U.S. church club allowed in school

[Jagat 1]

While France is going one way, the U.S. is going another. Of course, if it were the Hare Krishnas running the club, the courts might have been more reluctant to rule the way they did.<hr>

 

<h3>U.S. church club allowed in school</h3>

 

ANNE GEARAN

Associated Press

Tuesday, June 12, 2001

 

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a church-state battle yesterday that religious groups must be allowed to meet in public schools after class hours.

 

In a 6-3 decision that lowered the figurative wall of separation between church and state, the justices said a New York public-school district must let an evangelical Protestant youth group hold after-school meetings for children to pray and study the Bible.

 

Justice Stephen Breyer, usually a moderate-to-liberal vote on the court, joined the five most conservative members -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas -- in partial support of the religious club's request. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

 

The majority found that excluding the Good News Club from using the school was unconstitutional discrimination based on the club's views.

 

Letting the meeting take place would not be an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion, the court ruled.

 

The U.S. Constitution protects free speech and the free exercise of religion, but it also bars government establishment of religion.

 

The Milford School District in upstate New York had argued that allowing the Good News Club to hold what school officials called "the equivalent of religious worship" at the school would amount to a school endorsement of Christianity over other religions.

 

The club said the school was discriminating against it because of its views. The club's members range in age from 5 to 12, and its meetings include Bible stories, prayers and teaching children to "give God first place in your life."

 

The group has met at a local church since the school denied its 1996 request to use the school building after 3 p.m. on school days.

 

The Supreme Court has long wrangled over the question of religion in the public schools. The justices banned organized prayer during class hours in the early 1960s, and in the past decade banned clergy-led prayer at high-school graduation ceremonies and student-led prayer at high-school football games.

 

But the court also ruled in 1993 that a New York public school must let a religious group use its building to show Christian movies during evening hours.

 

Also yesterday, the top court upheld a law that makes U.S. citizenship harder to obtain for children born abroad out of wedlock to American fathers than to American mothers. Federal immigration law automatically gives citizenship to such children if the mother is an American who has lived in the country for at least a year.

 

But if the father is American, the child can be considered a U.S. citizen only if the father legalizes the relationship through a court order or sworn statement by the time the child turns 18, and if the father agrees in writing to support the child until adulthood.

 

The law was challenged in Texas by a man born in Vietnam to an American father and Vietnamese mother. The Texas father, Joseph Boulais, and his son, Tuan Ahn Nguyen, argued the law amounted to "sex-based stereotyping" and unlawful discrimination.

 

Government lawyers said Congress has broad authority to decide who merits U.S. citizenship.

 

The top court ruled narrowly that setting such separate standards does not violate the equal-protection clause of the Constitution, given a mother's natural role in childbirth.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Excellent NEWS!

 

So, does this depress you, Jagat?

[Jagat 1]

Why should it depress me? I think it's good. Hopefully those who have other kinds of spirituality besides fundamentalist Christians will take advantage of the opportunity.

 

 

[Guest guest]

I thought the whole rightward tilt with the Bush Administration depressed libs. Just wait until Dubya changes the US Supreme Court to conservative. Then we'll overturn Roe v. Wade and start Civil War II.....

[Jagat 1]

This is a court thing that has nothing to do with W.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Originally posted by Jagat:

This is a court thing that has nothing to do with W.

 

 

The US Supreme Court issue has everything to do with Dubya. He will be selecting two or three judges to it in the coming eight years. It is split 5-4, conservative/liberal. It will be staunchly conservative when we finish our agenda.

 

Cheers.

 

[This message has been edited by rand0M aXiS (edited 06-13-2001).]

[Guest guest]

THIS week the Supreme Court upheld the right of religious groups to participate in the beautiful mosaic of after-school activities. No new territory was broken: The case was almost identical to another case in which the Supreme Court reversed the exact same court years ago. This was massive resistance.

 

 

Justice Clarence Thomas remarked on the oddity of having to reverse the same court twice, noting that while the appellate courts aren't required to cite all the Supreme Court's precedents, they might want to cite the last time they were reversed on the same facts.

 

At least the 6-3 decision gives us an accurate count of the atheists on the court, probably as accurate as my dream of giving them all polygraph tests someday. ("Do you believe in a Higher Being ... no, seriously.") Concerned someone might be reading Leviticus during school hours, Justice David Souter dissented in a hair-splitting exegesis about the precise time classes let out (2:56 p.m.), vs. the time the organizers would enter school property (2:30 p.m.).

 

The New York Times' obligatory hysterical denunciation of the decision revealingly complained: "©hildren that young are unlikely to discern that the religious message of authority figures who come to the school each day to teach does not carry the school's endorsement."

 

It is simply taken for granted that it's desirable for children to revere "authority figures" at government schools. Normally those authority figures are teaching the youngsters to put condoms on zucchini or training them in the catechism of recycling. Sending a mixed message about government "authority figures" might interfere with the state's ability to turn small children into Good Germans inculcated in the liberal religion.

 

It's well past time for liberalism to be declared a religion and banned from public schools. Allowing Christians to be one of many after-school groups induces hysteria not just because liberals hate religion. It's because the public school is their temple. Children must be taught to love Big Brother, welcoming him to take over our schools, our bank accounts, our property, even our toilet bowls.

 

We're told the First Amendment requires a separation of church and state, which, just as an incidental matter, is completely false. The whole point of the Constitution is to separate the federal government from the individual.

 

In keeping with the general theme, the First Amendment provides that Congress cannot establish a religion -- but nor can it stop the states from establishing religions. That's why it says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Dear Congress: You may be eligible for a free country. You do nothing.

 

The only thing that tempers my annoyance with the canard about states not being allowed to establish religions is imagining the kind of established religion we'd have in New York. We'd be doing daily devotionals to Saint Hillary.

 

Still, it is a fact that when the First Amendment was ratified, several states had established religions. Fortunately for the burgeoning minority religions in those states, the established religions were things like "Episcopalianism" and "Congregationalism" rather than "Liberalism."

 

It's hard to imagine now, but before the official government religion was liberalism -- devoted to class warfare, ethnic hatred and intolerance -- Americans were kind to one another. They managed to get along even without ACLU lawsuits. Thus, when there were enough practitioners of other faiths in a state to be bothered by the established religion, the majority just disestablished themselves.

 

Back to the New Country: Two malcontents at the Virginia Military Institute recently sued to ban VMI's tradition of saying a non-denominational prayer at mealtime. The cadets are not required to recite the prayer or even bow their heads. Merely having to stand while listening to an invocation of God is apparently very upsetting for them. (I'd hate to see these guys under fire.)

 

A typical rendition of the VMI dinner prayer goes like this: "Almighty G-d, we give our thanks for VMI, for its reputation, spirit and ideals. Let your favor continue toward our school and your grace be abundantly supplied to the Corps. Now, O G-d, we receive this food and share this meal together with thanksgiving."

 

It doesn't get any more sectarian than that. How about: "Designer of the Universe (if you're out there) ..."

 

Religious people keep cheerfully going back and trying to formulate some prayer that won't make liberals angry. But the problem won't go away. No prayer that assumes a belief in a Higher Being will ever be acceptable. G-d has no part in the religion of sex education, environmentalism, feminism, Marxism and loving Big Brother.

 

In a totally unsurprising development, liberals finally suspended their opposition to the death penalty in the case of Timothy McVeigh. He was the sworn enemy of the established religion of Big Brother. Too bad he never stumbled into one of those after-school Christian meetings.