Grumpy

You can see in the II Newswire the story about Kentucky state legislators begging Congress to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow Ten Commandments displays in government buildings. The resolution hasn't passed, and so what if it did? The flag-burning amendment hasn't passed, even after all these years.

Here's the text of the proposed amendment:

"Nothing in the Constitution" being mainly the Establishment Clause. Of course, the "practice of individual or group prayer" is already guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause. The new bit here is "including a school." Also new (if the proposed language survived intact) would be the references to the Pledge or the motto, which appear nowhere else in the Constitution.

And, of course, the specific mention of the Ten Commandments favors one particular religious tradition. To support this maneuver, the resolution includes, as usual, a lenghty list of "whereas" statements, 16 in all:

I've deleted mainly a series of quotations from various past luminaries, such as George Washington, Abigail Adams, and Woodrow Wilson.

Of course, all those statements prove is A) that some people believe that Christianity is the established religion of the USA, or B) that there is a de facto established Christianity, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Isn't it enough that a constitution spell out the rules of a government? Must it also tell the people what their traditions are? I'd say let the constitution take care of the structure of government, and let the people (in whatever age they live) worry about their traditions.

gravitybow

Nothing like falsehood and half-truth on which to base a resolution, eh?

WHEREAS, the Ten Commandments appear over the bench where the United States Supreme Court Justices sit, thus showing the source from whence our laws and the government power of the state are derived;

The tablet in center of the marble frieze over the bench of the United States Supreme Court Justices is a depiction of the first ten amendments of the Constitution.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/east&westwalls.pdf (Adobe Acrobat version with photo)
http://gopher.quux.org:70/Government...&westwalls.txt (text only version)

WHEREAS, acknowledging the Bible as an integral part of the fabric of our society on September 11, 1777, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland and Scotland, as the colonies were at war with England;

This seems designed to give the impression that the Continental Congress was gung ho and actually DID something about it, like import 20,000 Bibles. The Congress was originally petitioned by other citizens (that is to say, Congress itself didn't come up with the idea) to acquire the means to print 30,000 Bibles. Eventually, Congress passed a resolution to import 20,000 Bibles by a one-vote margin, and then NEVER ACTED ON IT.
The Continental Congress and Bible myths


...or what the facts are.

hezekiah jones

Not only that but,

Well if it ain't Church of The Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892). It's hard to find less relevant dicta in a Supreme Court opinion. In fact, Holy Trinity isn't even an establishment clause case.

Here's what Justice William Brennan had to say about Holy Trinity: "By insisting that such a distinctively sectarian message is merely an unobjectionable part of our 'religious heritage,' the Court takes a long step backwards to the days when Justice Brewer could arrogantly declare for the Court that 'this is a Christian nation.'" Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 717 (1984).

Justice Antonin Scalia also thinks highly of the excerpt from Holy Trinity cited in the resolution above: "And I will further concede that our constitutional tradition, from the Declaration of Independence and the first inaugural address of Washington, quoted earlier, down to the present day, has, with a few aberrations, see Church of [The] Holy Trinity v. United States ..." Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 641 (1992).

That's right, Antonin Scalia, judicial hero of the religious right, believes Holy Trinity is an "aberration."

Toto

I bet some of those quotes from Lincoln are fake. But what really gets me is this:

"Containing revelations of God's intervention in human history, the Bible offers moving testimony to His love for mankind."

Since a "disaster of Biblical proportions" is a common phrase used to describe horror and terrible deaths, somehow "love" is not quite the right word.

Grumpy

Maybe it's like that song: "You've got to be cruel to be kind."

Shake

At any rate, seeing as how the Continental Congress has given way to the US Congress, whatever the CC did or wanted to do is now irrelevant (IMHO)!