommend interfering or giving advice or counsel to anyone regarding children,
Christianity, education or parenting? They just simply are attempting to usurp
authority.
Parents have a duty before God, apart from
any law being enforced on them, to train up their children and teach them the
Law of God. They should be doing this at home, in my opinion. I
have constantly encouraged parents to take advantage of free homeschool
curriculum and remove their children from public
indoctrination centers. While I agree that if there is going to be schooling
like in Britain that having the Bible taught and expounded upon is
a good thing, I do not agree that it somehow violates a child’s human rights.
In fact, leaving a child without a worldview based on the teachings of the
Bible leaves them open for all sorts of faulty thinking, much like those of the
British Humanist Association. They forget that true liberty only exists under
the Lawgiver, and that only tyranny exists apart from Him.
The views expressed in this opinion article are solely
those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by
EagleRising.com
______________________
Disestablishmentarianism, Constitution, SCOTUS
& UN
John R. Houk
© July 4, 2016
____________________
The United Nations Said Teaching Christianity to Kids is
Wrong for This Reason
About Tim Brown
Tim Brown is an author and Editor at FreedomOutpost.com,
husband to his wife, father of 10, jack of all trades, Christian and lover of
liberty. He resides in the U.S. occupied Great State of South Carolina. Tim is
also an affiliate for the brand new Joshua Mark 5 AR/AK hybrid semi-automatic
rifle.
About Eagle Rising
Eagle Rising seeks to share
breaking news about culture, media, politics, etc., from a Christian
perspective.
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Founded in 2013 by Gary DeMar and Brandon Vallorani.
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