Re: the ASA email list

At 08:56 AM 6/10/2006, RFaussette@aol.com wrote:

>Religion is politics. The separation of church and state was an idea
>created to remove Christianity from the public arena. It's
>working. ~ rich faussette

@ You're right, but no, it's not working. Lies have legs as long
as a population is ignorant and uninformed about matters of substance.

Over the past 20 years, there are some who are making a valiant
effort to ensure that won't describe the up-coming generations.

That's what is "working".

  The pendulum is swinging back the other way, as it always does when
extremists finally over-step themselves, and people begin to see them
for who they reeeeally are. It cannot be stopped now. ~ Janice :)

13 year old caller asks question about the separation of church and state.

June 9, 2006

Separation of Church and State

<http://mfile.akamai.com/5020/wma/rushlimb.download.akamai.com/5020/clips/06/06/060906_8_kayla.asx>
[]
Excerpts of transcript:

HOST: We now will go back to Kayla in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She's 13
years old and I really appreciate your holding on. Kayla, would you
reset the table? Would you tell everybody again? ....Could you tell
us why you called?

CALLER: Okay, I did a project in my social studies class.

HOST: What grade are you in?

CALLER: I'm going into ninth next year. .... So we had to do a
project on some amendment on the Bill of Rights and the
Constitution. ... And apparently there's something that was created
by the left called the "separation of church and state."

HOST: Thomas Jefferson actually created the phrase, but I'll get to
that in just a second.

CALLER: Yeah.

[]
HOST: You knew that? ... I'm impressed you knew that Thomas
Jefferson created the phrase "separation of church and
state." ...I'm stunned! I'm stunned. There are people three times
your age who don't know this stuff, Kayla, which is why I'm flabbergasted.

CALLER: Like when they have on the other shows, like some people,
they pick up random people off the street and ask them questions like
who's the president of the United States.

HOST: Yeah, Jay Leno is famous for that.

CALLER: They don't know that.

HOST: But that's his audience. I'd be ashamed to admit it. Anyway,
go ahead and finish the story.

CALLER: Okay. So I did a project on that, and I didn't read anything
in the Constitution about separating the two.

HOST: It's not there. That's right. It's exactly right.

CALLER: Yeah, because it said they couldn't make a law imposing on
your rights of religion, and we're not allowed to openly practice
religion at our school.

HOST: Right. And so you were calling here for what reason?

CALLER: I didn't really understand, I didn't get it, why we couldn't.

HOST: All right. Well, I'm going to do my best here. Let's read the
First Amendment, because there are two references to religion in the
First Amendment, the two religion clauses. There's what's called the
"establishment clause" and then there's the "free exercise" clause.
Here is the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion," that's the establishment clause, "or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof," that's the free exercise
clause, "or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the
right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the
government for a redress of grievances." So you've got two religion
clauses in the First Amendment, the establishment clause and the free
exercise clause.

CALLER: Uh-huh.

HOST: Liberals and liberal judges have expanded the interpretation
of the establishment clause beyond its intended meaning, that the
government shall not establish a national religion or national
church. They've expanded it beyond that in ways such as: let's say
your school takes federal money. Well, your school is nailed because
your school thus is attached to the federal government, and if you
are allowed as a student to go in there and practice say Christianity
or whatever your religion is, then they say that's the same as the
state allowing you to come in and do what the Constitution says.
You're practicing Christianity in an extension of the state and
thereby with the sanction of the state, and they say the First
Amendment doesn't permit that.

They've expanded it way beyond what the original meaning was. This is
why, Kayla, so many of us are interested in the original intentions
of the Founding Fathers as they wrote the Constitution when it comes
to selecting judges who will not write their own law.

The way this has manifested itself now is that the courts have
applied the establishment clause to the states through the Fourteenth
Amendment. You should read that one, too, so that virtually any
endorsement of religion by a state agency, such as a school that
accepts federal money, is thus deemed a violation of the
establishment clause. So if you go in and you pray out loud and the
school let's you do it, then the ACLU will come along and say, "Nope,
you can't do it because you're doing it in a school that gets federal
money," and if the school doesn't stop you then the state is
endorsing your prayer, and you can't do that. Even voluntary -- I'm
sure you know this, too -- student activities --

CALLER: Yeah.

HOST: -- within a state supported entity like a school have been
deemed an endorsement or establishment of religion by the state, like
invoking Christ at a commencement, or invoking God at a commencement.
In the process of expanding the establishment clause so much, what's
happened here is that the courts have virtually -- they've rendered
meaningless the free exercise clause.

CALLER: Yes, it's violating your constitutional rights.

HOST: Exactly right. You are brilliant! You are a 13-year-old
genius. You get all this. I am stunned. I'm impressed. I'm
encouraged. I'm enthused. That's exactly right, because they've
emasculated the free exercise clause, meaning you have no free
exercise of religion if you do it in a school that takes federal
money, because they have bastardized the free exercise clause and
expanded the establishment clause beyond what it was ever intended to mean.

CALLER: That's just stupid.

HOST: No, it's not stupid. It's purposeful.

CALLER: Well, yeah.

[]
HOST: It is based on an abject fear of Christianity on the part of
the American left and activist judges, Kayla. Thomas Jefferson coined
the term "separation of church and state" in a letter to the Danbury
Baptists, but there are two things about this. His letter has been
taken out of context, and he was not even a framer of the
Constitution. Jefferson was in France drinking wine at the time that
the Constitution was drafted. Now, the secular libs... I'm sorry to
ask you this. I don't want to offend you, but I just want to make
sure. Do you know what "secular" means?

CALLER: Well, it's outside of -- just the normal view what everyone else --

HOST: Irreligious.

CALLER: Yeah. ..

HOST: I'm not saying they're atheists, but they don't want religion
in any aspect of any public life whatsoever. So those people, those
libs, are so paranoid about Christianity that they have distorted the
separation of church and state excuse to ban clearly voluntary
activities because they might offend non-Christians. So if you go
into your school and pray, and it offends somebody, "Well, we can't
have that! Why, you're not allowed to offend somebody with your
religion in a school because the state is endorsing. You can't have
that." This is all rooted in their fear and paranoia and one of the
reasons is that Christianity has in it the Ten Commandments.

A lot of religions do: "Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt
not, thou shalt not." Liberals don't like the word "not" after "thou
shalt." They don't like any proscription on their behavior
whatsoever. They want to be fee to do anything, any time, anywhere,
with nobody judging them, and they look at Christians as a bunch of
hayseed hicks who are constantly sitting in judgment of them and
condemning them to hell and this sort of stuff. But you're right,
brilliantly so.

There is no right in the Constitution not to be offended. Yet the
courts and the liberals are so paranoid about Christianity, they've
been willing to suppress one of our most important freedoms and you
have brilliantly at age 13 deduced this on your own, and that is the
free exercise of your religion, and they're doing this to protect a
nonexistent right -- and that is the right not to be offended. So I
don't know why you needed my help for. You instinctively get all this.

CALLER: I just wanted your opinion on it.

HOST: Well, let me tell you this, just one more thing. I think that
our good friends out there, the libs, have also selectively applied
the establishment clause and separation principle, too. They will
scream bloody murder; they will cry foul at the slightest nod to
Christianity in schools, but they have no problem with schools
outright endorsing secular values, like Heather has Two Mommies, gay
rights, or those of other religions. Like we can teach Islam. We must
understand these people, and they must understand us. In certain
California public schools you can teach Islam. ... They can teach
global warming. They can teach all these hoaxes, but you can't teach
anything that has to with religion, and it's just because they're
scared of it, Kayla.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

HOST: Have you written your paper?

CALLER: Yes. I handed it in. I got an A on it.

HOST: I'm not surprised. ...

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/
Received on Sat Jun 10 13:02:22 2006