Re: question

What do you mean by a "church-state alliance?" That's the crux of the
problem in my mind. The establishment clause of the first amendment, in my
view, was originally intended precisely as that -- a prohibition on
government establishment of an official state religion. This reflects the
liberal democratic sentiment of the day, which viewed official state
churches as part and parcel with the problem of tyranny. I don't think the
establishment clause was ever intended to bar any religious expression at
all at events or on premises or in institutions that merely receive
government funding. The drafters and ratifiers of the first amendment would
be baffled that it could be construed to prohibit schoolmasters from
teaching that God designed the universe.

While I'm not really a constitutional originalist (as is, for example,
Justice Scalia), I do think the starting point for an constitutional
analysis has to be the historical framework of the text -- very much like an
exercise in Biblical exegesis. If a contemporary application of the text is
utterly foreign to its historic framework, something probably is wrong. In
my view, that's the case with how the establishment clause has been
interpreted.

The law currently is that if a government policy has a religious
motiviation, it is likely to be held unconstitutional. That's just absurd,
particularly if you think, as I do, that "religious" motivations are
pervasive once the concept of "religion" is examined (borrowing from Roy
Clouser a bit here). Since I also incorporate the Catholic notion of
"subsidiarity" in my political thinking, I'd suggest that most decisions
about particular "religious" practices in the public square -- say, whether
to permit an opening prayer at a football game, or whether to display a
menorah on public property during the holidays -- should be left to the
local political process and not managed by the courts.

On 6/1/06, burgytwo@juno.com <burgytwo@juno.com> wrote:
>
> Bob posted, in part: "The 1995 document, "Religion in the Public Schools:
> A
> Joint Statement of Current Law," can be accessed on the Department of
> Education web site at www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html. You can
> also
> find it on the Baptist Joint Committee, ACLU, and a dozen other sites.
> Just
> Google the title. Read sections 5-8 and you'll see how much latitude is
> there for teaching about religion in the classroom... ."
>
> Thanks much for this reference. I appreciate it.
>
> It should be required reading for those who get exercised over this issue
> unduly.
>
> To David & Bill: Help me out here. Regardless of Jones' rationale (which I
> also do not entirely share), it seems to me that the First Amendment, along
> with the 14th, does bar any church-state alliance. And should. But I may be
> missing something. Tell me one or two examples where a church-state alliance
> ought to be permitted.
>
> Reasonable people differ on these issues, I know. I am familiar with the
> SCOTUS decision that said a gov't could not compose a prayer (to a
> nonspecific god) which was to be mandated upon public school children. The
> ramifications of this decision are still being worked out, of course. For
> instance, a prayer to a god by a valedictorian at commencement does not
> seem, to me, to be prohibited by the amendments, although some courts (I
> understand) have ruled otherwise. Of course, a prayer by a school official
> is something else.
>
> Specific examples of what you guys have in mind would help. Bill worries
> that some school administrators haven't got it right yet. In this, they are
> like most of the rest of us.
>
> Burgy
>
>
>
>
Received on Thu Jun 1 23:30:32 2006