Tag: Founding Fathers

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 1^st Amendment and the 10^th 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 10^th 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:

 

• Virginia – 1830

 

• New York – 1846

 

• Massachusetts – 1833

 

• Maryland – 1867

 

• Delaware – 1792

 

• Connecticut – 1818

 

• New Hampshire – 1877

 

• Rhode Island – 1842

 

• Georgia – 1798

 

• North Carolina – 1875

 

• 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])

 

• Pennsylvania – 1790

 

• New Jersey – 1844

 

… (Religion in the Original 13 Colonies: ProCon.org; Last updated on 1/6/2009 7:26:00 AM PST)

 

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 20^th 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.

 

… (Twenty-Five Landmark Cases in Supreme Court History; ConstitutionFacts.com)

 

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.

 

Lee v. Weisman, 112 S. Ct. 2649 (1992)

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.

 

… (U.S. Supreme Court Decisions (arranged by date); Secular Web – Internet Infidels)

 

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 1^st 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

Please Support NCCR

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The United Nations Said Teaching Christianity to Kids is Wrong for This Reason

 

By Tim Brown

July 1, 2016

Eagle Rising

 

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.

 

“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.

 

Reposted With Permission From Freedom Outpost.

 

The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by EagleRising.com

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Disestablishmentarianism, Constitution, SCOTUS & UN

John R. Houk

© July 4, 2016

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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.

 

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