"Study the Constitution! States can declare themselves Christian!"

[Bluebear]

:crazy:

"Yes, I do not believe in equal freedom for all religions. I believe that Judeo-Christian faiths should be the only ones allowed.

This is, of course, a wish. While the Federal Constitution forbids making any law regarding national religion, it is possible that the states could declare themselves Christian and such. A quick study of the Constitution will show that."

http://www.christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=34049322&postcount=13
======
Aside:

("Armyman_83's" profile indicates his interests include Christ and war.)

http://www.christianforums.com/~armyman_83

[Toots]

1. Nope ain't gunna happen..

:shrug:

[Fridays Child]

2. If that ever happens in my state, I will move. Period.

But I guess the problem is that it's happening at the national level, the Constitution notwithstanding.

[Bluebear]

4. That subculture is not going to give up easy, that's for sure. nt

[berni_mccoy]

3. Wow, those people are idiots... They give Christianity a bad name

And just for their information, no state can make any laws that violate the Constitution.

[Bluebear]

6. That's what struck me as so pathetic!

"A quick read of the Constitution would tell you that!"

Put down the tracts and go reread the Constitution, bucko!

[Canuckistanian]

9. Must be the Jack Chick version of the Constitution

Comics are MUCH easier to understand, aren't they, Christo-boy?

[Bluebear]

22. 'the Jack Chick version of the Constitution'

:nodding:

[hfojvt]

30. Back in the day, they could.

Perhaps you could study it yourself. There was a case, in 1818 or so, that declared that the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states as it was the Constitution for the Federal government (I could look it up in my huge book on SCOTUS, but should I do all that work? Would you believe me if I cited some cases?) The first amendment reads "Congress shall make no law ..." which says nothing about state governments. At the time the Constitution was ratified, several states, including Virginia had state religions, which they later voted to get rid of. The state legislatures debated and voted to do so - not SCOTUS.

Not sure where we stand now as SCOTUS and the Federal government have grabbed more and more power for themselves. States cannot even set their own drinking ages now, not without being blackmailed, something they could do as recently as 1982.

So I would not be so quick to call those people idiots.

[Lithos]

5. What part of any law

Does he not get? Same reason the government can't abridge your first amendment rights, neither can the state.

Sheesh, what a Moran...

L-

[hfojvt]

33. see above

What part of "Congress" don't you get? So quick we are to cast aspersions based on our own ignorance. Barron vs. Baltimore, it was in 1833, SCOTUS voted unanimously that "the Bill of Rights applied only against the national government, emphatically not against the states."

"The passage of the 14th amendment in 1868 opened new possibilities. This amendment says "No State shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law. Beginning in the 1920s SCOTUS developed the Incorporation Doctrine by which it used the 14th amendment's due process clause to absorb provisions of the Bill of Rights and apply them against state governments." The Oxford Companion to SCOTUS

[Ian David]

7. If I remember correctly, Clarence Thomas and Scalia both agree with that. n/t

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. This theory is at one level true...

...the First Amendment originally enjoined the Federal Gov't alone from establishing religion(s), and in the Federalist period, there were state-supported churches.

None of the Bill of Rights protections on their face prohibit actions by the States.

The process of extending BoR prohibitions to actions by the several states began with the Reconstruction Amendments, especially the Fourteenth.

The process -- called the doctrine of incorporation -- was piecemeal, took decades, and is not actually finished. It's settled case law, but not provided explicitly by statute.

Clarence Thomas has a whole Constitutional jurisprudence based on ignoring/overturning the process of incorporation.

[Union Thug]

10. So many born-agains, so few lions. Pity. n/t

[Madspirit]

39. "So many born-agains, so few lions"

Fantastic!! <g>
Lee

[bluerum]

11. You forgot the sarcasm and puke smilies. eom

[happyslug]

12. The Concept that the State could do this was killed off by the Post Civil War Amendments.

In fact NONE of the Bill of Rights apply to the States UNLESS such violation the concept of "Substantial Due Process" protected under the 15th Amendment.

Thus the comment, that if you go to the Time the Bill of Rights was adopted, the Majority of States had State Churches. The South were the first to separate State from church in the 1790s, but that was more to dump the poor then to free the churches from state control (The Welfare system of the time was paid for by the State, but run by the Church, thus the separation of Church and State "freed" the State of taking care of widows, orphans, the elderly etc). The last state to free itself from the Poor, or I mean separate Church from State, was Massachusetts which did so doing the panic of 1837 (And the policy to replace paying the Churches to take care of the poor was to tell the poor to go to the frontier to take land from the Indians, thus the Concept of Separation of Church and State was founded on the backs of the American Indians as the poor were told to take Indian lands as their welfare grant).

While many states separated themselves from their Churches during the period 1787 to 1837 (and beyond) Churches were still used by the state up to and after the Civil War. The reason for this is that there was no other effective way to get messages down to the people until pulp paper, high speed presses and the steam locomotives permitted the introduction of the what we would call newspapers starting in the 1850s (Through you did have some starting in the 1830s that grew into huge newspapers by the 1850s). It was the combination of all three technology that permitted people to view newspapers as we do, something you buy weekly or daily and them throw away, as opposed to earlier newspapers that were kept for months, if not years as advertisements of the sale of goods(Which were how newspapers of the 1700s were treated). Thus only in the 1850s you had something that could replace the pulpit as the main source of news for most people.

Given this change in Technology, by the time of the Civil War NO state had a state church (The state had found a replacement that did not include the paying to take care of the poor). Thus it has always been a stated aspect of the 15th amendment that Equal Protection of the Laws and the right to Due Process, includes ALL OF THE RIGHTS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS NOT ONLY FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, BUT LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS.

My point is do NOT look at 1787 but 1866 for guidance what the Bill of Rights covers. Complete Independence between Church and State was NOT possible in 1787. In 1787 the only effective news distribution system was the Churches. On the other hand by 1866, you had an effective alternative, the pulp newspaper, and thus separation of Church and State was possible and was the rule of the day.

[kiahzero]

15. You mean the Fourteenth. (n/t)

[happyslug]

17. I have a habit of treating them as one big change in the US Constitution.

Thus I sometime want to say the 15th when I mean the 14th etc. Anyway I change my piece from the 15th to the Post-Civil War Amendments, to cover all three.

[kiahzero]

19. Fair enough.

They really were a fundamental shift in the nature of the document, when the Radical Republicans realized that the tyranny of the several States was just as problematic as tyranny of the national government.

[Forkboy]

13. Didn't Texas already do that?

:hide:

[LostInAnomie]

14. Damn, once again we liberals have been outflanked by a dim-witted RW rube!

Using his brilliant legal maneuvering states would be able to suspend freedom of speech, right to bear arms, protection from unwarranted searches and seizures, etc. Thanks Armyman_83, you've single handedly managed to undo the totality of the constitution.

Wait a second, wasn't the idea that states can do whatever the hell they want and tell the federal government to fuck off the basic legal reasoning behind the Confederate States of America?

Come to think of it, it would be kind of interesting to see what a Christian state would look like. I wonder if the focus of the government would be helping the poor, loving their neighbors as they do themselves, demonstrating how a meek government be the foundation for a better world? My guess would be it would mostly involve booting out all other religions, burning gays, turning wives into property, and stoning atheists.

[donco6]

16. I can't imagine Colorado even considering such a thing.

And we're pretty conservative overall. We're just not churchgoers out here - conservative or not.

[and-justice-for-all]

18. War und Jesus? Isnt that suppost to be a contradiction??

Well, the whole damn bible is contradiction..so no matter.

There will be no Theocracy here.

[jwirr]

20. Secession NOW. USA and Jesusland. And as a Christian I choose

the USA.

[Mnemosyne]

21. South Carolina is the first state targeted.

Christian Exodus (the brainchild of a financial advisor, Cory Burnell) is a group promoting a mass emigration of Christian fundamentalists to South Carolina in hopes of influencing the governmental process in the United States. It has announced intentions to move people to selected cities and counties of South Carolina in stages, with each stage timed to influence a particular election cycle. They hope to eventually move more than 50,000 people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Exodus


Move all the fundies there. One sister down, another one to go. :evilgrin:

[EstimatedProphet]

24. Well, I admit I'd miss She-Crab soup and Hilton Head

So I'd rather they didn't take South Carolina. Maybe we can convince them to move to an island. Won't global warming come as a big surprise to them then!

[genie_weenie]

23. Some States do discriminate against Unbelief...

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/StateConstitutions.htm

[jmg257]

25. I hate to say it, but originally that was a possibility, possibly intended?

Madison, on a possibility for a Bill of Rights:

"...2 because there is great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude. I am sure that the rights of conscience in particular, if submitted to public definition would be narrowed much more than they are likely ever to be by an assumed power. One of the objections in New England was that the Constitution by prohibiting religious tests, opened a door for Jews Turks & infidels. 3. because the limited powers of the federal Government and the jealousy of the subordinate Governments, afford a security which has not existed in the case of the State Governments, and exists in no other. 4. because experience proves the inefficacy of a bill of rights on those occasions when its controul is most needed. Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every State. In Virginia I have seen the bill of rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current. Notwithstanding the explicit provision contained in that instrument for the rights of Conscience, it is well known that a religious establishment would have taken place in that State, if the Legislative majority had found as they expected, a majority of the people in favor of the measure; and I am persuaded that if a majority of the people were now of one sect, the measure would still take place and on narrower ground than was then proposed, notwithstanding the additional obstacle which the law has since created. "

Madison letter to Jefferson


Then of course the 14th as mentioned above helped correct this:

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

And any serious infringement on "rights, privleges or immunities enumerated in the constitution" is cause for the President to call out the National Guard.


Another example to show why it is soo important to always continue to protect ALL rights, especially those enumerated in the constitution, even to help keep an overbearing majority from imposing it's will on a minority.

[treestar]

26. While theoretically true before the passage of the 14th Amendment

They are wrong now that it has been passed.

Though there are winguts out there arguing it was not properly passed. (Along with the 16th Amendement).

[spoony]

27. What's the point of mining such sites and dragging their

most deranged posts here?

[Bluebear]

29. Gee I dunno.

[spoony]

31. what is the desired

effect of these countless threads painting Christianity in the worst light you can? Have you also started threads about red-letter Christians or anti-war Christians etc.?

[Bluebear]

32. I can't find too many news items about anti-war Christians, can you help out?

Plenty of news releases telling me how evil it is to be gay though.

[spoony]

34. People find what they're looking for to reaffirm their prejudices

You find things that you can use to reaffirm your perception that Christians are bad.

I find things that reaffirm my perception that Christians still follow Jesus' example:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/living/chi-0704030625apr04,1,5218743.story?coll=chi-living-hed
From a few weeks ago, about our own Ava, standing up for peace in the face of raging neanderthals. Rather reminds me of Jesus!

More anti-war Christians, evangelicals even:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301436.html

More: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3334.shtml

That's in five minutes searching.

[Bluebear]

35. Lovely, why don't you start some nice affirming posts about them?

I'll be more than happy to applaud them. Meanwhile, if the Vatican calls gays evil and some Christians want to declare their religion the state religion, I think it's instructive that those voices are out there too.

[Puregonzo1188]

28. I've heard this article by Christian Exodus and members of the Constitution Party

Only problem is the 14th Amendment, which is why Christian Exodus wants to repeal it (along with the income tax and direct election of Senators.).

[porphyrian]

36. Aw, how cute! Fundies are pretending to read the Constitution now! - n/t

[Bucky]

37. Bluebear, remind your theocratic friend of the 14th Amendment

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"

The SCOTUS has long held this to mean enumerated rights by federal law count toward state action as well. That is, a state can't abridge free speech, outlaw firearms, wave habeas corpus in times of peace, deny rights to a jury trial, or favor a state religion.

[Bluebear]

38. Habeas corpus? How quaint!

As to the SCOTUS, we are hanging on by the thinnest of strings...

[baldguy]

40. No...

First Amendment – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

and

Ninth Amendment – The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment – The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

[hack89]

41. Did you read the entire thread?

They jumped all over him - basically called him un-American and ignorant of the Constitution.

I don't understand the point of your thread - do you feel that DU is so reflexively anti-Christian that we wouldn't take the time to try to understand the entire thread?