Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11.

The turth will set you free, but first it’s going to tick you off!

You are so stupid bit. Why do you embarass yourself so. Is there some reason you need to just parade your ignorance? Yeah the term was used in a letter EXPLAINING THE FIRST AMENDMENT. My GOD you are ignorant. Most of our founding fathers were Deists and would never consider themselves to be the kind of Christians you would recognize. Then again you are very stupid. You wouldnt recognize air.

I forgot to add that these insults are totally unnecessary. They add nothing to the intelligent discourse and are a waste of bandwidth. When you insult the other posters you denigrate the reasoning of your argument.

And so in modern times that First Amendment has been taken as hostile to Christianity and the U.S. Constitution is said to have been written to support immorality.

The establishment clause provides “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” This was adopted because the founders were concerned that that the federal government might try to establish a national religion. Hence, this has been distilled to the concept of separation of church and state. At the time the Constitution was adopted there were various Christian sects in the US. Admittedly, the founders did not contemplate that religions other than Christianity would exist in the US. Because there were no other sizable religion other than Christianity, the founders did not speak to the issue about how the establishment clause affected religious freedom for other religions. You will note that nowhere in the discussions and documents the mention of Jesus who is the central figure in Christianity, but they do speak about God. The fact that Jesus is not mentioned is significant because it is the implicit recognition other religious concepts beside Christianity while still believing in God. There is the legal concept to give meaning to all the language in the law, but under your concept the clause would mean nothing. You are arguing that the word religion is restricted to Christianity but there is no support for that interpretation since that issue was never raised in the discussions.

The issue was first presented in the school prayer case which involved atheists who challenged the school boards endorsement of a prayer in a governmental function. The SCOTUS acknowledged the Christian nature of the founders, but did interpret the establishment clause to mean that freedom of religion is also freedom from religion. Your interpretation of the establishment clause was clearly rejected. The Christian fundamentalists have denounced the holding in this case, but it is the law of the land. There has never been any great support across the US for a Constitutional amendment to overturn the court case. Nor has the SCOTUS indicated that they will entertain the overturning of the holding in this case. It is extremely impossible that the holding will ever be overturned because of the shift in the diversity of religions in the US. Because there is no support of an amendment to overturn the holding, the fundamentalists have tried to overturn the holding by a change in the people of SCOTUS. Even that has failed with the appointment of conservative judges.

Jefferson wrote often that Christianity had no part of the law of the land and these quotes

“Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear”

“Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies”

“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.”
Notes on Virginia

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a Virgin Mary, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter…. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away [with] all this artificial scaffolding. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 11 April 1823

In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814; from George Seldes, ed

In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814; from George Seldes, ed

James Madison

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect. (James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774,

“In a free government,” Madison declared, “the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.” (James A. Henretta, The Evolution of American Society, 1700-1815

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. (James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822;

John Adams

Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. (John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” [1787-1788

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and Dogmatism cannot confine it. (John Adams, letter to John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816.

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and Dogmatism cannot confine it. (John Adams, letter to John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816.

Lighthouses are more useful than churches.

Thomas Paine

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish [Muslim], appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the profession of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this? (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Paul Blanshard, ed., Classics of Free Thought, Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1977, pp. 134-135.)

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)

Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies. (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the Divinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794-1795. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 494.)

It is not necessary to “…obviate the clause in the Constitution regarding the separation of religion and state,” because there is no clause in the Constitution about the separation of religion and state.

Jefferson phrase’s “…a wall of separation between church and state…” from a short letter to the Danbury CT Baptists has been in three SCOTUS decision. Two of these decisions were in the nineteenth century and both quoted the entire letter, if bit understand correctly. The modern use by the SCOTUS of this phrase was in 1947 Everson vs Board of Education decision where only an idea expressed in the eight words above was quoted.

Jefferson wrote a letter, a short letter. He didn’t sign the U.S. Constitution.

So, how could the meaning of this concept change if it’s not in the U.S. Constitution? Actually that’s an easy one. Since the concept is not in the U.S. Constitution this concept comes to mean whatever one wants it to mean?

And so in modern times that First Amendment has been taken as hostile to Christianity and the U.S. Constitution is said to have been written to support immorality.

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A constant theme of the Founders is that the U.S. Constitution is for a moral and religious people.

Along this line bit believes the U.S. is not a Christian nation, but a nation for a Christian people.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other (1854).

Adams, John (1850-1856), The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Adams (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, & Company).

Samuel Adams said:

“Religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness” (1905).

Adams, Samuel (1905), The Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Cushing (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons).

Isn’t legislator Kern saying something like this?

Any TPer think that John and Sam were talking about Judaism or Islam? Any TPer think that later generations of citizens have proved John and Sam to be wrong?

James McHenry, signer of the Constitution and Secretary of War under both Washington and Adams, seemed to be saying the same thing Adams said when he said:

The Holy Scriptures….can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses.

Steiner, Bernard (1921), One Hundred and Ten Years of Bible Society Work in Maryland, 1810-1920 (Baltimore, MD: The Maryland Bible Society).

There is nothing in the Constitution that requires Congress and the courts to make determinations based on Christian beliefs. The fact that Christians formed this country is irrelevant to the interpretation of laws.

What other beliefs would you choose to predominant?

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Here’s the practical on your “scientific method.”

Robert Winthrop as Speaker of the U.S. House in the 1840s also had an opinion.

“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet” (1852).

Winthrop, Robert (1852), Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, & Co.).

If this is not plain to you it means that the scientific method will yield as winner whoever has the biggest guns and the most of them.

One can only claim rights under an authority. The “scientific method” is not an authority.

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So why didn’t H. Res 888 make it out of committee?

bit would speculate that the reason this bill, which records numerous aspects of the US’s Christian heritage, didn’t make it out of committee is because the politicians didn’t want to deal with the fact that the US has a Christian heritage. Otherwise, why not pass HR 888? It’s simply filled with notable examples of the expression of Christianity in the US throughout it’s history. HR 888 recognizes Christian heritage; it doesn’t create it.

If there is some belief, other than Christianity, that has shaped and molded the U.S. in the last two hundred years, what is that belief? If there is some belief, other that Christianity, that will make the U.S. worth preserving for the next two hundred years, what is it?

Enlightenment principles as any student of history would know. You are stupid bit. A stupid bigot. Just go away you offer nothing but bigotry, stupidity and propaganda

Remember Adolf Hitler used similar language and similar reasoning when speaking about Jews during the Great Depression.

And don’t we all remember what he ultimately did to them?

The scientific method, silly. No longer would we be governed by dogmatic belief in “God-ordained” leadership. It amazes me that you really think all the different christian sects were intent on coming to America, and establishing another religiously-fostered royalty. Simply astounding.

We are a secular nation, with Christians, Jews, Muslims, et al

pags2 got it right, Our founding fathers did not write the laws of this country for Christians, then for others, they are for all of us…whether or not they were all Christians are not.

If you have two people who want to give it a shot a being together for a lifetime of commitment, go for it. I can only see a net positive for our communities. Let’s not get caught up in the semantics.

There has been no suggestion the government would force any church or denomination to accept gay marriage.

The Republican’s are so caught up with “sexual deviant behavior”, I wonder how many dirty little secrets there are hiding. They are so preoccupied with this behavior.

The writers and signers of the U.S. Constitution never envisioned a time when Christianity would not be the predominant religion in the United States. bit suspects PLC can’t find any documents suggesting that other religions had equal standing to Christianity that are older that twenty-five years; that is, written before 1984.

The U.S. Constitution has three allusions to Christianity….
They are:
The First Amendment itself is an allusion to Christianity and this is made plain in the quote below.

Sunday is not counted as a day of business. Sunday is the Christian day of worship while Saturday is the Jewish day of worship, and Friday is the Islamic day of worship.

‘…In the Year of our Lord…’ which goes with a date referencing the date of Christ’s birth. bit believes other dating techniques were available at that time to the framers.

The following quote is what George Mason, noted by many as the father of the Bill of Rights, proposed as the wording for the amendment:

[A]ll men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others (Rowland, 1892, 1:244, emp. added).

Rowland, Kate (1892), The Life of George Mason (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons).

The establishment clause of the First Amendment is plain even though it is made clearer through this proposed clause. The Federal government was not going to choose a “state” Christian sect as many of the colonies had.

This is from a proposed U.S. House bill dated 2007. This bill never made it out of committee.

http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=5799
H. RES. 888

Whereas the United States Supreme Court has declared throughout the course of our Nation’s history that the United States is `a Christian country’, `a Christian nation’, `a Christian people’, `a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being’, and that `we cannot read into the Bill of Rights a philosophy of hostility to religion’;

If there is some belief, other than Christianity, that has shaped and molded the U.S. in the last two hundred years, what is that belief? If there is some belief, other that Christianity, that will make the U.S. worth preserving for the next two hundred years, what is it?

Any hint above that Thomas Jefferson would have a modern mindset on homosexuality is ludicrous. Jefferson once drafted a law against homosexuality that included mutilation as punishment.

It’s worth noting that Jefferson didn’t sign the U.S. Constitution.

Maybe for the some, but for the religious right, the line moved because their fearmongering, hatefilled rhetoric, politics was finally called out by braved men and women who refused to be bullied by the fact that the color of ones skin did not make that person less than, and that fight was not an easy fight simply because the SAME arguments we hear today were being used then. It is pathetic to think that the religous leaders saw that fight as the fight to win, now see this fight as the fight (The gays) to win, yet refuse to see any parallels in history and how wrong they are, unless they believe that they were never wrong in the first fight.

Which is were I stand now with this question; could it be that these same religious fanatics screaming out against the gays, who are of the same ilk who screamed out against the racial equality, really don’t believe that racial equality is God’s will? I will bet they do not