Bryan Fischer #fundie

Bryan Fischer #fundie raptureforums.com

Once again this Christmas season, Americans are forced to deal with the travesty of satanic displays in state government buildings. Such displays have been erected or are being proposed in Oklahoma, Michigan and Florida.

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Does the Constitution require us to put up with this idiocy?

It all depends on whether we use the Constitution as given to us by the Founders or the one mangled beyond recognition by the Supreme Court.

If we use Jefferson's Constitution, the answer is a flat no. We do not have to put up with such errant nonsense unless we want to. If we use the one butchered by the Supreme Court, however, we may have no choice.

According to Joseph Story, the longest serving associate justice in Supreme Court history, the Founders were dealing exclusively with Christianity, and not religion in general, when they drafted the First Amendment.

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They weren't dealing with alternative religions at all. They were neither endorsing them nor prohibiting them. They intended to leave all matters of religious expression up the states, and keep the central government, and every branch of it, including the judiciary, out of the equation altogether.

They flatly prohibited the central government (including the judiciary) from interfering in any way whatsoever with the exercise of religion in the various individual states. Regulating religious expression was literally to be none of the central government's business.

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This kind of freedom is what Joseph Story said the Founders intended, and this is the kind of freedom that Thomas Jefferson, the icon of religious liberty, practiced as president. They were right. Perhaps it's time we embraced the Founders and their view of religious liberty once again.

39 comments

old comment by

According to the Constitution, NO ONE (This includes CHRISTIANS) should be able to put religious displays up in government buildings. This violates the Establishment clause, which details that church and state should be kept separate.

Christians have been intentionally violating this clause, forcing their religious displays into government buildings, while denying other faiths the right to put up their displays, under the false guise of "This is a Christian Nation". The Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 states "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion...". So the US is NOT a "Christian nation" as you religious zealots claim.

Ideally, accordng to the constitution, no religious displays would be allowed in government buildings. As you christians were constantly whining, some states gave in and allowed to put up your religious displays. Recent rulings say that if you get to put up your displays, ALL FAITHS must therefore be allowed. If you don't like it, tough shit, if you get to do it, so does everyone. You should have thought about that before pushing to get your religious crap in the government buildings.

old comment by Swede

I'd say it's the other way around. If you use the Constitution as given to you by the Founders, the answer is YES; you can't promote one religion over others on public property. If you use the mangled beyond recognition Constitution by the mostly Republican congress, the answer is NO; only Christian idiocies are allowed.

Yes, they did intend to leave religion out of the equation altogether. That's kinda the point...
PEOPLE's freedom to exercise religion, silly! The government ought not to meddle in religion at all! You can have whatever silly display in your own back-yard, but on public property it ought to be no displays whatsoever. If you put up one, however, you have to allow all religions.

old comment by creativerealms

Looking into Story it seems that while he believed that the founding fathers were talking about different denominations of Christianity when they made the first amendment he saw it as a natural development that it included other religions. Seems Fischer is quote mining his hero.

Here is an example of story always being Quote Mined by these people:

"The real object of the First Amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age. The history of the parent country had afforded the most solemn warnings and melancholy instructions on this head; and even New England, the land of the persecuted puritans, as well as other colonies, where the Church of England had maintained its superiority, would furnish out a chapter, as full of the darkest bigotry and intolerance, as any, which should be found to disgrace the pages of foreign annals. Apostacy, heresy, and nonconformity had been standard crimes for public appeals, to kindle the flames of persecution, and apologize for the most atrocious triumphs over innocence and virtue.[19]

Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state government, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions; and the Catholic and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship."

They always leave out the second paragraph. Where Story says that other religions (And nonreligious alike) Can deal with each other on common ground without being attacked for their faith and lack of Faith. That they do have the same rights as Christian sects.

Story seems to have became the model of historical revisionists and conservatives and yet they quote mine him and change the meaning.

old comment by

"They flatly prohibited the central government (including the judiciary) from interfering in any way whatsoever with the exercise of religion in the various individual states."

That's exactly what's happening, dumbass! The state isn't allowed to forbid any religions, which IT DOESN'T!
If it is subservient to christianity and gives it special privileges, there is no longer a seperation of church and state!

Like Professor said: "Religious liberty =/= Christian theocracy". Equality does not mean that your side gets special priveliges! That is the exact opposite of equality! Make up your friggin' mind!

Isn't it sad that I'm not american yet I know their constitution better than most of them?