dk

If what you say is true, then its strange that the federal courts (a non-democratic body) ordered remedies like "seperate but equal, de jure school busing for public school integration, censorship of religious speech in public schools, abortion, and most recently began to select presidents etc... I think you're confusing the powers of a judicial oligarchy with democratic processes. Federal Judges aren't elected but appointed for life.

dk

dk: It shouldn’t surprise anyone that nobody in the 1790s objected to Article 11, because Article 11 was non-existent; that’s what Stanford’s Law Library says. Perhaps you can demonstrate how the Treaty has shaped U.S. foreign or domestic policy. I looked and found nothing.
quote:
dk: Are you pleading ignorance? The American Secular Union and Freethought Federation (ASUFF) was founded in the later quarter of the 19th Century. With many affiliated societies the ASUFF was dedicated to a platform “Separation of Church and State”. If you’re going to reference the Supreme Court, please quote them. I have no idea who “we” is.

In Everson v. the Board of Education (1947, 330 U.S. 1) Justice Jackson, dissenting, wrote
In Madison v. Marbury the Supreme Court of the U.S. claimed exclusive jurisdiction over judicial review (to interpret the U.S. Constitution). The classical theories about legal positivism, and naturalism have been challenged by legal criticism, feminist jurisprudence.
quote:
dk: - You’re arguing with yourself again, not me. Its public education that gives rise to the conflict, and public education isn’t mentioned in the constitution anymore than Jefferson’s impenetrable wall. We agree government has no business mucking around to establish of a religious hegemony, not in the name of secular humanism, Christian, Buddhist, etc… .

The Supreme Court has elevated secular humanism to a religion to bless draft deferments given conscientious objectors. The Supreme Court orders local public school administers to censor valedictorian graduation addresses and students at a pep rally at a football game. These principles and precedents are conflicted, and sucking the courts into a philosophical political battle that has the potential to shred the national identity, one faction against another. Seems to me pretty clear jurisprudence fails by definition when the constitutional appellate courts swing on ideological bias.

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

IvanK

You're misconstruing the law. What the Lemon test requires is that governmental action at any level that takes religion into account have a secular purpose; not favor any religion over any other or irreligion over religion; and not involve excessive entanglement of government and religion.

Local school officials are under no obligation to censor student speeches at graduation exercises, pep rallys or any other official event. What the law requires is that, if they allow Christian students to witness about their religion, they must allow students of any other religion or of no religion to make equivalent statements and indeed to allow any student to make any statement about any subject at all. So if a valedictorian were allowed to preach at a captive audience, another student could swear; another could criticize the school, its teachers and staff; another could foment racial hatred; another could do a strip tease, etc. etc.

Most schools being unwilling to allow their students unlimited free speech rights, they tend to review student speeches planned for official school events. If they then pass a speech containing Christian witness they must pass any speech containing any controversial statement or they will probably be found to have violated the Lemon test.

This you can bank on: the schools all have lawyers too, good lawyers who aren't depending on dissents, footnotes or argument from absence* when they give schools legal advice about what speech they can allow at school-sponsored functions.

And for the last time, religious speech, prayer and devotion is not subject to censorship in public schools as long as it meets the same test as any other speech and is not disruptive to the educational purpose of the school. Kids can pray in school pretty much anytime they please; many schools have accomodations for regular Islamic prayer in fact.

* One copy, in Arabic, of the Treaty of Tripoli may be missing Article 11. I haven't seen it and if I did see it it wouldn't do me any good as I don't read Arabic.

Every copy -- absolutely every one, without exception -- of the Treaty of Tripoli in English contains Article 11 with its statement that the U.S. is in no sense to be considered a Christian nation. Whether that treaty is still valid or not (it is not as it has been superceded), whether it had or has any effect on U.S. policy or not, changes my argument not one whit. The plain English statement that the U.S. was not a Christian nation was endorsed by a unanimous U.S. Senate and signed into effect by the U.S. President without so much as a whisper of dissent from any quarter of the U.S. populace in the 1790s.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: IvanK ]</p>

dk

To prevent student religious speech the faculty and administration need the power to discipline the speaker. Its called censorship. It puts public schools in an untenable position. If schools censor they violate freedom of speech and religious rights. If the schools don’t censor religious text they face the ACLU lawyers and court costs. It is called a dilemma. The constitution protects the unfettered expression of ideas and religion, yet students are denied the right to express religious topics of any kind.
Most schools want to spend the taxpayers money on education, not endless legal battles.
Religious speech is a subject censored in public schools.
So drop it. As a legal precedent it’s a no-show because the Constitutional Appellate & Supreme Courts and amici have never introduced the Treaty of Tripoli as a fact of U.S. Constitutional Law. Maybe someday they will, but until then the document lacks authority and context so the facts are unclear.
The Supreme Court has sole power to interpret the U.S. Constitution. In the mid 20th Century for the first time the Supreme Court interpreted the U.S. Constitution as a secular document. I presented the legal precedents, quoted the arguments of the Justices and demonstrated the inherent conflicts that have arisen between secular doctrines and the First Amendment. When the constitutional courts order (force) government agencies, bureaucracies, organizations, associations and institutions to censor speech, it triggers conflicts that lead back to the courts. This is analogous to “Separate but Equal” doctrine used to interpret the 14th the Amendment in Plessy v. Ferguson by the Supreme Court. Over time Jim Crow Laws and de jure racism gave rise to conflicts that lead back to the courts. Likewise, the Civil War was a conflict that arose from the Dred Scott Decision that denied the blacks race access to the Federal Courts and struck down the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional. To understand the magnitude of interpreting the U.S. Constitution as a secular document one need only look at the legions of lawyers and resources dedicated solely to re-codification, application and interpretation of the Law. It certainly boggles my mind, Justice Jackson wrote concurring in the Supreme Court decision (1948)
MCCOLLUM V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
That spells it out in plan English. I am always amazed at the untenable positions in which people place themselves. I have to remember its matter of indoctrination and dogmatic fanaticism that overwhelms people on some issues.