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Let Freedom Ring |
Declaring a Prohibition as a Right"Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." -Continental Congress, which approved the Establishment ClauseAn historic 1947 Supreme Court decision, that for the first time, applied the Establishment Clause to the Fourteenth Amendment, set a legal precedent which ultimately restricted religious freedom for citizens, barring prayer and other religious expressions from the daily lives of children and young adults.
The First Amendment, without the Establishment Clause, bars citizens from collectively denying specified rights from the minority, but the Establishment Clause is a policy restricting the majority from a particular activity. It is a prohibition on the majority.. Allowing or exempting no specified citizens rights, the Establishment Clause is neither a privilege nor immunity of citizens, and cannot therefore be applicable to the Fourteenth Amendment, contrary to the majority decision of the 1947 Supreme Court. Even by ignoring the finer aspects the law as written, it is not reasonable to just assume that Fourteenth Amendment immunities must include a right of citizens to be rid of their neighbors free exercise of religion, just as it would be foolish to argue for a right of citizens to be free from the non-believers, who may otherwise corrupt citizens with their disbelief. The Court, having improperly applied a prohibition of the majority to a guarantee of citizens rights, delivered a precedent that would lead future courts to sanction non-religious viewpoints at the expense of those having a belief in God, excluding uniquely their voice from schools and other public institutions, serving to deny them Freedom of Speech, Free Exercise, and Equal Protection. The banning of religion, but not opposing ideologies from schools and other public institutions has encouraged an atmosphere where believers in God are openly belittled and ridiculed, similarly as historically occurred at other times when government regulated and restricted religions. The Court's 1947 legal argument for extending the Establishment prohibition to the States, did recognize it as different from other Bill of Rights guarantees, but did not address the impossibility of applying a prohibition to an extension of rights, instead citing historical examples where government had prohibited and restricted religious beliefs with devastating results. The Court indicated a belief that the founding fathers had knowingly failed to write safeguards into the First Amendment in the way they had intended, the Court saying "Doubtless [early settlers] goal has not been entirely reached", a seeming admission of a belief that State religious prohibitions needed to be extended to the States but had not been, implying that the Court was indeed writing new law. The Court then argued that the Nation has somewhat forgotten the fears of early settlers that had caused them to write an inadequate Bill of Rights, saying "so far has the Nation moved toward [secular government] that the expression 'law respecting an establishment of religion,' probably does not so vividly remind present-day Americans of the evils, fears, and political problems that caused that expression to be written into our Bill of Rights", but the Court did not substantiate the claim that early settlers desired a prohibition on religion for States, nor does it explain why their presumed efforts to prevent it fell short. Also puzzling would be how Fourteenth Amendment authors two generations later, who, like us would not so vividly recall the "evils" and "fears" of established religion, would be more willing to guard the early settlers fears than were the early settlers. Views outside of the Court on the explicit ban on religion against Congress but not the States, are often quite the opposite of the Courts, arguing that settlers had desired that the States be free to practice or establish religion without federal interference, which might restrict them from expressing their beliefs. As to which view is right, this should not have been a deciding factor for a Court required to abide by written law. The Court provided examples of the evils that occur when government established religions: "In efforts to force loyalty ... men and women had been fined, cast in jail, cruelly tortured, and killed. Among the offenses for which these punishments had been inflicted were such things as speaking disrespectfully of the views of ministers of government-established churches, nonattendance at those churches, expressions of non-belief in their doctrines, and failure to pay taxes and tithes to support them". While this is true, the Court didn't note the countless number of countries that were presently punishing citizens for similar offenses, yet were not established religious states, like the USSR, and numerous nations throughout the world, nor did the Court consider that the barring of religion from pubic institutions may bring oppression by non-believers against citizens having a belief in God. The Court cited former English law setting up institutions "which all, whether believers or non-believers, would be required to support and attend", without considering the effects the unilateral elimination of religion from schools having the same mandatory requirement of attendance as did the restrictive English institutions. The Court must acknowledge that Everson v. Board of Education misapplied the law by declaring a prohibition as a right, and that linking the Fourteenth Amendment to the Establishment Clause is unconstitutional. Freedom to establish and practice religion free from federal interference must be restored to the States, and respectively the people through their various elected governments. --States Liberty Party, July 4, 2002, Modified July 6, 2002 Please send comments and criticisms to editor@statesliberty.org Alternate viewpoints will be published. If you would like to see more articles like this published on the internet, click here. |
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