You'll notice that Congress Critters are never required to uphold the constitution by the constitution. Just the president.
They have an oath during inauguration. This is the first sentence:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; . . . ."
Is "support and defend" not tantamount to "uphold?"
You'll notice that Congress Critters are never required to uphold the constitution by the constitution. Just the president.
They have an oath during inauguration. This is the first sentence:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; . . . ."
Is "support and defend" not tantamount to "uphold?"
That's a rule imposed by Congress itself. It isn't Constitutionally mandated, beyond the Constitution authorizing Congress to make rules governing the admittance of its members.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
You'll notice that Congress Critters are never required to uphold the constitution by the constitution. Just the president.
They have an oath during inauguration. This is the first sentence:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; . . . ."
Is "support and defend" not tantamount to "uphold?"
That's a rule imposed by Congress itself. It isn't Constitutionally mandated, beyond the Constitution authorizing Congress to make rules governing the admittance of its members.
So you're saying the Oath holds no authority or value because the document it's intended to protect doesn't specifically ask for those protections?
Certainly upholding the Constitution is an inherent duty of being one of the few people who can actually legislate on its behalf, no?
Candidate X can say 'my church has the truth and the right way, and the other churches are all false religions whose parishioners will suffer eternally' because he's 1) a free citizen, and 2) not 'the government' taking an official position. But if the church then gets up and says, 'why thank you candidate X, if you don't vote for him, be prepared for the eternal fires', then that church can lose it's 501(c)(3) exemption. Obviously it's a double standard, but that's OK, because they are two different entities.
What about when the person saying those things is already a public official? Should the rules remain the same?
If Congressman X proposes legislation to legalize the public stoning of unvirtuous women, a la Deuteronomy 22, is this still protected religious speech or is this an instance of failing to uphold the constitution?
And when that happens [being enacted into law] it will have crossed a line into government endorsement/abridgment and be overturned by the Judiciary. Until it crosses that line it's just a guy being an asshole. Which is constitutionally protected. Yay checks and balances.
So you're saying the Oath holds no authority or value because the document it's intended to protect doesn't specifically ask for those protections?
Certainly upholding the Constitution is an inherent duty of being one of the few people who can actually legislate on its behalf, no?
Sure, it has authority because Congress demands that its members say it. But they could change it tomorrow to something completely different if they wanted to.
But ultimately the point is that a Congressman can run around proposing legislation that will violate the Constitution, and there's no remedy other than the voters voting him out.
Well, hypothetically his house could expel him if he pissed off 2/3rds of it.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Candidate X can say 'my church has the truth and the right way, and the other churches are all false religions whose parishioners will suffer eternally' because he's 1) a free citizen, and 2) not 'the government' taking an official position. But if the church then gets up and says, 'why thank you candidate X, if you don't vote for him, be prepared for the eternal fires', then that church can lose it's 501(c)(3) exemption. Obviously it's a double standard, but that's OK, because they are two different entities.
What about when the person saying those things is already a public official? Should the rules remain the same?
If Congressman X proposes legislation to legalize the public stoning of unvirtuous women, a la Deuteronomy 22, is this still protected religious speech or is this an instance of failing to uphold the constitution?
And when that happens [being enacted into law] it will have crossed a line into government endorsement/abridgment and be overturned by the Judiciary. Until it crosses that line it's just a guy being an asshole. Which is constitutionally protected. Yay checks and balances.
Even when working at peak efficiency, the system of Checks and Balances is extremely slow. Look at something like Prop 8; it's obviously unconstitutional, and the financial support it gained very likely came from illegal endorsements by the LDS church. Despite that, it passed and became legislation over two years ago. Now, since then it's been a back-and-forth battle over its repeal on grounds of unconstitutionality, but that fight still isn't over yet.
Should we really not have a mechanism in place to vet the constitutionality of legislation BEFORE it's passed into law, instead of taking years and millions in resources in the attempt to repeal things that never should be legislated anyway?
Candidate X can say 'my church has the truth and the right way, and the other churches are all false religions whose parishioners will suffer eternally' because he's 1) a free citizen, and 2) not 'the government' taking an official position. But if the church then gets up and says, 'why thank you candidate X, if you don't vote for him, be prepared for the eternal fires', then that church can lose it's 501(c)(3) exemption. Obviously it's a double standard, but that's OK, because they are two different entities.
What about when the person saying those things is already a public official? Should the rules remain the same?
If Congressman X proposes legislation to legalize the public stoning of unvirtuous women, a la Deuteronomy 22, is this still protected religious speech or is this an instance of failing to uphold the constitution?
And when that happens [being enacted into law] it will have crossed a line into government endorsement/abridgment and be overturned by the Judiciary. Until it crosses that line it's just a guy being an asshole. Which is constitutionally protected. Yay checks and balances.
Even when working at peak efficiency, the system of Checks and Balances is extremely slow. Look at something like Prop 8; it's obviously unconstitutional, and the financial support it gained very likely came from illegal endorsements by the LDS church. Despite that, it passed and became legislation over two years ago. Now, since then it's been a back-and-forth battle over its repeal on grounds of unconstitutionality, but that fight still isn't over yet.
Should we really not have a mechanism in place to vet the constitutionality of legislation BEFORE it's passed into law, instead of taking years and millions in resources in the attempt to repeal things that never should be legislated anyway?
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
Candidate X can say 'my church has the truth and the right way, and the other churches are all false religions whose parishioners will suffer eternally' because he's 1) a free citizen, and 2) not 'the government' taking an official position. But if the church then gets up and says, 'why thank you candidate X, if you don't vote for him, be prepared for the eternal fires', then that church can lose it's 501(c)(3) exemption. Obviously it's a double standard, but that's OK, because they are two different entities.
What about when the person saying those things is already a public official? Should the rules remain the same?
If Congressman X proposes legislation to legalize the public stoning of unvirtuous women, a la Deuteronomy 22, is this still protected religious speech or is this an instance of failing to uphold the constitution?
And when that happens [being enacted into law] it will have crossed a line into government endorsement/abridgment and be overturned by the Judiciary. Until it crosses that line it's just a guy being an asshole. Which is constitutionally protected. Yay checks and balances.
Even when working at peak efficiency, the system of Checks and Balances is extremely slow. Look at something like Prop 8; it's obviously unconstitutional, and the financial support it gained very likely came from illegal endorsements by the LDS church. Despite that, it passed and became legislation over two years ago. Now, since then it's been a back-and-forth battle over its repeal on grounds of unconstitutionality, but that fight still isn't over yet.
Should we really not have a mechanism in place to vet the constitutionality of legislation BEFORE it's passed into law, instead of taking years and millions in resources in the attempt to repeal things that never should be legislated anyway?
Sure, and that system is hiring lawyers to advise lawmakers on the constitutionality of the laws they pass. Obviously it is only reliant on the quality of the lawyers you hire, so if you hire people who say 'war crimes? goferit', (lol, John Yoo) then the system doesn't work.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
We shouldn't have to fight so hard to overturn tyranny and incompetence. The appeals process should not be our primary mechanism of defeating unconstitutional/illegal legislation.
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
We shouldn't have to fight so hard to overturn tyranny and incompetence. The appeals process should not be our primary mechanism of defeating unconstitutional/illegal legislation.
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
We shouldn't have to fight so hard to overturn tyranny and incompetence. The appeals process should not be our primary mechanism of defeating unconstitutional/illegal legislation.
The more entrenched the support for the unconstitutional legislation is, the more you have to work to stop it. Consider segregation, which had to be fought for nearly a hundred years before the courts got around to stopping it.
And the anti-gay sentiments are fairly well entrenched if the California electorate voted to amend their own Constitution to discriminate against the gays. So it is hard for mere politicians to prevent it. Also hard for judges, but that's their job, and hopefully they'll do it in California.
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
We shouldn't have to fight so hard to overturn tyranny and incompetence. The appeals process should not be our primary mechanism of defeating unconstitutional/illegal legislation.
I still enjoy the irony that you're advocating for a blatantly unconstitutional law to remedy the problem of people not following the Constitution.
Also, the governor quoted in the OP has apologized for his remarks. Well, more accurately, apologized for the 'reactions they caused in other people' rather then the remarks themselves. But at least he seems to have realized that the remarks weren't entirely appropriate from a governor. Here's the NPR's story on the event.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
We shouldn't have to fight so hard to overturn tyranny and incompetence. The appeals process should not be our primary mechanism of defeating unconstitutional/illegal legislation.
I still enjoy the irony that you're advocating for a blatantly unconstitutional law to remedy the problem of people not following the Constitution.
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
We shouldn't have to fight so hard to overturn tyranny and incompetence. The appeals process should not be our primary mechanism of defeating unconstitutional/illegal legislation.
I still enjoy the irony that you're advocating for a blatantly unconstitutional law to remedy the problem of people not following the Constitution.
Several congressmen in history have gone to trial over ethics violations or tax evasion; do we as nation really feel that something as potentially fascistic as restriction of rights on religious grounds doesn't merit the same treatment?
So, Congresspeople who use any religious rhetoric to support any proposed law should go on trial, but you're not advocating any law?
It sounds like we're kind of shopping still for the equivalent of the Brown V The Board of Education case.
The primary problem is that due to political and cultural issues we are physically unable to prevent Churches from meddling in politics. The problem isn't just a matter of semantics, or enforcement. It's that quite simply there is no way in hell you'll ever be able to bring any real punishment on a Chuch for anything it does. They know it too, and many do everything in their power to use their church to control election results. There is no stopping a church from meddling with politics, they have repeatedly broken these laws and will never be punished in any way for breaking them. I mean hell, faith healing churches which cultivate a behavior of not only willful ignorance but antipiathy towards modern medicine, have directly resulted in countless childhood fatalities, and yet we never see anything done about it other then to maybe charge the parents. This is a cultural problem, and we've got an obligation to find a way to curtail such egregious behavior.
Just like the problem in Brown was actually the fact that there was systemic discrimination that was impossible to eliminate because of the culture in the USA at the time (especially in the South.) Yes separate was and still is inherently unequal but that paled in comparison to how downright appalling the discrimination was, and there was a realization that the only way to ever end it was to make a case where it would be impossible for bigots to disguise and hide their bigotry. They had to very carefully find two schools that were inherently equal in condition (which I'm sure must've been incredibly hard at the time) to prove that there was simply no way to treat people in a fair and equal way and still allow discrimination. You were either against discrimination, or you were a bigot and there was no way around it. I would imagine that being required as a supreme court justice stand up and openly declare you're a Bigot and that is why you oppose X would probably make at least a few justices reconsider...except for Scalia, who I'm convinced is actually a Bizzaro Justice from the corrupt religious government in Escape from LA.
Maybe the solution would be to get a number of these religious advocacy groups to actually challenge this by forming a religion just for the purpose of being to take the IRS to court over this? I like the angle being purposed. That it is inherently abridging religious speech by allowing the government, via the IRS, to have any say in what constitutes a real or valid religion.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
So, Congresspeople who use any religious rhetoric to support any proposed law should go on trial, but you're not advocating any law?
What do you think trials are based on, exactly?
Congressional hearings aren't the same things as criminal trials. At the very least I would consider openly-religious legislative proposals to fit the definition of an ethics violation, as that's exactly what it is. Censure, admonishment, and in severe cases impeachment seem proper punitive measures, ranked according to severity of offense.
So, Congresspeople who use any religious rhetoric to support any proposed law should go on trial, but you're not advocating any law?
What do you think trials are based on, exactly?
Congressional hearings aren't the same things as criminal trials. At the very least I would consider openly-religious legislative proposals to fit the definition of an ethics violation, as that's exactly what it is. Censure, admonishment, and in severe cases impeachment seem proper punitive measures, ranked according to severity of offense.
Except if you censure, admonish, or impeach every Congressperson who ever uses any form of religious rhetoric, you're running pretty strongly afoul of the "no religious test" rule.
Of course, the idea that using religious rhetoric when discussing any possible law is an "ethics violation" is pretty hilarious. I keep forgetting that you don't think freedom of speech applies to anyone who's not an atheist.
Lawndart on
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Of course, the idea that using religious rhetoric when discussing any possible law is an "ethics violation" is pretty hilarious. I keep forgetting that you don't think freedom of speech applies to anyone who's not an atheist.
There's a difference between "freedom of speech" and "sanctioned restriction of freedoms based on religious legislation," and it's dishonest for you to continue to pretend otherwise.
I'm not saying anyone should have their personal religious beliefs or statements restricted; that's also not at all what we're talking about.
So, Congresspeople who use any religious rhetoric to support any proposed law should go on trial, but you're not advocating any law?
What do you think trials are based on, exactly?
Congressional hearings aren't the same things as criminal trials. At the very least I would consider openly-religious legislative proposals to fit the definition of an ethics violation, as that's exactly what it is. Censure, admonishment, and in severe cases impeachment seem proper punitive measures, ranked according to severity of offense.
Except if you censure, admonish, or impeach every Congressperson who ever uses any form of religious rhetoric, you're running pretty strongly afoul of the "no religious test" rule.
Of course, the idea that using religious rhetoric when discussing any possible law is an "ethics violation" is pretty hilarious. I keep forgetting that you don't think freedom of speech applies to anyone who's not an atheist.
So what kind of speak-related ethical violation merits censure, but the situation is not such that the offender can cry "Freedom of speech!"? I'm having a hard time thinking of an example.
(Actually, is "freedom of speech" really relevant when it comes to ethical conduct standards?)
There's a difference between "freedom of speech" and "sanctioned restriction of freedoms based on religious legislation," and it's dishonest for you to continue to pretend otherwise.
I'm not saying anyone should have their personal religious beliefs or statements restricted; that's also not at all what we're talking about.
There's also something to be said in listening to the responses in this case, even if you feel they may not be accurately addressing the subject. The problem here is that systemic cultural factors prevent effective disciplinary measures against religions who have even explicitly stated they are acting in bad faith. This means that we have to fight a war of ideas. The only effective way to fight such a charged war of ideas is to find an argument that can't be easily misunderstood or misrepresented by any parties. Because if they can, even to a small degree, then everyone will feel sorry for them and the status quo continues as is with bad behavior.
Only when all excuses can be removed will there be the possibility for anything to get done, and until that happens arguing about what should or should not happen is entirely irrelevant since the problem is that people already refuse to follow or enforce existing laws which should have covered this.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Who's overseeing your pre-passage constitutional review? Who has jurisdiction? Straight to SCOTUS? Because that's a huge case load if they have to sign off on everything plus obviously they'd still get all the reviews from the now even more than they already are overworked lower courts. Not to mention cases involving executive branch actions. Or is it a random set of federal judges whose rulings can be appealed? And do you really want another veto point in legislation? And what about emergency legislation? The stimulus bill for example. Or amendments to a bill? Do the courts (or whatever) have to sign off with each new version? And do you see how this process would lead to even more ridiculous gridlock than we have today?
It's considerably better to have our legislators vote based on their understandings of the Constitution and then have the courts decide those cases which result from that rather than preemptive rulings for purely practical actually trying to govern reasons. If we disagree with their interpretation, then we vote them out. Hooray.
Alternately, what moniker has said, as usual.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
It's considerably better to have our legislators vote based on their understandings of the Constitution and then have the courts decide those cases which result from that rather than preemptive rulings for purely practical actually trying to govern reasons. If we disagree with their interpretation, then we vote them out. Hooray.
So, like some others here, you'd advocating a traditional "let anyone pass anything and we'll vet it later via lengthy and costly appeals process over the course of years while people continue to get fucked over for no good reason" plan?
There's several different ways to address the problem without giving undue authority to any of the branches. It could be as simple as creating a non-partisan congressional committee or multi-practice panel to simply endorse or not endorse proposed legislation re: constitutionality. It wouldn't even need to have that much authority, just be a in-house watchdog group and give the appeals courts a heads-up if the legislation passes and the public a focused eye on just who is trying be an unethical douchenozzle.
Though my preference is still to formally reprimand or censure concerted efforts at legislating unfounded civil or social policy.
Atomika on
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Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
It could be as simple as creating a non-partisan congressional committee
And what will be the split of of unicorns/leprechauns on this committee?
The first thing - the very first thing - this hypothetical committee would have done two weeks ago is bring every last democrat up on ethics charges for voting for the unconstitutional (and job-killing) health care bill.
You are advocating for something that is profoundly and fundamentally undemocratic. The Constitution itself is undemocratic, too, but that is why we set such a high bar on using it to overturn laws. The default setting is supposed to be popular opinion rules. That is the foundational conceit of western governance, and the first and primary check on tyranny and abuse of power.
Of course, the idea that using religious rhetoric when discussing any possible law is an "ethics violation" is pretty hilarious. I keep forgetting that you don't think freedom of speech applies to anyone who's not an atheist.
There's a difference between "freedom of speech" and "sanctioned restriction of freedoms based on religious legislation," and it's dishonest for you to continue to pretend otherwise.
I'm not saying anyone should have their personal religious beliefs or statements restricted; that's also not at all what we're talking about.
Thanks for ignoring my point about impeaching elected officials simply for mentioning their religious beliefs while debating the passage of bills being a rather blatant violation of the "no religious test" part of the Constitution.
And yeah, you very much are saying that elected officials should be penalized for expressing their religious beliefs to support any and all legislation, regardless of if that legislation has anything to do with religion.
Which is based on a frankly bizarre way of looking at the Constitutionality of any legislation. The rhetoric used by as few as one legislator to support a law has no bearing at all on the Constitutionality of a law. The text of the law is what makes it unconstitutional or not. Representative Bongzilla Von Corpsemolester can say on the floor of the House that he's voting for the Omnibus Spending Bill because it pleases his dark lord Satan, but that has absolutely no impact on the Constitutionality of that legislation. The same is true when Senator Tankerbell claims that the legislation under debate is a good idea because the Bible says so.
Even if we consider support of an unconstitutional law to be an impeachable offense, why is violating the Establishment Clause treated separately and more importantly than every other part of the Constitution? If an atheist Congressperson votes for a law that violates the Free Expression clause, should they be censured or impeached? What about liberal Congresspeople who vote for laws that (according to the far-right Roberts Court) violate the Commerce Clause or the 2nd Amendment?
Also, by the time you had enough of a Congressional majority to impeach or censure elected officials for expressing their religious beliefs, you'd have more than enough of a Congressional majority to prevent those supposedly unconstitutional laws from even passing in the first place. This would still be true even if you implemented a new Congressional committee to vet the Constitutionality of every bill, only you'd delay the already slow process of passing legislation and, depending on how "nonpartisan" this committee is, grant the minority party a massive amount of legislative power in opposition to the will of the electorate.
Even when working at peak efficiency, the system of Checks and Balances is extremely slow. Look at something like Prop 8; it's obviously unconstitutional, and the financial support it gained very likely came from illegal endorsements by the LDS church. Despite that, it passed and became legislation over two years ago. Now, since then it's been a back-and-forth battle over its repeal on grounds of unconstitutionality, but that fight still isn't over yet.
Should we really not have a mechanism in place to vet the constitutionality of legislation BEFORE it's passed into law, instead of taking years and millions in resources in the attempt to repeal things that never should be legislated anyway?
Wow, it's almost like sweeping cultural shifts don't happen overnight.
Madness.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
It's considerably better to have our legislators vote based on their understandings of the Constitution and then have the courts decide those cases which result from that rather than preemptive rulings for purely practical actually trying to govern reasons. If we disagree with their interpretation, then we vote them out. Hooray.
So, like some others here, you'd advocating a traditional "let anyone pass anything and we'll vet it later via lengthy and costly appeals process over the course of years while people continue to get fucked over for no good reason" plan?
Works for me.
I also prefer having a lengthy and costly trial process to just hucking people in prison and assuming guilt. And I'm partial to a lengthy and costly election process to switching over to a dictatorship.
The fact that a system is somewhat cumbersome does not mean it's not the best option available. As has been pointed out, installing an additional oversight point for all legislation would be a clusterfuck. And even so, it doesn't guarantee that bills you deem unconstitutional won't make it into law. Or have you been satisfied with every SCOTUS decision ever? I mean, people here are argle-bargling about SCOTUS decisions they find retarded all the time. Doesn't seem like any number of additional decision points are really going to solve many problems, and meanwhile necessary legislation is going to be delayed even further.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Candidate X can say 'my church has the truth and the right way, and the other churches are all false religions whose parishioners will suffer eternally' because he's 1) a free citizen, and 2) not 'the government' taking an official position. But if the church then gets up and says, 'why thank you candidate X, if you don't vote for him, be prepared for the eternal fires', then that church can lose it's 501(c)(3) exemption. Obviously it's a double standard, but that's OK, because they are two different entities.
What about when the person saying those things is already a public official? Should the rules remain the same?
If Congressman X proposes legislation to legalize the public stoning of unvirtuous women, a la Deuteronomy 22, is this still protected religious speech or is this an instance of failing to uphold the constitution?
And when that happens [being enacted into law] it will have crossed a line into government endorsement/abridgment and be overturned by the Judiciary. Until it crosses that line it's just a guy being an asshole. Which is constitutionally protected. Yay checks and balances.
Even when working at peak efficiency, the system of Checks and Balances is extremely slow. Look at something like Prop 8; it's obviously unconstitutional, and the financial support it gained very likely came from illegal endorsements by the LDS church. Despite that, it passed and became legislation over two years ago. Now, since then it's been a back-and-forth battle over its repeal on grounds of unconstitutionality, but that fight still isn't over yet.
Should we really not have a mechanism in place to vet the constitutionality of legislation BEFORE it's passed into law, instead of taking years and millions in resources in the attempt to repeal things that never should be legislated anyway?
We already do. It's called the legislature, which writes the laws, and the executive, which executes them.
If the legislature believes a law is unconstitutional, it doesn't have to pass it. And the executive can veto laws which it considers unconstitutional.
If an unconstitutional law somehow survives those two branches of government, there's always the judiciary as a backstop.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
I enjoy how you completely ignored all the practical concerns to continue your "but legislators shouldn't pass bad things!" rant. No, they shouldn't. Banning them from doing it wouldn't stop them and would only slow down the legislative process more. Which is truly a brilliant call. Not to mention further politicize the whole process and I thought one of the reasons everyone thinks Scalia is such a dipshit is how much he's politicized SCOTUS (they all have, but he's the most political judge in our history).
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Keep in mind the Constitution was written in the context of the Church of England's infiltration and takeover of England's ruling body.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
Simple enough. Congress can't make a law on behalf of the Southern Baptist Convention, but Congress can make laws that affect all religious organizations as a blanket whole.
This is a common misconception on what "respecting an establishment" means. But if we look at it... "respecting an establishment of" is clearly not synonymous with "establishing". The phrasing was constructed specifically instead of "establishing" to be more broad
Article 1. Section 9. Between paragraphs two and three insert "no religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed."
Mr. Sylvester had some doubts of the propriety of the mode of expression used in this paragraph. He apprehended that it was liable to a construction different from what had been made by the committee. He feared it might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion altogether.
Mr. Vining suggested the propriety of transposing the two members of the sentence.
Mr. Gerry said it would read better if it was, that no religious doctrine shall be established by law.
Mr. Sherman thought the amendment altogether unnecessary, inasmuch as Congress had no authority whatever delegated to them by the Constitution to make religious establishments; he would, therefore, move to have it struck out.
Mr. [Daniel] Carroll.--As the rights of conscience are, in their nature, of peculiar delicacy, and will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand; and as many sects have concurred in opinion that they are not well secured under the present constitution, he said he was much in favor of adopting the words. He thought it would tend more towards conciliating the minds of the people to the Government than almost any other amendment he had heard proposed. He would not contend with gentlemen about the phraseology, his object was to secure the substance in such a manner as to satisfy the wishes of the honest part of the community.
The central idea was not simply that no church would be the official national church but that religious plurality would be the secular form. All sects would be on a level playing field. And as you can not touch upon religious matters and maintain that civic neutrality that is necessary not to give advantage to one or the other because matters of religious conscious "will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand."
ed
I also hate the conservative argument that Jefferson invented the "wall of separation" idea. James Madison wrote essentially the same thing. The fact that Jefferson's phrase has been adopted does not mean that it was his position alone.
The apprehension of some seems to be that Religion left entirely to itself may run into extravagances injurious both to Religion and to social order; but besides the question whether the interference of Govt in any form wd. not be more likely to increase than controul the tendency, it is a safe calculation that in this as in other cases of excessive excitement, Reason will gradually regain its ascendancey. Great excitements are less apt to be permanent than to vibrate to the opposite extreme.
...
Whilst I thus frankly express my view of the subject presented in your sermon, I must do you the justice to observe that you very ably maintained yours. I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.
Uh so about this legislatures shouldn't pass bad laws like prop 8.. that was a ballot initiative, which means it was voted on directly by the people, not the legislature, and can generally not be overturned even by the legislature in California. The courts are the only place to block these kinds of actions, besides just not enforcing them, which is what our former governator did.
That said the money and support shown by out of state religious interests from the LDS and catholic church is believed to have been a major factor in passing the legislation, it passed very narrowly.
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
It's considerably better to have our legislators vote based on their understandings of the Constitution and then have the courts decide those cases which result from that rather than preemptive rulings for purely practical actually trying to govern reasons. If we disagree with their interpretation, then we vote them out. Hooray.
So, like some others here, you'd advocating a traditional "let anyone pass anything and we'll vet it later via lengthy and costly appeals process over the course of years while people continue to get fucked over for no good reason" plan?
There's several different ways to address the problem without giving undue authority to any of the branches. It could be as simple as creating a non-partisan congressional committee or multi-practice panel to simply endorse or not endorse proposed legislation re: constitutionality. It wouldn't even need to have that much authority, just be a in-house watchdog group and give the appeals courts a heads-up if the legislation passes and the public a focused eye on just who is trying be an unethical douchenozzle.
Though my preference is still to formally reprimand or censure concerted efforts at legislating unfounded civil or social policy.
Because there are no groups out there that currently monitor the laws congress passes and make legal challenges to them once they are signed into law.
Also, not every law for which religion could be/was used as a rhetorical aid, is a law about restricting peoples rights. If US Christians actually started reading the other 98% of their bibles, we'd have a lot more laws called "Helping Poor People", "Medical care for the Poor", and "Mixed Fabric ban".
I'd also like to point out that prop 8 was actually voted in to law directly by the great people of California.
The Prop 8 thing really was a pretty big win for the gay rights crowd to be honest.
Millions of dollars were pumped into the thing and they still barely managed to win, even with a really poorly ran opposition campaign.
The end result is the thing gets thrown out, the Mormon church blew a ton of money, and homosexuals get to have tons of air play as perfectly normal people just trying to live their lives.
Uh so about this legislatures shouldn't pass bad laws like prop 8.. that was a ballot initiative, which means it was voted on directly by the people, not the legislature, and can generally not be overturned even by the legislature in California. The courts are the only place to block these kinds of actions, besides just not enforcing them, which is what our former governator did.
Actually it has been enforced; no new marriages between same sex couples have been allowed in California. Its being overturned was put under injunction/stay and so is not being enforced until the higher courts work it out, which is typically what happens to a law/ruling whose constitutionality is questionable. You can't just enforce the laws you like. Well, you can, but you shouldn't. Rule of Law and all that.
No, I took the part where you ignored the real world outcomes in favor of examining politics in a particularly craven and senseless way. Because politics is a fun game to talk about!
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Yes, it's a huge win to not be able to marry when they could before!
Christ.
If it leads to SCOTUS striking it down and thereby undoing all of the other State Constitutional amendments via 14th and Supremacy clause it actually will be since otherwise it'd take a hell of a long time to work things out for non California gay people. (Who also don't reside in Iowa, New England, or DC.) Perry will be the new Loving and things will be resolved more straightforwardly than having to do it all over again 51 times.
Posts
They have an oath during inauguration. This is the first sentence:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; . . . ."
Is "support and defend" not tantamount to "uphold?"
That's a rule imposed by Congress itself. It isn't Constitutionally mandated, beyond the Constitution authorizing Congress to make rules governing the admittance of its members.
So you're saying the Oath holds no authority or value because the document it's intended to protect doesn't specifically ask for those protections?
Certainly upholding the Constitution is an inherent duty of being one of the few people who can actually legislate on its behalf, no?
Sure, it has authority because Congress demands that its members say it. But they could change it tomorrow to something completely different if they wanted to.
But ultimately the point is that a Congressman can run around proposing legislation that will violate the Constitution, and there's no remedy other than the voters voting him out.
Well, hypothetically his house could expel him if he pissed off 2/3rds of it.
Even when working at peak efficiency, the system of Checks and Balances is extremely slow. Look at something like Prop 8; it's obviously unconstitutional, and the financial support it gained very likely came from illegal endorsements by the LDS church. Despite that, it passed and became legislation over two years ago. Now, since then it's been a back-and-forth battle over its repeal on grounds of unconstitutionality, but that fight still isn't over yet.
Should we really not have a mechanism in place to vet the constitutionality of legislation BEFORE it's passed into law, instead of taking years and millions in resources in the attempt to repeal things that never should be legislated anyway?
Not really, no. There's a reason its called the appeals process.
Sure, and that system is hiring lawyers to advise lawmakers on the constitutionality of the laws they pass. Obviously it is only reliant on the quality of the lawyers you hire, so if you hire people who say 'war crimes? goferit', (lol, John Yoo) then the system doesn't work.
We shouldn't have to fight so hard to overturn tyranny and incompetence. The appeals process should not be our primary mechanism of defeating unconstitutional/illegal legislation.
Justice is many things, but swift is not one of them. Also, you can legislatively repeal laws.
The more entrenched the support for the unconstitutional legislation is, the more you have to work to stop it. Consider segregation, which had to be fought for nearly a hundred years before the courts got around to stopping it.
And the anti-gay sentiments are fairly well entrenched if the California electorate voted to amend their own Constitution to discriminate against the gays. So it is hard for mere politicians to prevent it. Also hard for judges, but that's their job, and hopefully they'll do it in California.
I still enjoy the irony that you're advocating for a blatantly unconstitutional law to remedy the problem of people not following the Constitution.
I've advocated no law here, friend.
I already acknowledged that I had the incorrect definition but that I was fine with the outcome of the correct one.
Like a page before your post
So, Congresspeople who use any religious rhetoric to support any proposed law should go on trial, but you're not advocating any law?
What do you think trials are based on, exactly?
The primary problem is that due to political and cultural issues we are physically unable to prevent Churches from meddling in politics. The problem isn't just a matter of semantics, or enforcement. It's that quite simply there is no way in hell you'll ever be able to bring any real punishment on a Chuch for anything it does. They know it too, and many do everything in their power to use their church to control election results. There is no stopping a church from meddling with politics, they have repeatedly broken these laws and will never be punished in any way for breaking them. I mean hell, faith healing churches which cultivate a behavior of not only willful ignorance but antipiathy towards modern medicine, have directly resulted in countless childhood fatalities, and yet we never see anything done about it other then to maybe charge the parents. This is a cultural problem, and we've got an obligation to find a way to curtail such egregious behavior.
Just like the problem in Brown was actually the fact that there was systemic discrimination that was impossible to eliminate because of the culture in the USA at the time (especially in the South.) Yes separate was and still is inherently unequal but that paled in comparison to how downright appalling the discrimination was, and there was a realization that the only way to ever end it was to make a case where it would be impossible for bigots to disguise and hide their bigotry. They had to very carefully find two schools that were inherently equal in condition (which I'm sure must've been incredibly hard at the time) to prove that there was simply no way to treat people in a fair and equal way and still allow discrimination. You were either against discrimination, or you were a bigot and there was no way around it. I would imagine that being required as a supreme court justice stand up and openly declare you're a Bigot and that is why you oppose X would probably make at least a few justices reconsider...except for Scalia, who I'm convinced is actually a Bizzaro Justice from the corrupt religious government in Escape from LA.
Maybe the solution would be to get a number of these religious advocacy groups to actually challenge this by forming a religion just for the purpose of being to take the IRS to court over this? I like the angle being purposed. That it is inherently abridging religious speech by allowing the government, via the IRS, to have any say in what constitutes a real or valid religion.
Congressional hearings aren't the same things as criminal trials. At the very least I would consider openly-religious legislative proposals to fit the definition of an ethics violation, as that's exactly what it is. Censure, admonishment, and in severe cases impeachment seem proper punitive measures, ranked according to severity of offense.
Except if you censure, admonish, or impeach every Congressperson who ever uses any form of religious rhetoric, you're running pretty strongly afoul of the "no religious test" rule.
Of course, the idea that using religious rhetoric when discussing any possible law is an "ethics violation" is pretty hilarious. I keep forgetting that you don't think freedom of speech applies to anyone who's not an atheist.
There's a difference between "freedom of speech" and "sanctioned restriction of freedoms based on religious legislation," and it's dishonest for you to continue to pretend otherwise.
I'm not saying anyone should have their personal religious beliefs or statements restricted; that's also not at all what we're talking about.
(Actually, is "freedom of speech" really relevant when it comes to ethical conduct standards?)
There's also something to be said in listening to the responses in this case, even if you feel they may not be accurately addressing the subject. The problem here is that systemic cultural factors prevent effective disciplinary measures against religions who have even explicitly stated they are acting in bad faith. This means that we have to fight a war of ideas. The only effective way to fight such a charged war of ideas is to find an argument that can't be easily misunderstood or misrepresented by any parties. Because if they can, even to a small degree, then everyone will feel sorry for them and the status quo continues as is with bad behavior.
Only when all excuses can be removed will there be the possibility for anything to get done, and until that happens arguing about what should or should not happen is entirely irrelevant since the problem is that people already refuse to follow or enforce existing laws which should have covered this.
Who's overseeing your pre-passage constitutional review? Who has jurisdiction? Straight to SCOTUS? Because that's a huge case load if they have to sign off on everything plus obviously they'd still get all the reviews from the now even more than they already are overworked lower courts. Not to mention cases involving executive branch actions. Or is it a random set of federal judges whose rulings can be appealed? And do you really want another veto point in legislation? And what about emergency legislation? The stimulus bill for example. Or amendments to a bill? Do the courts (or whatever) have to sign off with each new version? And do you see how this process would lead to even more ridiculous gridlock than we have today?
It's considerably better to have our legislators vote based on their understandings of the Constitution and then have the courts decide those cases which result from that rather than preemptive rulings for purely practical actually trying to govern reasons. If we disagree with their interpretation, then we vote them out. Hooray.
Alternately, what moniker has said, as usual.
So, like some others here, you'd advocating a traditional "let anyone pass anything and we'll vet it later via lengthy and costly appeals process over the course of years while people continue to get fucked over for no good reason" plan?
There's several different ways to address the problem without giving undue authority to any of the branches. It could be as simple as creating a non-partisan congressional committee or multi-practice panel to simply endorse or not endorse proposed legislation re: constitutionality. It wouldn't even need to have that much authority, just be a in-house watchdog group and give the appeals courts a heads-up if the legislation passes and the public a focused eye on just who is trying be an unethical douchenozzle.
Though my preference is still to formally reprimand or censure concerted efforts at legislating unfounded civil or social policy.
And what will be the split of of unicorns/leprechauns on this committee?
The first thing - the very first thing - this hypothetical committee would have done two weeks ago is bring every last democrat up on ethics charges for voting for the unconstitutional (and job-killing) health care bill.
You are advocating for something that is profoundly and fundamentally undemocratic. The Constitution itself is undemocratic, too, but that is why we set such a high bar on using it to overturn laws. The default setting is supposed to be popular opinion rules. That is the foundational conceit of western governance, and the first and primary check on tyranny and abuse of power.
Thanks for ignoring my point about impeaching elected officials simply for mentioning their religious beliefs while debating the passage of bills being a rather blatant violation of the "no religious test" part of the Constitution.
And yeah, you very much are saying that elected officials should be penalized for expressing their religious beliefs to support any and all legislation, regardless of if that legislation has anything to do with religion.
Which is based on a frankly bizarre way of looking at the Constitutionality of any legislation. The rhetoric used by as few as one legislator to support a law has no bearing at all on the Constitutionality of a law. The text of the law is what makes it unconstitutional or not. Representative Bongzilla Von Corpsemolester can say on the floor of the House that he's voting for the Omnibus Spending Bill because it pleases his dark lord Satan, but that has absolutely no impact on the Constitutionality of that legislation. The same is true when Senator Tankerbell claims that the legislation under debate is a good idea because the Bible says so.
Even if we consider support of an unconstitutional law to be an impeachable offense, why is violating the Establishment Clause treated separately and more importantly than every other part of the Constitution? If an atheist Congressperson votes for a law that violates the Free Expression clause, should they be censured or impeached? What about liberal Congresspeople who vote for laws that (according to the far-right Roberts Court) violate the Commerce Clause or the 2nd Amendment?
Also, by the time you had enough of a Congressional majority to impeach or censure elected officials for expressing their religious beliefs, you'd have more than enough of a Congressional majority to prevent those supposedly unconstitutional laws from even passing in the first place. This would still be true even if you implemented a new Congressional committee to vet the Constitutionality of every bill, only you'd delay the already slow process of passing legislation and, depending on how "nonpartisan" this committee is, grant the minority party a massive amount of legislative power in opposition to the will of the electorate.
Wow, it's almost like sweeping cultural shifts don't happen overnight.
Madness.
Works for me.
I also prefer having a lengthy and costly trial process to just hucking people in prison and assuming guilt. And I'm partial to a lengthy and costly election process to switching over to a dictatorship.
The fact that a system is somewhat cumbersome does not mean it's not the best option available. As has been pointed out, installing an additional oversight point for all legislation would be a clusterfuck. And even so, it doesn't guarantee that bills you deem unconstitutional won't make it into law. Or have you been satisfied with every SCOTUS decision ever? I mean, people here are argle-bargling about SCOTUS decisions they find retarded all the time. Doesn't seem like any number of additional decision points are really going to solve many problems, and meanwhile necessary legislation is going to be delayed even further.
If the legislature believes a law is unconstitutional, it doesn't have to pass it. And the executive can veto laws which it considers unconstitutional.
If an unconstitutional law somehow survives those two branches of government, there's always the judiciary as a backstop.
Rigorous Scholarship
This is a common misconception on what "respecting an establishment" means. But if we look at it... "respecting an establishment of" is clearly not synonymous with "establishing". The phrasing was constructed specifically instead of "establishing" to be more broad
The central idea was not simply that no church would be the official national church but that religious plurality would be the secular form. All sects would be on a level playing field. And as you can not touch upon religious matters and maintain that civic neutrality that is necessary not to give advantage to one or the other because matters of religious conscious "will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand."
ed
I also hate the conservative argument that Jefferson invented the "wall of separation" idea. James Madison wrote essentially the same thing. The fact that Jefferson's phrase has been adopted does not mean that it was his position alone.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
That said the money and support shown by out of state religious interests from the LDS and catholic church is believed to have been a major factor in passing the legislation, it passed very narrowly.
Because there are no groups out there that currently monitor the laws congress passes and make legal challenges to them once they are signed into law.
Also, not every law for which religion could be/was used as a rhetorical aid, is a law about restricting peoples rights. If US Christians actually started reading the other 98% of their bibles, we'd have a lot more laws called "Helping Poor People", "Medical care for the Poor", and "Mixed Fabric ban".
I'd also like to point out that prop 8 was actually voted in to law directly by the great people of California.
Millions of dollars were pumped into the thing and they still barely managed to win, even with a really poorly ran opposition campaign.
The end result is the thing gets thrown out, the Mormon church blew a ton of money, and homosexuals get to have tons of air play as perfectly normal people just trying to live their lives.
Christ.
Actually it has been enforced; no new marriages between same sex couples have been allowed in California. Its being overturned was put under injunction/stay and so is not being enforced until the higher courts work it out, which is typically what happens to a law/ruling whose constitutionality is questionable. You can't just enforce the laws you like. Well, you can, but you shouldn't. Rule of Law and all that.
Way to pick one part of my post.
And they could only marry in San Fransisco by mayoral decree as I recall.
If it leads to SCOTUS striking it down and thereby undoing all of the other State Constitutional amendments via 14th and Supremacy clause it actually will be since otherwise it'd take a hell of a long time to work things out for non California gay people. (Who also don't reside in Iowa, New England, or DC.) Perry will be the new Loving and things will be resolved more straightforwardly than having to do it all over again 51 times.