Date: Sun Nov 16 11:32:29 1997
To: Frank Grose
From: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: Legal Opinions (part ii)
Attachments: C:\_upload\schempp.wl; C:\_upload\murray.wl;
C:\_upload\despain.wl; C:\_upload\stone.wl;
I've attached four more cases.
I'm not sure, but it looks like the Schempp and Murray cases may be the same case. I know they were considered/issued together. Read the case(s) closely. Instead of only seeing what they seem to take away from you, try and read them from the point of view of someone who doesn't want someone you disagree teaching your kids Sunday School when they're supposed to be learning the three R's. Don't speculate about what they take away. Make a list of what the do's and don't are in the cases, in context. The "right" is too prone to hyperbole on this issue, and that's why they lose credibility.
If you want to read Engel and Everson in the original, I can get those for you too, but I'm pretty sure they're on the web. Significant to your judge-with-an-agenda argument, one or both of those were authored by Hugo Black, from Alabama, your part of the state I believe, Colbert County. Let me know if there's other cases you want to read.
Stone v. Graham, the Ten Commandments case, is included. What's misleading about what you say Barton says about that case is that it wasn't about not *allowing* people to post the ten commandment. The case was about striking down a state law *mandating* the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Although secular purposes could be articulated, it was clear that it was a religious purpose that was the intent of the law. That subtle little twist in what the case was about as expressed by Barton and others is where the notion of anti-Christian hostility comes from. And when they play fast and loose with the facts of the underlying case, how can they be perceived as credible when telling us what the holding was about?
What modern cases say about the Ten Commandments, including Judge Price's order, is not that they have to be taken down, but that if they're up for a presumably secular purpose, they need to be put in context with other depictions of the origins of the law. Else, it appears that the *only* purpose they're there is to endorse and promote the Christian (in that case) version of the decalogue. Price didn't tell Moore to take the commandments down. He told Moore to put them in context. It was Moore who drew the line and denied they were there for any secular purpose.
Religion may very well be an integral part of our nation's history. In the 1892 case, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, you see it used to show that the statute in question was meant to apply to manual labor as opposed to professionals, like clerics. The pre-1962 cases do not hold, however, that our courts routinely viewed the first amendment as something that promoted the incorporation of religion into government. As in the case of the bigamy trial, Reynolds v. U.S., what they hold is that individuals generally cannot hold up their religious practices as a means of avoiding secular laws of general application. In context, then, the arguments from cases like Reynolds actually cut against the "right," for they hold that regardless of your profession of religious beliefs, you are not above the law. Simply put, your religion is not carte blanche to disobey a law of general and secular application.
Also DeKalb v. DeSpain, the four line nursery rhyme case is included. A point of clarification about DeSpain. That was a case from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, that the Supreme Court denied certiorari on, meaning they just let the appeals court decision stand. It's inaccurate to say the Supreme Court ruled on that case or decided it. I don't think the result would have been different had they done so, but you can't argue that was a Supreme Court decision.
All Rights Reserved
0 comments:
Post a Comment