Re: Judge Jones sided with the Discovery Institute and ruled against the Dove...

At 12:54 PM 1/11/2006, David Opderbeck wrote:

>I think Ted's broader point is right, if I'm understanding him
>correctly: there is a serious problem with how we do public
>education, and how we apply the establishment clause, if there's
>going to be federal litigation sniffing around for "religious
>intent" every time metaphysical naturalism is questioned in any sort
>of high school class.

### Interesting history:

In Runkel vs. Winemiller of 1796, the Supreme Court stated: "By our
form of government, the Christian religion is the established
religion, and the sects and denominations of Christians are placed
upon the same equal footing."

In People vs. Ruggles of 1811, the Supreme Court stated: "Whatever
strikes at the root of Christianity tends to manifestly to the
dissolution of civil government."

In his 1833 "Commentaries on the Constitution", Supreme Court Justice
Joseph Story wrote:

"The real object of the [first] amendment was, not to countenance,
much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by
prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian
sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment,
which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the
national government . . ."

"The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, and
attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to
him for all our actions, founded upon moral freedom and
accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the
cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues;-
these never can be a matter of indifference in any well ordered
community. . . ."

"Now, there will probably be found few persons in this, or any other
Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that it was
unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian
religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of
revealed truth. In fact, every American colony, from its foundation
down to the revolution, . . . did openly, by the whole course of its
laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the
Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to
some of its fundamental doctrines. And this has continued to be the
case in some of the states down to the present period, without the
slightest suspicion that it was against the principles of public law,
or republican liberty."

"Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the
amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the
universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to
receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible
with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious
worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter
of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created
universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation . . . "

In Vidal vs. Girard of 1844, in a case involving a school in
Philadelphia that wanted to try and teach morality without religious
principals, the Supreme Court stated: "Why not the Bible, and
especially the New Testament be read and taught as a divine
revelation in the schools? Where can the purest principals of
morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?"

In 1853 a group filed a suit that actually wanted "Separation of
Church and State". The Case never made it to the Supreme Court.

On March 27, 1854 The House Judiciary Committee Stated: "Had the
people during the revolution had any suspicion of any attempt to war
against Christianity, the revolution would have been strangled in its
cradle . . . At the time of the adoption of the constitution and the
amendments, the universal sentiment was the Christianity should be
encouraged, but not any one sect . . . In this age, there can be no
substitute for Christianity. That was the religion of the founders of
the Republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their
descendants."

In Reynolds vs. United States of 1878, the Supreme Court wrote, "The
great vital and conservative element of our system is the belief of
our people in the pure doctrines and the divine truths of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ."

Note that in this case the Supreme Court used Thomas Jefferson's 1802
letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in its entirety. The letter
was actually used to ensure Christian principals were kept in government.

In Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States of 1892, the Supreme
Court ruled unanimously that, "this is a religious people. This is a
Christian nation", adding, "Our laws and our institutions must
necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the redeemer of
mankind. It is impossible for it to be otherwise; in this sense and
to the extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically
Christian."

Note the court took 10 years to make its decision. After researching
mountains of evidence, the court went on to quote 87 historical
precedents to support its findings (stating that there were more, but
87 should be sufficient).

It was not until 1947, over 150 years after the adoption of the
Constitution, that the Supreme Court began its long campaign to
remove Christianity from American life.

In Everson vs. Board of Education of 1947, the Supreme Court used
only one statement from Jefferson's letter: "American people which
declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
thus building a wall of separation between church and State".

That was the first time in the history of American jurisprudence that
the term, "wall of separation of church and state" was used in this
context. The term was part of a prior, personal opinion written by an
ACLU lawyer, Leo Pfeffer. Pfeffer placed his opinion on the desk of
the very liberal judge, Hugo Black, and Black rammed it through to
get a 5-4 decision.

Therefore, in the span of about 70 years, from Reynolds vs. United
States of 1878, to Everson vs. Board of Education of 1947, the
Supreme Court went from using Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury
Baptist Association as a basis to ensure Christian principals were
kept in government, to the basis to eliminate Christian principles
from government.

Proving that "nothing is so absurd that if you repeat it enough,
people will believe it."

To show you how this matter has been turned around backwards, I quote
this from another source:

When a little boy in the fifth grade was reading his Bible at recess,
a teacher grabbed him by the ear and hauled him into the principal's
office. The principal took the Bible and threw in into the
wastebasket, and said, "You are violating the principle of separation
of church and state". The bewildered child obviously could say
nothing. But, if she had instead quoted the First Amendment, which
says, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of
religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", then little
Johnny might have said, "But Principal, in case you haven't noticed,
I am not the Congress, and I was freely exercising my religion".

Back to Jefferson. Did Jefferson mean by the phrase "separation of
church and state" what we are led to believe today? Absolutely not.
It is totally opposite of what he believed.

While Jefferson was President of the United States, he also served as
the chairman of the committee on education for the public schools in
Washington, D.C. He demanded that two books MUST be taught in D.C.
public schools: the Bible and Watts Hymnal.

Did you know that two days after Jefferson sent that letter to
Danbury he attended public worship services in the U. S. Capital
building? Did you know that he authorized the use of the War Office
and Treasury building for church services? That he provided, at the
government's expense, Christian missionaries to the Indians? That he
put chaplains on the government payroll? That he provided for the
punishment of irreverent soldiers. That he sent Congress an Indian
treaty that provided funding for a priest's salary and for the
construction of a church for the missionaries to the Indians so the
Indians might be won to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and, thereby, civilized?

In 1822, four years before his death, Jefferson wrote, "In our
village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with
a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without
either church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple,
one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian,
Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker,
listen with attention and devotion to each others' preachers, and all
mix in society with perfect harmony."

Also in 1822, he wrote, "In our annual report to the legislature,
after stating the constitutional reasons against a public
establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency
of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for
itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the
university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures
there, and have the free use of our library, and every other
accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their
independence of us and of each other."

The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William
Rehnquist: "There is simply no historical foundation for the
proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation .
. . the "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor
based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide
to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned."

~ Janice
Received on Wed Jan 11 13:11:52 2006