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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Religion and the Constitution

One Nation Under God. John McNaughton

A Precursor to ‘OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS’

John R. Houk
© March 4, 2015
(Read ‘Our Constitutional Rights’ by Robert Smith below)

Robert Smith stipulates that the U.S. Constitution does not validate any rights for those who practice a homosexual lifestyle. And he is correct. Smith’s reasoning by correctly stating God Almighty considers the practice of homosexuality an abomination.

Homosexual Activists and Leftist believers of a Living Constitution (as opposed to an Original Intent Constitution) stick to the position that the Constitution updates itself according to the cultural times we exist in. Hence, homosexuals are entitled to the same Rights as heterosexuals because culture accepts homosexuality as normal.

Supporters of Original Intent combined with Biblical Christians take the stand that America’s Founding Documents are highly influenced by Colonial America’s dedication to the Christian faith. The Original Intent/Biblical Christian block point to the dedication to God through Jesus Christ by a majority of America’s earliest colonialists to the influence of America’s Christian heritage. Ergo, since America’s foundations are Christian, Constitutional Rights and Liberties are assured via a Judeo-Christian mindset.

Separation of Church/State Leftists and unfortunately a few Conservatives demand the First Amendment forbids government to define the Rule of Law through the eyes of religion meaning Christianity. Actually the First Amendment says NO SUCH THING. The First Amendment doesn’t even use the words that Church and State must be separated. What specifically does the First Amendment say?

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. (First Amendment; Legal Information Institute [LII] – Cornell University Law School)

The Supreme Court decides Constitutional issues. The Supreme Court has too often read the First Amendment as religion cannot be a criteria in any fashion within the framework of any government entity: Local, State and Federal. In the case of separation of Church and State the Supreme Court has used the horrible decision of a past Supreme Court to enlist and misinterpret a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a Baptist Church which did not enjoy the benefits of an individual State that institutionalized a specific Protestant Denomination which was not Baptist. To be clear in the early days of our Constitutional government individual States did have State Churches supported by the State government. The Supreme Court NEVER ended the State practice, rather on a State by State basis individual States joined the U.S. (i.e. Federal government) Constitution First Amendment prohibition of government (i.e. Federal government) establish a State Church. It was duly recognized that the Federal government could not establish a State Church but in a Tenth Amendment fashion each individual State decided the Church/State issue. Further the First Amendment speaks to nothing pertaining to religion (and everybody understood religion to mean Christianity) influencing government but ONLY that government cannot interfere in religious activities whatsoever.

Who was that Justice that wrote the majority opinion that prohibited religion from all things government which in effect extra-constitutionally enshrined separation of Church and State? It was Justice Hugo Black in the SCOTUS decision of 1947 in Everson vs. the Board of Education. Just to be clear. Did your read the year? It was 1947 two years after WWII. Before Hugo Black, religious activity within public (i.e. government locations, schools and even legislative bodies) functions of various Christian Denominations including the Catholic Church was a common occurrence.

New Hampshire became the required 9th State needed to ratify the U.S. Constitution on 6/21/1788. The constitutional Federal government began operation on 3/4/1789. In doing the math that means religion and government interacted freely for 158 years with the Federal Government forbidden to tell religious practitioners how to worship or practice their faith.

Daniel L. Dreisbach lays out the false reasoning of Justice Hugo Black which began a Case Law foundation to keep religion from influencing or contributing to government:


In our own time, the judiciary has embraced this figurative phrase as a virtual rule of constitutional law and as the organizing theme of church-state jurisprudence, even though the metaphor is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution. In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the United States Supreme Court was asked to interpret the First Amendment's prohibition on laws "respecting an establishment of religion." …


… At the dawn of the 19th century, Jefferson's Federalist opponents, led by John Adams, dominated New England politics, and the Congregationalist church was legally established in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Baptists, who supported Jefferson, were outsiders--a beleaguered religious and political minority in a region where a Congregationalist-Federalist axis dominated political life.

On New Year's Day, 1802, President Jefferson penned a missive to the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut. The Baptists had written the President a "fan" letter in October 1801, congratulating him on his election to the "chief Magistracy in the United States." They celebrated Jefferson's zealous advocacy for religious liberty and chastised those who had criticized him "as an enemy of religion[,] Law & good order because he will not, dares not assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make Laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ."

In a carefully crafted reply, Jefferson endorsed the persecuted Baptists' aspirations for religious liberty:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.[3]


Jefferson's Understanding of the "Wall"

Throughout his public career, including two terms as President, Jefferson pursued policies incompatible with the "high and impregnable" wall the modern Supreme Court has erroneously attributed to him. For example, he endorsed the use of federal funds to build churches and to support Christian missionaries working among the Indians. The absurd conclusion that countless courts and commentators would have us reach is that Jefferson routinely pursued policies that violated his own "wall of separation."

Jefferson's wall, as a matter of federalism, was erected between the national and state governments on matters pertaining to religion and not, more generally, between the church and all civil government. In other words, Jefferson placed the federal government on one side of his wall and state governments and churches on the other. …


The Wall That Black Built

The phrase "wall of separation" entered the lexicon of American constitutional law in 1879. In Reynolds v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court opined that the Danbury letter "may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [first] amendment thus secured."[6] Although the Court reprinted the entire second paragraph of Jefferson's letter containing the metaphorical phrase, Jefferson's language is generally characterized as obiter dictum. [Blog Editor: The obiter dictum link is by this blog Editor]

Nearly seven decades later, in the landmark case of Everson v. Board of Education(1947), the Supreme Court rediscovered the metaphor: "In the words of Jefferson, the [First Amendment] clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and State'.... That wall," the justices concluded in a sweeping separationist declaration, "must be kept high and impregnable.  …

Justice Hugo L. Black, who authored the Court's ruling, likely encountered the metaphor in briefs filed in Everson. In an extended discussion of American history that highlighted Virginia's disestablishment battles and supported the proposition that "separation of church and state is a fundamental American principle," attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union quoted the single clause in the Danbury letter that contains the "wall of separation" image. …

The trope's current fame and pervasive influence in popular, political, and legal discourse date from its rediscovery by the Everson Court. The Danbury letter was also cited frequently and favorably in the cases that followed Everson. In McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), the following term, and in subsequent cases, the Court essentially constitutionalized the Jeffersonian phrase, subtly and blithely substituting Jefferson's figurative language for the literal text of the First Amendment.[9] In the last half of the 20th century, it became the defining motif for church-state jurisprudence.

The "high and impregnable" wall central to the past 50 years of church-state jurisprudence is not Jefferson's wall; rather, it is the wall that Black--Justice Hugo Black--built in 1947 in Everson v. Board of Education.


Jefferson's wall separated church and the federal government only. By incorporating the First Amendment non-establishment provision into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Black's wall separates religion and civil government at all levels--federal, state, and local.

By extending its prohibitions to state and local jurisdictions, Black turned the First Amendment, as ratified in 1791, on its head. A barrier originally designed, as a matter of federalism, to separate the national and state governments, and thereby to preserve state jurisdiction in matters pertaining to religion, was transformed into an instrument of the federal judiciary to invalidate policies and programs of state and local authorities. As the normative constitutional rule applicable to all relationships between religion and the civil state, the wall that Black built has become the defining structure of a putatively secular polity.

… It would behoove you to READ this article in Entirety (The Mythical "Wall of Separation": How a Misused Metaphor Changed Church–State Law, Policy, and Discourse; By Daniel L. Dreisbach; Heritage Foundation; 6/23/06)

Now I went through all this legal rigmarole to demonstrate how America’s Judiciary has become dominated by Leftist-minded activist or has fallen into the Living Constitution fallacy that essentially placed a wall of separation between America’s Christian Heritage and Lady Liberty’s secular paradigm. This forced divorce from the Left has eroded America’s moral principles as a nation in which the abomination of homosexuality has been normalized, adultery-fornication has become a cultural eye-wink, violence in schools is something to watch out for, pornography is distasteful but not aberrant, it becomes risky business to allow your children to walk home from school or play in their neighborhoods and on and on.

I started this post as an introduction to Robert Smith’s thoughts on homosexuality and the U.S. Constitution. Now I completely agree with Smith’s thoughts; however I think his tone is a bit harsh. The kind of harshness that might inspire violence by those disgusted by homosexuality and inspire violence by homosexuals offended by Christian morality.

For me the thing about defending Christian morality and criticizing a homosexual lifestyle is NOT to inspire violence. Rather my goal as to add a voice to the Good News of Jesus Christ delivering humanity from the evil hold of Satan’s kingdom leased to slew-foot by Adam’s betrayal. The Deliverance in Christ occurs when one believes that Jesus died on the Cross for Adam’s bequeathed sin-nature, that Jesus was in a tomb for three days and on the Third Day Jesus arose in a glorified but bodily form and currently sits at the Right Hand of the Father awaiting the right time to complete and seal the task of human beings be restored to God Almighty spirit, soul and body. Rejection in this faith in the Risen Christ leads to a very uncomfortable eternal living consequence separated from God’s Presence.

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” (John 3: 16-21 NKJV)

See Also:





JRH 3/4/15
***********************
OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

By Robert Smith
Sent: 3/3/2015 2:05 AM

The President and several federal judges are violating our Constitutional rights.

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, teaches that homosexuality is an abomination. It also teaches us that we must not associate with homosexuals and their associates or those who associate with associates of homosexuals.

The President has allowed openly homosexual individuals to enlist in the armed services, which forces those of us who believe as I do into close contact with homosexuals and to take orders from any higher ranking homosexuals appointed over us, thus violating our constitutional rights, our freedom of association.

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there any mention of homosexuals or same sex marriage. Why? It was due to the fact that homosexuals and homosexuality was not tolerated then, nor were any homosexuals of the time flaunting their predilection for such perverse behavior, and as such, there was not any problem or controversy over homosexuals in that era of our history.

It is now to be seen precisely how our Supreme Court views my Constitutional rights and the rights of those who believe as I do.

The Constitution of the USA was written to protect our God given rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

Read these verses of The Bible and it will show why our forefathers saw no need to mention homosexuality in The Constitution of The USA.

Leviticus 18:22; 20:13

Chapter 18

22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.

Chapter 20
13 If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. (NKJV)

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,[a] nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (NKJV)

Romans 1:26-29; 13:8-10

Chapter 1

26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality,[a] wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers,

Chapter 13

8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,”[a] “You shall not covet,”[b] and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[c] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (NKJV)

1 Timothy 1:10-11

10 for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. (NKJV)

Mark 10:6-9

6 But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’[a]7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh’; [b] so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (NKJV)

What does God give to homosexuals in Leviticus? DEATH and no chance for salvation.

In the New Testament if they ask Jesus to be forgiven and show they have truly repented and give up their evil life styles they then can be saved.

This is the reason they are not mentioned in the constitution.
___________________________
Religion and the Constitution
John R. Houk
© March 4, 2015
_______________________
OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
© Robert Smith

Edited by John R. Houk
Scripture references by Robert Smith and the Scripture quotes added by the Editor.

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