continued from above
His assertion that Thomas Jefferson advocated the use of the Bible for reading instruction in the schools in the District of Columbia: this seemed unlikely to me, check
candst.tripod.com/tnppage/arg6.htm for leads to further investigation. (note that I have not had time to follow all the poster’s links and verify)
The Ten Commandments and the Supreme Court building (which, btw, was built 1932-5) --this link has some interesting information related to that–
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/capital.asp. Given its date of construction, it is hard to see how one would take the representations of it to reflect directly the attitudes of the Founders rather than the prevailing interpretations of the time in which it was built (yes, I realize that that equally means one cannot use the lack of use of the Ten Commandments specifically to accurately reflect the direct attitudes of the Founders either
but it does speak to the interpretation common at the time the building was built) . The Supreme Court has been housed in a number of locations since its beginning.
nps.gov/history/nr/travel/wash/dc78.htm
Ten Commandments and Alabama court—I believe this to be a reference to Judge Roy Moore and his granite monument. Frankly, the only thing that I can see that his actions proved about his relationship to upholding the law was his absolute determination to pick and choose which laws he would uphold. This is a problem when you are a Justice of a State Supreme Court and you have willingly sworn an oath to uphold
all the law, not just the ones that you happen to personally like. If one is not willing to accept
all the responsibilities of the job, one has no business accepting the position at all.
Keyes’ assertion that the amendment has been turned on its head to forbid free public exercise of religion seems spurious to me, especially in regards to Christianity. Christians are not banned from building churches, starting Christian-specific organizations, holding public events, publishing their materials, etc. They are not allowed to be the
only religion recognized at government-sponsored functions, they (at least in the past) are prohibited from discrimination only if and as far as they willingly accept public funding. They receive the same tax break that all other religious groups receive, and usually do not have to do anything to show that they are a “real” religion, unlike some other groups. They are free to pray in public as long as they are not using a government position to expect everyone else in attendance to pray to their deity specifically (and I can tell you that is honored more in the breach around here).
I don’t understand enough of the nuances of the Catholic concept of natural law to address his points on that.
I agree with him that Ezekiel 4:20 does not talk about a wall of separation of church and state. It is blatantly about the rules for setting up a Jewish sacred space, not about governing. It is basically equivalent to the blueprints for building a cathedral.
He probably has at least some point about the intent of some founders being that states had the right to decide for themselves whether they would set up a state religion, at least based on what I have seen of Jefferson (other of the Founders may disagree, I don’t know)
etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1650.htm
“I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority.” --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428
I haven’t had time to look at the constitutions of all the states and see what they chose to say about religion, but here is a link that should help anyone who wants to do so
churchstatelaw.com/stateconstitutions/index.asp
Actually a lot of what was initially intended as states’ rights has become the province of the federal government. I think the Civil War was a major turning point for that, as, regardless of what Keyes says, it was at least in part exactly about states’ rights–whether they had the right to secede from the Union.
continued
This country is not as nice as some would believe.
