Christian Right conference comes to startling conclusion that States are exempt from First Amendment

[ck4829]

Saturday morning’s speech by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association may be the most valuable moment of this conference. It’s not often that Americans get an unambiguous look at the Religious Right’s extremely dangerous definition of religious liberty.
Religious liberty is of course a core American value, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. And it’s the separation of church and state that protects the right of every American to worship or not as they choose, and protects all Americans from the government using its power to coerce religious belief or worship. It’s one of the constitutional principles that define this country.

Fischer basically attributed the idea of church-state separation to Adolf Hitler, who he said was the inspiration for the forces of “secular fundamentalism” who are bent on “castrating” the church and bringing America a “bleak, dark, vicious, tyrannical” future. Invoking Hitler is practically commonplace name-calling from the right these days. But it was not the most important or provocative point of his remarks.

Today Fischer went a good bit further than televangelist Pat Robertson, who notably called church-state separation a “lie of the left.” According to Fischer’s interpretation of the First Amendment, here’s what religious liberty means: Congress has the liberty to promote religion in any way, as long as it does not single out one Christian sect or denomination and make it the nation’s official religion. That’s it.

According to Fischer, “the only entity that is restrained by the First Amendment is the Congress of the United States.” Thus, he says, it is “constitutionally impossible” for governors, mayors, city councilmembers, or school administrators to violate the First Amendment. Fischer said the “incorporation doctrine” – the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment applied First Amendment protections against state governments, is the “most egregious” example of judicial activism.

So by his definition, a state legislature could declare itself an officially Christian state. Or an officially Baptist or Mormon state. Presumably any public school, city council or state government could require students to attend Christian worship or profess certain religious belief.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/valuable-lesson-values-voter-summit-rights-definition-religious-liberty

He does realize that there are other parts of the First Amendment too, right? Also, according to this conclusion, it is perfectly OK for a governor to close down a newspaper they don't like or go after people who say ugly things about them with slander/libel charges.

[liberal N proud]

1. Fortunately they are not the Supreme Court

YET!

[villager]

2. Huh. Must mean they're exempt from the 2nd Amendment, too

n/t

[Viking12]

7. Actually, SCOTUS has not yet ruled on a case that incorporates the 2nd

So as of now, the states are "exempt" from the 2nd. See for example, the opinion of Sonia Sotomayor in
Maloney v. Cuomo:

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~jmm257/000-decision.pdf

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

10. I believe the gun grabbers here have argued that point extensively.

[Statistical]

14. Well they are for now.... see McDonald v. Chicago or NRA v. Chicago. n/t

[jemelanson]

3. Have these people never read any history?

This chills me to the bone. Who are these people?

Recommended reading "The Dark Side of Christian History" by Helen Ellerbe.

The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15,1791. Hitler was born in 1889. So how is there any connection between the 1St Amendment and Hitler?

Is this a step toward a Christian Taliban?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. reading tires out their lips.

It's hard. Hard work, reading. Real hard.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

11. Yet some here think the 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to States.

[Joanne98]

4. So he's basically calling our forefathers Hitler! He needs to APOLOGIZE!

[asjr]

6. For a while I laughed at these people. But

lately I see so many creatures sliding out and telling tales it's getting scary.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. This isn't new

I've heard that argument for years.

[lurky]

9. So Massachussetts can ban religion and lock up

christians? Sweet!!!

Thank you American Family Association! Without you, their Godless Communist paradise would have no hope of legal enactment.

And Oregon's state-mandated Wicca worship in the classroom would be only a dream. Just think, all those children would be doomed never to experience the hedonic joy of mandatory free love in homeroom. What a pity that would be.

:evilgrin:

[kestrel91316]

12. Ok, so states are free to ban fundie churches?? Cool!

[jemelanson]

13. Works for me.

[Statistical]

15. Well they are right .... if it was still 1867.

A little understood fact is that the BofR as ORIGINALLY written was limited to federal govt.
So circa 1800 a state COULD legally have a state religion. Many did. Of course some states also have prohibitions against this in the State Constitution.

Prior to the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1868, the Supreme Court generally held that the substantive protections of the Bill of Rights did not apply to state governments. Subsequently, under the Incorporation doctrine the Bill of Rights have been broadly applied to limit state and local government as well. For example, in the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet (1994), the majority of the court joined Justice David Souter's opinion, which stated that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause_of_the_First_Amendment

This was upheld for various amendments up to 1833.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barron_v._Baltimore

However the 14th amendment changed all that.

The process in which amendments apply to the states (and local govts) is incorporation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_%28Bill_of_Rights%29

So while at one time it would be possible to have a state church that door closed in 1868 so the funies somehow forgot about the last 150 or so years of history and Supreme Court precedent.

Sadly the BofR does not apply fully against the states do to the process of "selective incorporation" which has its roots in racism and classism.

The 2nd amendment is still in legal limbo however I believe McDonald v. Chicago will decide that once and for all by early 2010.