ScreamingEagle
Gold Member
- Jul 5, 2004
- 13,399
- 1,707
- 245
Each year the American Civil Liberties Union and other liberal organizations continue their efforts to destroy traditional values that we once assumed were self-evident and beyond question. And each year we sit quietly by doing nothing to stop their relentless assault on our culture and our religious heritage. As our resolution for the New Year, let us join together to defeat the ACLU's anti-Christian agenda and restore our civil and religious freedom. Below are three opportunities available to us to accomplish that goal.
On Feb. 28, 2007, the case of Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation will be heard before the United States Supreme Court. At issue in Hein is whether individuals or organizations have a right to bring a suit in court (standing) merely because they disagree with the expenditure of taxpayer funds to faith-based groups in the same manner in which such funds are given to secular organizations. For many years federal courts have allowed liberal organizations like the ACLU and the individuals they represent to bring an action in federal court despite the fact that no "case" or "controversy" required by the Constitution actually existed. Historically, hypothetical questions and philosophical disagreements with government policy were not sufficient to give a plaintiff standing to sue in court. In order to bring an action, a plaintiff has to have a real legal dispute with a person or entity and has to have suffered actual harm or "concrete injury."
However, in 1968 the Supreme Court in Flast v. Cohen made an exception to the rules of standing and allowed a taxpayer lawsuit against Congress for appropriations given to parochial schools. The taxpayers had no direct interest or actual injury, but simply disagreed with the expenditure given to religious schools and felt that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Since the Flast decision, the ACLU and others have used this loophole to flood the courts with lawsuits in which taxpayer monies had a relationship with anything religious or any connection with an activity that acknowledged a sovereign God. For example, in 2005 a federal judge in Indiana ruled that taxpayers represented by the ACLU had standing to challenge the Indiana House of Representatives for its custom of opening its sessions with prayer in the name of Jesus. That federal judge cited Flast as an exception to the general rule that "[f]ederal taxpayers are generally not permitted to bring suit challenging federal government expenditures," and ordered the Legislature to stop prayers.
Other actions involving the Pledge of Allegiance and displays of the Ten Commandments of God have been attacked using this same exception to our legal principles of standing. In the Hein case pending before the high court, we have an opportunity to stop this abuse of our Constitution, which has given special favoritism to the ACLU and others who have an anti-God agenda. The Foundation for Moral Law will be filing a legal brief in this case Friday, Jan. 5.
Another opportunity to stop the ACLU agenda would be the passage of the Constitution Restoration Act by Congress (S. 520 and H.R. 1070 last year). As I explained in an earlier column ("The solution to save the Pledge"), the CRA would stop federal courts from exercising jurisdiction over cases in which God is acknowledged as the sovereign source of life, liberty or government. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law prohibiting the "free exercise" of our religion. How, then, can federal judges, a part of the national government, presume to tell us how, when or where we can acknowledge God?
Finally, passage of the Public Expression of Religion Act, or PERA, (H.R. 2679 in the 109th Congress), would prevent federal courts from awarding attorney's fees to the ACLU and other liberal organizations who have taken advantage of an exception created by Congress regarding the award of attorney's fees in civil rights cases. As I explained in my column entitled "No more tax money for the ACLU," the ACLU should no longer be richly rewarded for groundless attacks on our religious liberty.
No better resolution for this New Year could be made than a commitment to stop the ACLU and other groups like them in their vicious assault on our faith and morality. Please contact your representative and senator in Congress and demand support for the Constitution Restoration Act and the Public Expression of Religion Act. And pray that the United States Supreme Court will find in the Hein case that the Flast exception created in 1968 should be discarded so that plaintiffs can no longer sue simply because they disagree with the faith upon which our country was founded.
Let's make 2007 a year the ACLU will never forget!
Judge Roy Moore
Judge Roy Moore is the chairman of the Foundation for Moral Law in Montgomery, Ala., and the author of "So Help Me God." He is the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument he had placed in the Alabama Judicial Building to acknowledge God.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53608
On Feb. 28, 2007, the case of Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation will be heard before the United States Supreme Court. At issue in Hein is whether individuals or organizations have a right to bring a suit in court (standing) merely because they disagree with the expenditure of taxpayer funds to faith-based groups in the same manner in which such funds are given to secular organizations. For many years federal courts have allowed liberal organizations like the ACLU and the individuals they represent to bring an action in federal court despite the fact that no "case" or "controversy" required by the Constitution actually existed. Historically, hypothetical questions and philosophical disagreements with government policy were not sufficient to give a plaintiff standing to sue in court. In order to bring an action, a plaintiff has to have a real legal dispute with a person or entity and has to have suffered actual harm or "concrete injury."
However, in 1968 the Supreme Court in Flast v. Cohen made an exception to the rules of standing and allowed a taxpayer lawsuit against Congress for appropriations given to parochial schools. The taxpayers had no direct interest or actual injury, but simply disagreed with the expenditure given to religious schools and felt that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Since the Flast decision, the ACLU and others have used this loophole to flood the courts with lawsuits in which taxpayer monies had a relationship with anything religious or any connection with an activity that acknowledged a sovereign God. For example, in 2005 a federal judge in Indiana ruled that taxpayers represented by the ACLU had standing to challenge the Indiana House of Representatives for its custom of opening its sessions with prayer in the name of Jesus. That federal judge cited Flast as an exception to the general rule that "[f]ederal taxpayers are generally not permitted to bring suit challenging federal government expenditures," and ordered the Legislature to stop prayers.
Other actions involving the Pledge of Allegiance and displays of the Ten Commandments of God have been attacked using this same exception to our legal principles of standing. In the Hein case pending before the high court, we have an opportunity to stop this abuse of our Constitution, which has given special favoritism to the ACLU and others who have an anti-God agenda. The Foundation for Moral Law will be filing a legal brief in this case Friday, Jan. 5.
Another opportunity to stop the ACLU agenda would be the passage of the Constitution Restoration Act by Congress (S. 520 and H.R. 1070 last year). As I explained in an earlier column ("The solution to save the Pledge"), the CRA would stop federal courts from exercising jurisdiction over cases in which God is acknowledged as the sovereign source of life, liberty or government. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law prohibiting the "free exercise" of our religion. How, then, can federal judges, a part of the national government, presume to tell us how, when or where we can acknowledge God?
Finally, passage of the Public Expression of Religion Act, or PERA, (H.R. 2679 in the 109th Congress), would prevent federal courts from awarding attorney's fees to the ACLU and other liberal organizations who have taken advantage of an exception created by Congress regarding the award of attorney's fees in civil rights cases. As I explained in my column entitled "No more tax money for the ACLU," the ACLU should no longer be richly rewarded for groundless attacks on our religious liberty.
No better resolution for this New Year could be made than a commitment to stop the ACLU and other groups like them in their vicious assault on our faith and morality. Please contact your representative and senator in Congress and demand support for the Constitution Restoration Act and the Public Expression of Religion Act. And pray that the United States Supreme Court will find in the Hein case that the Flast exception created in 1968 should be discarded so that plaintiffs can no longer sue simply because they disagree with the faith upon which our country was founded.
Let's make 2007 a year the ACLU will never forget!
Judge Roy Moore
Judge Roy Moore is the chairman of the Foundation for Moral Law in Montgomery, Ala., and the author of "So Help Me God." He is the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument he had placed in the Alabama Judicial Building to acknowledge God.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53608
