dk

Why do you think a religious test to serve the Federal Government applies to a banner sold at public auction?

I don’t see how censorship of a local high school banner can possibly be justified under the US Constitutional, the First Amendment protects religious liberty. Amendment X limits the power of the Federal Government to powers explicitly stated. Since the US Constitution is silent on public education, god, and religious censorship it seems obvious the power rests with the state government or the people. To censor from the public square an established church appears hostile to religion. Can you explain?

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

dangin

If it is funded by taxes it is public.

If it is public(funded by taxes), even though it is state and not federal it must be constitutional.

Schools are funded by taxes.

Schools must act constitutionally.

Excluding the nonreligious is not constitutional.

LLaurieG

I like it! Very, very good. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

"We're thinking of including teaching creation science in the science classes."

"You mean creation religion? Religious creation myths?"

"Er, well, yes. We don't feel that it's fair to discriminate against alternate theories of how the universe was created. Evolution IS only a theory."

"Evolution isn't a theory about how life was created! Don't you know that? It's the theory about how life evolves. Evolution merely explains the mechanism for how the vast diversity of life that we observe came into being."

"Er, um, no, I didn't know that."

"That's OK. Look, if you're going to allow teaching religious myths in science class - oh sorry, I meant creation religion - then can I do the one about the turtles? You know, that Chinese creation myth that has the world resting on the back of a turtle, resting on the back of a turtle, resting on the back of still another turtle, etc., etc., all the way down?"

"Er, uh, well, um I'm not sure that's the accepted creation science view of the world."

"But you just said 'teaching creation's' OK. You don't want to discriminate against other groups' creation myths, do you? Wouldn't that open us up to a lawsuit?"

"A lawsuit? How?"

"Well, if we only taught the Christian biblical creation story - you know, Garden of Eden, talking snakes, world-wide flood, all the humans of all the different races who descended from Noah and his family? We might get sued for being exclusionary. Lots of other religions believe lots of other creation myths."

"Er, oh, I didn't realize that. I wonder if the school board's thought of that."

"Just don't want to see us get in any trouble, sir. Just don't want to CREATE any trouble. Ha-ha. Little joke there, sir."

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: LLaurieG ]</p>

Psycho Economist

You're right; you can read the text of the Constitution that way... but the federal case law on the establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion...") takes a more hands-off approach.

The case of Lemon v. Kurtzman deals with federal (and by extension, all governmental) funding of religious institutions and the logic could easily be reversed to religious institutional funding of government.

The Lemon test goes to the tune of:

• A statute [or public policy] must have a secular legislative purpose.
• the principal effect of of the statute [or policy] must neither advance nor inhibit religion
• the statute [or policy] must not foster "excessive [government] entanglement with religion"

<a href="http://www.puaf.umd.edu/courses/puaf650/handouts-Religion-Lemon.htm" target="_blank">course notes from UMD's Public Affairs school</a>

A public school taking money from a church flirts with, if not qualifies as, excessive entanglement of government with religion, and the content of the advertisment certainly sought to advance the cause of religion.

We mere mortals can banter back and forth about the constitutional appropriateness of the Lemon test (and I'll stand behind it all the way), but until the Supreme Court overturns Lemon (and hey, we do have a Republican president) that's the law of the land.