Group sues over Pennsylvania's "Year of the Bible" resolution

[cbayer]

This is the resolution that sparked the slave-billboard controversey.

Posted: Tue, Mar. 27, 2012, 3:01 AM

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120327_Group_sues_over_Pennsylvania_s__quot_Year_of_the_Bible_quot__resolution.html

By Angela Couloumbis

HARRISBURG - A state House resolution declaring 2012 the "Year of the Bible" in Pennsylvania violates the U.S. Constitution and should be immediately withdrawn, a national association representing atheists and agnostics is contending in court.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit Monday in federal court in Harrisburg, saying the resolution amounts to an official government endorsement of religion - and Christianity, in particular. That, the group contends, violates the Constitution's establishment clause, which bars government from preferring one religion over another.

"The Establishment Clause prohibits the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, its members and officers, from telling citizens which God to recognize, or which holy book to 'study,' much less directing citizens to 'apply its teachings'," the lawsuit contends.

The one-page resolution, which unanimously passed the House in late January, recognizes what it calls the Bible's "formative influence" in the founding of the nation and the state. It says that as the nation "faces great challenges," there should be a recognition of a "national need to study and apply" Scripture.

more at link

[Kalidurga]

1. If lawmakers don't understand

a simple concept like separation of church and state, they should be removed from office. It should be a law that they be removed if they don't get it.

[SamG]

2. O I wouldn't go THAT far, just have them serve

at the pleasure of their God, and not receive any other "worldly riches" from the state for their saintly service.

I think we'd clear out that state assembly pretty darn fast.

But seriously, we taxpayers are paying these people's salaries so that they can spend time exercising their religious beliefs while on taxpayer time?

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Glad to see the money I donated to FFRF being used wisely.

[JBoy]

4. I'm sure next year would have been the year of the Koran.

[longship]

5. Go Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor

This is a clear violation.

By the way, I thought the so-called "slave billboard" to be repulsive. Whatever were the American Atheists thinking?

But I find this legislative response to be much more repulsive.

[Joseph8th]

7. The billboard WAS repulsive, but...

... what about the Biblical passages they quoted? I think they were powerful statements on how Christianity has historically been used to justify slavery, and how Biblical morality has no problem with it. The starkness of the contrast was intended to cause cognitive dissonance, and clearly it worked. I'd call that a success.

[struggle4progress]

6. I just can't imagine how this suit could go anywhere

The courts are inclined, when possible, to defer to legislative bodies; to avoid entanglement in purely political questions; and to sidestep moot disputes

A Pennsylvania House resolution, that declares 2012 "Year of the Bible," is a political move by a legislative body, and furthermore a move that, being without material consequence, must be automatically regarded as nonactionably moot

Of course, the Pennsylvania House resolution is an idiotic waste of legislative time in empty noisy posturing. But noisy idiotic posturing is common enough, in the hallowed halls of our various great state legislatures, and so our courts therefore do not customarily comment upon it, for otherwise our wise judges might have no time to do aught else useful

However, unlike the courts, FFRF and its supporters enjoy discovering idiotic noisy posturing in a state legislature, and are delighted once again to raise the hue and cry that Yahoos have been discovered in our midst. Not really much of a discovery, really -- it certainly cannot support a verdict on their behalf, no matter how right they might be that such posturing ill-becomes the legislators -- but that will not deter them long