A Passive Monument?

[Flanders]

Here is one case where both sides got it wrong:

The majority of the court refused a request for a rehearing in the case Jane Felix and B.N. Coone vs. city of Bloomfield, N.M.

In the case, the city had a Ten Commandments monument on the lawn of its city hall. Two observers complained that it violated the First Amendment, and the court ordered the city to remove it.

Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom contended, however that Americans “shouldn’t be forced to censor or whitewash religion’s role in history simply to appease the emotional response of two offended individuals with a political agenda.”

“As the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, a passive monument, such as this display of the Ten Commandments, accompanied by others acknowledging our nation’s religious heritage cannot be interpreted as an establishment of religion. This court’s order failed to recognize ‘the historical understanding of what an establishment of religion is and what the First Amendment actually prohibits.’ Because of this misinterpretation of the law, we are consulting with our client to consider their options for appeal.”​

Neither the majority opinion nor the minority’s grievance addresses monuments maintained with tax dollars. Common sense would satisfy both sides.

The city of Bloomfield could sell the few square yards of public land holding the Ten Commandments monument to people willing to pay for its maintenance. There is a precedent for a land sale. See this thread for a lot more details:

Supreme Court: Mojave cross can stay
Land transfer to private hands mitigates constitutional issues, justices say
The Associated Press
updated 4/28/2010 4:32:55 PM ET

Supreme Court: Mojave cross can stay​

Socialists Declared War On The Cross

A variation of the Mojave Cross ruling could be applied to religious plaques, statues, etc. in public buildings by charging a reasonable maintenance fee paid for with voluntary contributions. After all, how much could it cost to dust off a physical item every once in a while?

NOTE: Contributing to an organized religion is generally voluntary or it should be. Not so with collectivist ideology irrespective of which name it goes by.

More to the point, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and the U.S. Supreme Court, are wrong. There is no such thing as a philosophical “. . . passive monument,. . .”.

Incidentally, the Constitution does not make any references to non-religion beliefs. I always took that to mean that Colonial Americans understood the danger to liberty inherent in organized religion(s).

Finally, the XVI Amendment is the missing component in “. . . historical understanding . . .”:

“This decision continues the error of our Establishment Clause cases,” they wrote. “It does not align with the historical understanding of an ‘establishment of religion’ and thus with what the First Amendment actually prohibits.”

They noted that the settlers to America mostly came from countries that had established churches supported by taxes. That also was the norm in the American colonies, they said, even after the Revolution.​

Dissenting judges rip colleagues' 10 Commandments ruling
Posted By Bob Unruh On 02/11/2017 @ 7:36 pm

Dissenting judges rip colleagues’ 10 Commandments ruling​

It was ludicrous for the dissenting judges to argue that settlers escaping from the tyranny of organized religion in Europe brought a tax on income to the new world. Colonial Americans never considered a tax on income, nor could they see that huge amounts of tax dollars enriching churches under one guise or another were set in motion in 1913. Worst of all is raiding the public purse to fund political causes.

If our judges want historical understanding they might make an effort to understand parasites throughout history who always demanded that government take care of everybody collectively. Throughout history a few men advanced civilization by working for themselves irrespective of the form their government’s took. Thousands of years passed before freedom from religion gave every man the Right to care for himself and his loved ones first. Free Americans were the first citizenry to see the immutable wisdom in freedom to work for one’s self. The difference between parasites and free people identifies the eternal conflict between oppression and liberty. Howard Roark (Ayn Rand) says it best:

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[whitehall]

It's incredible that the 1st Amendment that the Founding Fathers created in the Bill of Rights to insure freedom of religion could be used a couple of hundred years later to stifle freedom of religion. Christianity can't get a break in the modern world. Even "grandfathered" symbols of religious freedom are under assault. I wonder if they bulldozed that Korean War monument in San Diego after a single agnostic or atheist claimed he was offended by the 40 ft Cross. It should be noted that a former KKK member (Justice Hugo Black) who was appointed to the Supreme Court by FDR created the modern version of "separation of church and state" in a majority opinion that had no basis in Constitutional law.

 

[Flanders]

It's incredible that the 1st Amendment that the Founding Fathers created in the Bill of Rights to insure freedom of religion could be used a couple of hundred years later to stifle freedom of religion.

To whitehall: Freedom FROM religion was the objective. In practical terms FREEDOM FROM PRIESTHOODS was the desired results. Not one of the Founding Fathers would be considered a constitutional expert in an academy where countless liberals are the experts. Try to imagine Jefferson, or Madison, arguing a case before judges like Ruth Ginsburg who would abandon the Constitution altogether. Nevertheless, Jefferson’s reasoning on religion and the public purse is faultless:

A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

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To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. Thomas Jefferson

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It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on will save one-half the wars of the world. Thomas Jefferson

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The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. Thomas Jefferson

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Taxation follows public debt, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. Thomas Jefferson

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Our tenet ever was that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. Thomas Jefferson letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817

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In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty. Thomas Jefferson

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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. Thomas Jefferson --Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813​

Bottom line: Thomas Jefferson clearly wanted to separate priesthoods from the public purse permanently when he coined the phrase “. . . a wall of separation between Church & State.” in a letter:

Jefferson's Wall of Separation Letter - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net

It is the public purse that motivates the ACLU et al. They all work tirelessly to erect a judicial wall separating church & state. The argument between separation, and no separation, will never be settled so long as it remains a political theory argument. Such augments end up advocating opposing political theories. Socialist can argue political theory until the end of time because it is pure misdirection. The true debate, the one Socialists avoid like the plague, should revolve around funding.

There is no doubt the Founders intended an impenetrable wall separating church from the public purse. In addition to the Founding Fathers everybody in Colonial America wanted freedom of religion, but nobody wanted public funds going to somebody else’s religion. The question then becomes: What was the wall separating church & state made of in colonial times? The answer is obvious: A closed public purse. The conflict began when Socialists redesigned Jefferson’s wall. Socialism’s wall is NOT the wall the Founders erected. In effect, Socialists created a straw man then attacked it in order to gain access to tax dollars.

Religious monuments on public lands, school prayer, etc., is the stuff Socialism’s fictitious wall is made of, while the idea of giving public funds to a religion’s priesthood and their flock was so alien to the Founders it never occurred to them that more than a simple prohibition was needed in their day, or at any time in the future:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”​

It can be argued that the first 16 words in the First Amendment are the most powerful political words ever strung together. Those 16 words shout “Choice” the eternal enemy of totalitarian government. The all-encompassing concept behind those words frighten weak minds to this day. The concept is so powerful Socialists see it as the one obstacle standing in the way of their theocracy.

NOTE: A woman’s choice to choose abortion is the only choice Socialists promote.

If the First Amendment means anything it means public funds cannot be used to establish, or prohibit, a religion. Yet how many times have you heard a constitutional expert examine freedom of religion from a funding perspective? The answer is NONE.

It should be noted that a former KKK member (Justice Hugo Black) who was appointed to the Supreme Court by FDR created the modern version of "separation of church and state" in a majority opinion that had no basis in Constitutional law.

To whitehall: Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, Associate Justices Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Stanley F. Reed, and Frank Murphy laid the foundation for Socialism’s redesigned wall in Everson v. Board of Education. They assumed tax dollars could go to parents rather than to churches. It is a dead certainty Black never wanted millions of tax dollars going to the Roman Catholic Church ever year. It is doubtful that Black and the others saw where their wall was going. The problem is that priests hopped right over their wall faster than illegal aliens swim the Rio Grande.

Abstract

Justice Hugo Black and his 1947 opinion in Everson v. Board of Education. In this opinion, Justice Black quoted Thomas Jefferson’s term “wall of separation” and further added his own opinion that the wall must be high and impregnable. This meant that from that day forward the separation of church and state would be applied to all aspects of government not just the federal level. Several key factors in Justice Black’s background inclined the Justice to rule unfavorably against religion. First, it is a known fact that Justice Black was a member of the KKK, an organization that was known to be particularly bigoted towards Catholics. Second, Justice Black believed Paul Blanshard’s writings concerning the Catholic Church and shared his mistrust of the Catholic Church. Finally, at the time of his opinion, Justice Black was not a practicing Christian and the evidence shows that the Justice did not believe in the supernatural aspects of Christianity. This evidence supports a conclusion that Justice Black was prejudiced against religion in his decision in Everson v. Board of Education and engaged in judicial activism.​

"Hugo Black’s Wall of Separation of Church and State" by Garland L. Goff Jr.