Right on the heels of the Michigan stupidity, I have just learned that Oklahoma is not doomed after all: their governor vetoed an incredibly ridiculous bill that would have allowed students to say the Earth is 6000 years old… and not get graded down for it!
I wrote about this dumb bill before. It really does say that a student can write any bit of nonsense they want on a test or on homework, and if they claim it’s their religious belief the teacher cannot mark them wrong. This bill, called "the Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act", is yet another shot fired against science by the forces of evil.
Of course, (just like in the Michigan bill), they don’t claim this is about creationism. They claim it’s about religious freedom. But this is not about freedom, it’s about shackling science and beating it to death with nonsense.
Normally I would laud the governor for doing this… if he had said that this bill was anti-reality and intended to promote religious belief. Instead, though, he was all namby-pamby about it:
Henry said students are already allowed to express their faith through voluntary prayer and other activities. He said the legislation was well-intended, but vague and “may trigger a number of unintended consequences that actually impede rather than enhance such expression.”
Let’s be very clear here: this legislation is not well-intended. It is intended to undermine the Constitution. It’s that simple. These people want religion taught in the classroom, and they want to do it at the expense of science and of reality. For them to say anything else is dissembling at the very least. Do you really think they want kids to be able to say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is responsible for the creation of the world? How about Odin?
Imagine if some kid said she’s a satanist. That would go over well.
So I’m very glad indeed the governor vetoed that nasty bit of legislation, but it’s not a clear win when it’s done for the wrong reason, or announced that way. We need to be clear about this, and we need to make it clear to the politicians: keep your religion out of the classroom. That is one of the rock-solid foundations of our country, and it’s one of the most important — even fundamental — reasons this country has achieved what it has.
Tip o’ the allele to PZ.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Well, this means that Oklahoma is less likely to be doomed, right?
It might still be doomed. All it needs is “well-intended, unambiguous” legislation to get to the governor.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
BA: “Let’s be very clear here: this legislation is not well-intended. It is intended to undermine the Constitution.”
I made some pretty strong arguments (I think, of course) on this very blog that teaching Creationism in school doesn’t violate the First Amendment, but you never replied to any of them. They were past comment 100 though so you might not have read them, but I’m probably #1 this time.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
My guess is that Henry’s “well-intentioned” comment was a bit of disingenuous political diplomacy. The bill came from Sally Kern, and everyone knows what her intentions are. Henry might have been looking for the least offensive way possible to kill the bill dead.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I almost wish a bill like this would pass somewhere, just to see the reactions when little Johnny writes on his history test, “My Lord Satan gave the President the strength of heart needed to start an unnecessary war and slay thousands of people by merely farting in their general direction.” Or maybe on his science test he may answer “The reason a piece of iron buried in the ground rusts is because my loving Lord Chthulthu is shedding his sacred blood on it for reasons unknown to mere mortals.”
Or maybe Johnny doesn’t turn in his homework, claiming that Anubis ate it.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
@Robbie
Teaching Creationism in a Religious studies class would not violate the first amendment*. Teaching it in a science class blatantly does.
* This is academic, because the minute we have Religious studies courses in public schools, it will get turned into a Christian studies course.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Oklahoma rationalists and science advocates have a LOT of experience fighting the creationists. Creationism as a political force is a relatively recent development in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania or, more accurately, a recent revival of a movement that had been stagnant for decades. Science proponents in those states were sometimes ill-prepared for the recent onslaught, vastly underestimating the power, appeal, and ruthlessness of organized creationism.
In Oklahoma (and Texas, btw), creationism never really went away after the heyday of the 1920s, the battle has been more or less continuous since the time of the Scopes Monkey Trial. This imbalance of resources and experience makes organizations like the NCSE all the more critical.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Robbie, Yeah, teaching Creationism in science class is most certainly a violation of “the separation of church and state”. If you’re trying to argue that the First Amendment doesn’t mean “the separation of church and state”, then that’s a different argument, but it’s not one that has persuaded many judges over the last half-century.
Which creation story do you think should to be taught in school anyway? There are dozens to choose from, and none of them agrees with any of the others.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Robbie -
Creationism may be taught in taxpayer funded schools, as part of a comparative religion or other humanities course. Teaching creationism in science class is flat out absurd, since it’s theology, not science. I fail to see how teaching non-science of any kind in a science class is worthwhile, but once you introduce religious non-science it becomes a violation of the first amendment.
Again, the aim of the bill in question was to allow any answer that came from a student’s personal beliefs to be just as valid as the correct answer in a science test. You should have no trouble seeing how this would be disastrous to the teaching of any subject, not to mention putting the administration in the impossible position of trying to judge a student’s sincerity in whichever belief she claims: “The Flying Spaghetti Monster tells me that the moon is made out of pasta. It’s my sincerely held belief, so it must be the right answer. (thank FSM I didn’t have to study for the test…)”
The proponents for teaching creationism as science seem to expect that, of course, we’re talking about biblical creationism. They forget that, unless they’re going to violate the first amendment, _all_ creation stories must be given equal time. The Navajo and ancient Egyptian creation myths are particularly charming, they both involve their original deities creating other gods by an act of masturbation. Those would have to be taught — as literal, scientific truth — alongside your biblical creationism. There are lots of truly interesting, bizarre, and downright insane creation myths out there, and I’m all for public schools teaching as many of them as they can manage, but in their proper place – not science class.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Governor Henry has done an outstanding job, I think. He is on his second term and remains an extremely popular governor.
But the real thanks belongs to the tireless efforts of individuals like Jim Huff, Bruce Prescott, Amy Smith, and Vic Hutchison, as well as the Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education, and the Oklahoma Chapter of the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. They have worked so hard to fight against morons like Kern, not to mention Cole, Coburn, and Inhofe.
We still tend to be pretty bass ackwards, but some light gets through every once and a while.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Oh….
….don’t count Oklahoma not doomed just yet, I think there is still a chance that the House and Senate could override his veto, but let’s hope not.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
>>>”but I’m probably #1 this time.”
And apparently number 1 in the Michigan thread, too.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I’m a Christian with some firm beliefs and these nuts are making us look bad. Hell, these guys are their own branch of retarded humans. I seriously hope SOMETHING reels these guys back to where they belong.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
tacitus said:
…or with any of the evidence!
June 6th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Just a minor point. In Norse Mithology the world was infact created by the excretions of a giant Named Ymir and a Cow Named Audhumla…
June 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
@Bluegrass Geek
Interestingly enough, we DO have a Religions course in the Little Rock public school district, and it does not single out any specific religions.
@BA
I find all this amazing. It’s a long-held misconception that Arkansas is the most backwards of states. I’ve commented on this before, but I might as well repeat some of it for posterity. Ark. not only has put forth no bills for the teaching of anti-science, but we actually have a law on the books (pushed by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee) which specifically defines evolution and requires its teaching. In fact, any student who cannot pass an end-of-course Biology test–which is evolution heavy–must repeat the course.
I can’t imagine how Ark. has become the more progressive of the Bible-belt states, but we’ve had good educational leadership over the last decade or so, which is great because that’s how long I’ve been teaching science here.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Wait, are you suggesting that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created Odin?
June 6th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Bluegrass Geek: “Teaching Creationism in a Religious studies class would not violate the first amendment*. Teaching it in a science class blatantly does.”
I disagree.
Tacitus: “If you’re trying to argue that the First Amendment doesn’t mean “the separation of church and state”, then that’s a different argument, but it’s not one that has persuaded many judges over the last half-century.”
No, it’s not a different argument actually and is entirely the argument I was trying to make. And your appeal to authority fallacy will not hold up to scrutiny.
pcarini: “Creationism may be taught in taxpayer funded schools, as part of a comparative religion or other humanities course. Teaching creationism in science class is flat out absurd, since it’s theology, not science.”
I completely agree. I never claimed Creationism or ID are science because they’re clearly not and they have no place in a science classroom at any level of education.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Robbie, I’m a little confused; what exactly is your point?
June 7th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Robbie:
I went looking for them, but couldn’t find any. I was going to ask you where they were. However …
… this saves us from bothering with you further. (For the two lurkers who don’t get it: in jurisprudence, appeal to authority is not a fallacy. In fact it’s pretty much the foundation of the subject.)
June 7th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I’m not sure I’m reading him right, but Robbie seems to be arguing for a more strictly constructionist, if not flat out literal interpretation of the first amendment.
I appreciate the sentiment, and I wish that the members of all branches of our government would keep the constitution more firmly in mind. That said, the dirty work of interpreting the constitution in actual disputes began immediately after it was ratified. While the constitution itself remains relatively static, our interpretation of it must continually adjust to keep up with the current times. Who among our founding fathers could have foreseen the copyright and IP issues we’re currently facing, let alone our federally- and state-funded school system, and the issues it brings up? I, for one, feel that our current interpretation of the first amendment is a reasonable continuation of what the framers had intended, given that they lived in the 18th century, not the 21st.
There is a hefty amount of case law that supports both “separation of church and state” and “freedom of / freedom from religion” as constitutionally valid concepts. If you have a problem with that, well, get appointed to the Supreme Court. You can join Clarence Thomas in his absolute contempt for previous rulings. Were you to somehow prove that the framers of the constitution didn’t want a separation of church and state, you’d still have all your work ahead of you. You would still have to justify overturning the previous rulings, and then try to explain why it’s better to not separate church and state.
Also: [talking about previous church/state rulings]
“And your appeal to authority fallacy will not hold up to scrutiny.”
Gah hah! That’s the silliest thing I’ve read all night. In this case authority is the supreme court, whose mandate it is to interpret these things. You might as well suggest that believing what my mechanic says about my car instead of my mailman is an appeal to authority and thus a logical fallacy.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:50 am
School isn’t about beliefs, it’s about learning the curriculum. If students can’t or won’t give the answers the teacher is looking for on a test, they deserve a bad grade.
June 7th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Good stuff. Also I was going to add my view but Macron above me pretty much summed up how I feel about how they teach at school and university. Science = school , religion = church.
The 6000 year old earth thing needs to die. Given all the available facts at hand, I reckon the idea itself, believing it to be true is as ludicrous as the idea of the earth being flat. There is now in the year 2008 just far too much evidence from so many different sources that considering it all-together, it is virtually impossible to believe Earth’s age is anything less than million’s of years old, let alone billions. 6000 years? Virtually impossible. The evidence to support the idea is weak and lacking in solid, measurable facts.
However one needs to keep in mind that at present, many if not most shrewd creationists have given up on the 6000 year old earth issue, given that the literal creation day to them is clearly not meant to be interpreted as an Earth day of 24 hours, but as a period of time possibly millions of years in length each, as the bible text as they read it seems to allow for that.
So really, if the minority of creationists actually believe in the 6000 year old earth, then it would be wise on the part of the skeptics to avoid the issue entirely, and focus on other creationist claims that have far more weight and are harder to debunk. After all, skeptics don’t waste time debunking ‘flat-Earthers’ do they? Isn’t it just a given? Why waste time debunking obviously silly claims when you can debunk claims that are not as easy to spot.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:34 am
However not many creationists are shrewd. And while the polls on the subject are generally not put together well, it seems clear that there are several tens of millions of Americans so ill-informed or willfully ignorant that they really do think that the earth is less than ten thousand years old.
Rather than avoid the issue, in some cases the issue should be stressed more strongly: creationists get away with being as vague as possible, and they should be made to state what they actually believe. An obvious case is the notorious Discovery Institute, which says that “of course” the earth is old when addressing a small well-informed audience, but actually gets most of its support from young-earthers.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:35 am
quasidog said
“and focus on other creationist claims that have far more weight and are harder to debunk.”
While I am beginning to agree that point-and-laugh may be the best tactic against the looniest claims, I’m having trouble thinking of any creationist claims that are all that hard to debunk.
Unless you mean that you have to understand what science is and how it works, but I’ve never thought that was all that hard.
June 7th, 2008 at 5:41 am
There may be a conection to the Bilderberg Group.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
@ Ad Miminid: What is the recent development in Pennsylvania?
Being a resident, I am concerned that dooming this state would
not be good.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:24 am
sorry Ad, I mispelled your last name.
June 7th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Satanism? Can you imagine what these purveyors of “religious freedom” would do if a kid wanted to push his/her Buddhist beliefs? What they mean is “Christian religious freedom.”
June 7th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Absolutely – that part is “conveniently” left out until after stupid laws like this are passed….religious freedom for anything Christian, but still banning everything else (even Catholicism, if most Fundies had their way).
I find it absolutely ridiculous, but this kind of resurgence of religious expression/forcing upon society tends to occur at the beginning of the new century (happened in the 1700s, 1800s & 1900s) – people have trouble coming to grips with the changes in society (morality, technology, etc) & set about to redress the balance with the pushing of old-fashioned religious fevor.
Science is progressing at a faster and faster rate (as is inovation & expression) and a lot of people feel left behind & not ready to cope with the new ideas. What better way to comfort ones’ self than embracing dogmatic belief?
It tends to pass within a decade or so, so we’ll just have to weather this out for the next few years (hopefully).
And is still amazes me that people’s beliefs are so fragile that they feel threatened by the least little thing – that has absolutely nothing to do with them (like Same-Sex Marriage, etc).
June 7th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Pcarini: “I’m not sure I’m reading him right, but Robbie seems to be arguing for a more strictly constructionist, if not flat out literal interpretation of the first amendment.”
You got it. Just because I don’t think it violates the First Amendment doesn’t mean I think religion should be taught in any school. Just because you don’t think something should be done does not mean you should pass all sorts of laws in either direction. If there were parental choice in public schooling this matter could easily be solved.
Pcarini: “That said, the dirty work of interpreting the constitution in actual disputes began immediately after it was ratified. While the constitution itself remains relatively static, our interpretation of it must continually adjust to keep up with the current times.”
I just disagree that there’s any dirty work involved in interpreting the First Amendment or most of the rest of the Constitution at all. It was written so anyone at the time could understand its meaning. And it’s no more difficult now.
The words of the First Amendment mean the same things now that they meant then and it’s a pretty simple concept. Here is the First Amendment in it’s simplistic glory: “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.”
In thinking about this last night I came to the somewhat more complex conclusion that the federal government being involved with mandating education and curricula violates the First Amendment in the first place.
This idea people have about how you interpret the constitution is flawed in my opinion. The first thing you do is read the words and learn their meaning as they are written. Only if that is unclear do you worry about things like what the writers had in mind when they wrote them.
Thinking about them and what they mean today or in the context of the current political and social climate is ridiculous. When you read words they inform you of their meaning themselves. And like I said, the words of the First Amendment mean the same thing now as they did when they were written. Any new interpretation can only be made with illogic or political bias.
Wikipedia article on stare decisis: As the United States Supreme Court has put it: “dicta may be followed if sufficiently persuasive but are not binding.” And do check out the other two quotes by the Supreme Court in that article, which agree with my thinking on this matter.
June 7th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Personally I’m just waiting for the day when a Muslim student earns the Valedectorian honor at their high school, and opens the graduation ceremonies with a prayer to Allah. Blood pressure medication sales will go through the roof in that school district, and Rush, Hannity, Medved, and Savage will suddenly be forced to oppose (student-led, voluntary) prayer in schools.
Considering the historic tendency of Muslim scholarship versus the current trends in American scholarship, this shouldn’t take too long – especially since the parents who would be most offended by prayers to Allah are also the parents most likely to have kiddies who are out-educated by Muslim students (southern rednecks – oh, sorry, that’s a redundancy isn’t it?)
June 7th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Let’s not overlook the fact that not only is Ms. Kern singularly unqualified to hold public office, but so is every other legislator that supported and voted for this piece of tripe. Oklahomans, vote them out!
June 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
“And is still amazes me that people’s beliefs are so fragile that they feel threatened by the least little thing – that has absolutely nothing to do with them (like Same-Sex Marriage, etc).”
Lawrence, I think you hit the nail squarely on the head. No one whose religious beliefs are solid would be so desperate to push them on others.
June 7th, 2008 at 11:12 am
The creationist’s latest attack on evolution will come as attempted passage of laws which support “academic freedom.”
The ID/creationist outfit headquartered in Seattle, WA, has pretty much conceded the loss of the idea that there is a “controversy” to be taught between evolution and their creationist views, largely because of the smackdown in Delaware. Instead, they will try to get school districts and state boards of education to pass innocuous-sounding laws to uphold “academic freedom (of speech),” loosely worded enough to allow teachers who support creationist views to introduce those views into school curricula – including science classes.
This is what folks should be watching for, as their first attack in “Expelled,” starring Nixon’s ex-speechwriter Ben Stein, so ably demonstrates. Early this April the Florida House of Representatives introduced legislation couched in “academic freedom” terminology that would allow public school teachers to offer a “critical analysis” of evolution or teach “scientific views of biological or chemical evolution” (by contrasting it with ID). Louisiana, Alabama, Michigan and Missouri have already introduced similarly-worded legislation. See The Washington Spectator, Vol.34, No. 11 dated June 1, 2008 for a further analysis.
And don’t let the trolls confuse you with any “strict interpretation” arguments or other such “freedom of speech” subterfuge; the intent of the ID crowd is to insert religion into public schools and undermine and eventually destroy evolutionary theory.
June 7th, 2008 at 11:43 am
The key word there is historic. Not so much scholarship anymore after it started declining in the 16th century, cooinciding with the end of the Abbasid caliphs.
Well, male ones, maybe. And assuming they avoided being exposed to a radical madrassa in early life.
Will you be using “ay-rab ragheads” too? No? Oh, so you’re selective in your hate speech, huh?
June 7th, 2008 at 11:58 am
@Bluegrass Geek: Like a few others here, I had a brief (three weeks, IIRC) study of religions in my World History class way back in my public high school (11th grade, age 16 or so, back in ’93) in northeast Ohio. Granted I can’t remember much of anything from a decade and a half ago, but we hit the big three of Christianity, Judaism and Islam (with slightly more time given to Judaism on account of the teacher being Jewish and none of us knowing much about it), and Hinduism and Buddhism as well. Possibly Shintoism too, I honestly don’t remember.
On the one hand, by plopping it into a required course you give everybody at least the basics of other belief systems and (hopefully) make them less foreign. On the other hand you could/should definitely do at least a semester on religion alone, and expand it out to a year if you go into the history of religion and religions interacting with each other and secular states.
To nobody in particular (would that make this preaching to the choir?
) But all this is beside the point of teaching religion in a science class. Science class is for teaching science, and science is what’s verifiable/disprovable. If you can’t come up with a way to potentially prove something wrong it isn’t science and thus has no place in a science course. And if your “beliefs” conflict with that, then those “beliefs” are demonstrably wrong.
June 7th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Don’t forget, QD, hate speech is only hate speech when it isn’t aimed against the Enemies of Progress.
Still… a bill that tried to let people get away with religious answers on scientific test questions. Sigh. It gets worse, though… in math courses (math!) particularly lazy students could approximate pi to 3.0 because that’s what it is in the Bible, never mind that said value of pi assumes the cauldron was perfectly circular and its width across was measured directly through its center…
June 7th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I believe the Earth is exactly 24 years, 11 months, and 7 days old. Because according to my religion, the world didn’t exist before I was born.
Can I teach that in science class too?
June 7th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
@Stephen : (quote) “However not many creationists are shrewd. And while the polls on the subject are generally not put together well, it seems clear that there are several tens of millions of Americans so ill-informed or willfully ignorant that they really do think that the earth is less than ten thousand years old.”
Yeah ok, I see what you mean. I was being ‘world-view’ centric. I keep forgetting USA is a special case when it comes to the sheer number of creationists that believe in a 6000 year old Earth. I will admit over there you have your hands full. In Australia however, this level of delusion is just not present, and I believe it is similar in many other countries. It seems to be far more ingrained into USA society than in other countries, whether that be due to numbers, or just due to the way its advertised, or due to its history and culture.
My point in my earlier post was really about not pandering to stupidity by giving stupidity the time of day. Sure correct education on the subject is important, but my concern is with the amount of time many smart people seem to spend debunking the 6000 year old earth when its clear its a stupid idea. Stupid idea = move on. EG: Flat Earth = stupid idea = move on.
Sometimes its the argument people crave, and by not allowing them to argue a clearly stupid idea, time is better spent arguing about less stupid ideas.
But I do see your point about the seemingly unique problem you have in the USA regarding this topic.
June 7th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I thought the most obvious reason to not pass something like this is that it’s an easy way to get out of doing class work..
June 7th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
The legal term is “undoomed”. Or, uf a previously-doomed entity is no longer doomed, “de-doomed”.
June 8th, 2008 at 6:19 am
But the extent of the first amendment is modified by the fourteenth.
What the hell does that have to do with anything? Do you even know what ‘dicta’ means?
June 8th, 2008 at 11:08 am
@ Robbie
Considering the 14th amendment expands the 1st amendment to the states, it should read “no government within the U.S. shall make a rule respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ”
So here is my question to you. What, exactly, would constitute “establishment of a religion”? This is the issue that has been difficult. It seems like a simple issue at first glance, but since what constitutes “establishment” and what is “a religion” are never defined in the constitution, the Supreme Court has had to look to the founding fathers to figure out exactly what they meant by those words. The words are simple, but where to draw the line is anything but clear.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:56 am
MartinM, I did not bring up the concept of stare decisis in this dicussion. Pcarini did and I was simply using his own source to counter the argument he was making. Do try and keep up.
MartinM: “But the extent of the first amendment is modified by the fourteenth.”
Well considering the First Amendment is a restriction on what Congress at the federal level can do, the Fourteenth Amendment can’t modify its extent. Congress is still not allowed to do the things it’s not allowed to do by the First Amendment.
But I must change my original point in my first post and agree that it is unconstitutional for Creationism in all of its various forms in the classroom. But not for the reasons most people think. The federal government being involved in education is a violation of the First Amendment in the first place.
Let me try and explain, and pardon if I make some mistakes as I just reached this conclusion yesterday. Education is a state run institution, which means it is not under the jurisdiction of the First Amendment. You don’t have free speech in school. Nor are you free to practice your religion in school, or assemble in protest, or what have you. We must ignore state constitutions for this argument, but I think it works out the same either way.
When the federal congress gets involved in this matter it then falls under the First Amendment, and immediately violates it. Because the school must restrict speech, assembly, protest to function properly Congress cannot be involved without violating the First Amendment.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:57 am
TheBlackCat: “Considering the 14th amendment expands the 1st amendment to the states, it should read “no government within the U.S. shall make a rule respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ””
I do not consider that to be the case as it does not follow from the language and terms of either amendment.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Of course it does. It is right there in section 1:
‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”
It goes on to say:
“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
It is taking the rights and limitations that were then only applicable to the congress and expanding them so they apply to the states from then on. That was at the time and remains the explicit purpose of those clauses.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
That doesn’t make sense at all.
The First Amendment restricts the Congress of the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment then restricts states from abridging the rights of the citizens. How are those 2 things related?
TheBlackCat: “It is taking the rights and limitations that were then only applicable to the congress and expanding them so they apply to the states from then on.”
Not true at all. The First Amendment doesn’t grant the Congress rights, only limitations. How can you extend the limitations on the federal Congress to the states? That doesn’t make sense.
TheBlackCat: “That was at the time and remains the explicit purpose of those clauses.”
Then we are at a fundamental disagreement in how to interpret the Constitution. I am just benefiting by the fact that the way I interpret it is logical. To interpret words, you read them and learn their meaning. Only if the words are unclear to you consider the “explicit purpose” at that time or any time. The words of neither the First nor Fourteenth Amendments are unclear to me.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
The restrictions on congress are the rights of the citizens. It is called “The Bill of Rights” because it outlines some, but not all, of the rights that citizens hold. It sets limits that congress is not able to step over. That is what rights are, they are restrictions on the sorts of laws and rules the the government is able to set. They (ideally) protect people from undue, unfair, and arbitrary actions by the government by setting certain areas of life off-limits to government intervention.
The fourteenth amendment says that states are not able to abridge the rights of the citizens. Previously, the U.S. constitution stipulated that only congress was prevented from abridging the rights of citizens. That is, the rules set forth in the constitution (most importantly the bill of rights) only applied to the federal government. States could do whatever they wanted, within the limits of their own state constitutions (which did not necessarily protect all of the rights the U.S. constitution protected). The fourteenth amendment was passed in part to take the rights of the citizens, that is limitations on what the government was able to do, and expand it from just protecting citizens from congressional activity and extending it to protect citizens from state activity as well. That was the purpose of the amendment, and is what it explicitly states in the text.
If it wasn’t talking about the rights guaranteed us under the U.S. constitution, particularly the bill of rights, then what rights do you think it was talking about?
June 8th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
TheBlackCat: “The restrictions on congress are the rights of the citizens. It is called “The Bill of Rights” because it outlines some, but not all, of the rights that citizens hold.”
It does nothing of the sort. That is what previous bills of rights did in other countries, and was part of the objection to the Bill of Rights in the first place. The US Constitution was written with the idea that the rights of the people are inalienable and are endowed by the Creator. That is, no person or government has in its power to grant or deny a person his rights.
TheBlackCat: “The fourteenth amendment says that states are not able to abridge the rights of the citizens.”
Exactly right.
TheBlackCat: “The fourteenth amendment was passed in part to take the rights of the citizens, that is limitations on what the government was able to do, and expand it from just protecting citizens from congressional activity and extending it to protect citizens from state activity as well. That was the purpose of the amendment, and is what it explicitly states in the text.”
Let me quote the Fourteenth Amendment so it will be right in front of us.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
I agree with the point that the Fourteenth Amendment extends whatever restrictions can be applied to the states to them. But the First Amendment cannot logically be applied to the states by the language in both amendments. Were the amendment intended to do so they would have repealed the First Amendment and rewritten it like this or similar: “Congress nor the states shall make a 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.”
This goes back to the problem of trying to determine something as vague as intent instead of relying upon the words to convey their own meaning. You only worry about such things when the words are not clear and how they apply is not clear. This is not the case with the Fourteenth and First Amendments.
And to answer your question, I would say that the Fourteenth Amendment was probably intended to reinforce the Thirteenth. The language of the latter reinforces the provisions of the former clearly, directly, and explicitly in the words used.
June 8th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Robbie: “The US Constitution was written with the idea that the rights of the people are inalienable and are endowed by the Creator. That is, no person or government has in its power to grant or deny a person his rights.”
Correction: The second sentence should read “That is, no person or government has in its right to grant or deny a person his rights.”
It’s certainly within my or the government’s power to violate someone else’s rights, but it’s not in our authority or right.
June 8th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
The original constitution was written that way (except the creator part, that is from the declaration of independence not the constitution). But many people felt that this was insufficient protection, so they decided to add the bill of rights later. Whatever the intention of the original constitution was, it was felt that the government would still try to oppress the people if it was not specifically and explicitly prevented from doing so. That is why the bill of rights was not in the original constitution, but was amongst the first things congress did upon the ratification of the constitution. In fact, many people refused to endorse the constitution without adding a bill of rights to limit the government (I am pretty sure Thomas Jefferson was amongst them).
And I thought you said the original intent didn’t matter? The text of the bill of rights lays out limits on what sorts of laws the government can pass. Why are you suddenly bringing intent into this when you said that intent was irrelevant?
That is not how the amendments in the constitution work. There is only one amendment in the constitution that explicitly repeals a previous amendment, and that is 21st amendment (which repeals the 18th). All the other amendments modify existing rules within the constitution. For instance the seventeenth amendment says, in part:
“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.”
This changes the rules set forth in Article 3, Clause 1 of the original constitution, but no where does it explicitly repeal that clause and no where does it replace the entire clause. That is how all the amendments that modify previous parts of the constitution work. By your logic pretty much every amendment after the first 10 is invalid because it does not explicitly repeal and replace the parts of the constitution it is modifying. That is just not how it is done.
Such a thing would be infeasible especially for the fourteenth amendment because it applies to all privileges and immunities guaranteed under the constitution, including any future privilege or immunity. It would require rewriting a number of parts of the original constitution as well as many of the existing amendments and having people vote on all of those changes, just to deal with this one relatively straightforward issue. Instead you can have one, brief amendment that applies broadly. And that is what they do when they make amendments. Just look at the other amendments to see that.
This has nothing to do with intent. The first 10 amendments, in their text, set limits on what sort of laws congress is able to pass. The fourteenth amendment, in its text, expands that, saying that those limits also apply to states. That is the simple, straightforward reading of the text. The intent of the people who wrote it agrees with this, but that is simply additional evidence and not required for my point.
Now you are bringing intent into again. You keep on saying intent is irrelevant, than you use intent to justify reading more into the amendment than is there. Where, in the 14th amendment, does it state that it only applies to the thirteenth amendment? Let us look at the relevant portion again:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;”
It says “privileges and immunities”. It does not say “privileges and immunities under the thirteenth amendment”, it does not say “”privileges and immunities regarding involuntary servitude”, it does not limit the “privileges and immunities” it applies to in any way. The only limit is that it only applies to the privileges and immunities of citizens of the united states.
The straightforward, literal interpretation is that all privileges and immunities that citizens of the united states have must be respected by the states. The bill of rights lists privileges and immunities, therefor those privileges and immunities must be respected by the states. Trying to limit it to only specific privileges and immunities is to read more into it than is actually present in the text, which you insist we shouldn’t do.
June 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I should point something out. The 14th amendment comes later. Later amendments supersede earlier amendments. Therefor, if two portions of the constitution conflict it is the later one that is taken as valid. For instance the 18th amendment forbids the sale of alcohol, with the 21st allows it. Giving them both equal weight would mean that you both couldn’t sell alcohol and could at the same time. But because the 21st amendment comes later it overrides the 18th and thus the real rules are clear.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
TheBlackCat: “Now you are bringing intent into again. You keep on saying intent is irrelevant, than you use intent to justify reading more into the amendment than is there. Where, in the 14th amendment, does it state that it only applies to the thirteenth amendment?”
I’m not going to let you get away with that.
TheBlackCat: “If it wasn’t talking about the rights guaranteed us under the U.S. constitution, particularly the bill of rights, then what rights do you think it was talking about?”
You asked me a direct and pointed question of opinion, which I answered. You asked my interpretation of the intent. Additionally, read my response. I mentioned intent and language. I determined what the intent was only after considering the language and meaning of the two amendments.
About the point you and others have made about the Fourteenth Amendment applying rights to the states: I agree with that where it makes logical sense based on the words in each provision and amendment to the Constitution. I do not believe this applies to the First Amendment, and, furthermore, that people who read the amendments in that way are at best being illogical, and at worst pushing their political agenda.
Let me say it once more, the First Amendment restricts Congress from infringing upon the rights of the people that it lists. The Fourteenth Amendment then restricts the states from infringing upon the rights of the people. This cannot apply to the First Amendment logically and based on the words the amendment uses and their meaning. Unless you start considering ethereal things like intent.
TheBlackCat: “And I thought you said the original intent didn’t matter? The text of the bill of rights lays out limits on what sorts of laws the government can pass. Why are you suddenly bringing intent into this when you said that intent was irrelevant?”
It was correct for me to bring up the intent of the Bill of Rights because that’s what the subject was in that part of our discussion. You mis-characterized, in my opinion, the intent of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in general, and I was correcting you.
Here’s the paragraph in question: “The restrictions on congress are the rights of the citizens. It is called “The Bill of Rights” because it outlines some, but not all, of the rights that citizens hold. It sets limits that congress is not able to step over. That is what rights are, they are restrictions on the sorts of laws and rules the the government is able to set. They (ideally) protect people from undue, unfair, and arbitrary actions by the government by setting certain areas of life off-limits to government intervention.”
June 8th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
TheBlackCat: “I should point something out. The 14th amendment comes later. Later amendments supersede earlier amendments. Therefor, if two portions of the constitution conflict it is the later one that is taken as valid. For instance the 18th amendment forbids the sale of alcohol, with the 21st allows it. Giving them both equal weight would mean that you both couldn’t sell alcohol and could at the same time. But because the 21st amendment comes later it overrides the 18th and thus the real rules are clear.”
You are correct. If I seemed to dispute this, I apologize. But my point is that where the language of the amendment indicates that it supersedes a previous amendment, then it does. Again, this is not the case with the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I hate to say this again, but I don’t feel that I’m being as clear in words as I am in my mind. So here goes.
The First Amendment denies the federal government (Congress) the right to infringe upon a person’s religious beliefs, or promote his religion or anyone else’s, or deny his free speech, right to assemble or petition the Government for a redress of grievances, or to abridge the freedom of the press.
It is a slippery slope to word the amendment in this way: “US citizens have a right to their own religious beliefs, speech, peaceable assembly, and petitioning the Government for a redress of grievances without fear of prosecution or infringement. The people are also granted the right of the freedom of the press.”
The reasoning for this distinction logically goes back to intent, which I believe can be found in the Declaration, and the intent is what I stated earlier. That the rights of citizens are self-evident and inalienable.
The Fourteenth Amendment then goes on to say that the states may not infringe upon the privileges or immunities of the citizens. Well, what are the privileges and immunities mentioned in the First Amendment? They are immunities and privileges from prosecution by the federal government. The states have nothing whatever to do with this matter at all.
How can the Fourteenth Amendment possibly extend these rights to the states? One thing restricts the Congress, the other the states.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I never said anything about intent, I asked about meaning. I asked what you thought the meaning was. You then added intent where it was never mentioned nor implied in my question, and you injected this interpretation of the intent without any justification in the language whatsoever. And you still have not made any attempt to justify limiting it to the 13th amendment.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Sorry, quotes got messed up somehow.
June 8th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
And if you disagree with me about the intent of the Bill of Rights, perhaps you should read the preamble as it was ratified:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
(emphasis added)
So, as I said, the Bill of Rights was meant to limit what sorts of laws the government could pass because a lot of people did not trust that the constitution would be able to protect the people from government abuse and insisted on it being added. I guess you can have whatever idea you want regarding the intent, but the intent that I stated was the same as the intent that was explicitly stated on the document itself.
June 8th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
TheBlackCat: “I never said anything about intent, I asked about meaning. I asked what you thought the meaning was. You then added intent where it was never mentioned nor implied in my question, and you injected this interpretation of the intent without any justification in the language whatsoever.”
Fine, then I injected something I thought possibly might be an intent. I did so in error. But, and I think this follows from what I said in that post, I only considered intent after reading the amendments and seeing how the language of the Fourteenth applied to the Thirteenth. The meaning, if you will.
TheBlackCat: “And you still have not made any attempt to justify limiting it to the 13th amendment.”
Because I have more recently said that the Fourteenth Amendment can be applied where it is applicable and don’t disagree with that being done so at all.
TheBlackCat: ““People that it lists”? What people are those.”
I hate that you wrote so much about a trivial misreading of my statement.
Original statement: “Let me say it once more, the First Amendment restricts Congress from infringing upon the rights of the people that it lists.”
Meaning: “Let me say it once more, the First Amendment restricts Congress from infringing upon the rights that it lists.”
Those rights inherently belonging to the people.
TheBlackCat: “The first amendment lists several things that are very clearly either privileges or immunities. For instance it provides immunity from the congress imposing a state religion on you, it protects the privilege to freely exercise your religion, it protects the privilege to freedom of speech, it provides immunity from the government restricting your right to peaceably protest, it provides immunity from the government restricting the press, and it protects the privilege to petition the Government. If there were more clear-cut cases of privileges and immunities present in the U.S. constitution I cannot think of any.”
I can’t think of more clear-cut cases of privileges and immunities in any law ever written, but it is also clearly restricting the federal government (Congress) from infringing upon those rights. It is NOT granting people those rights, which is what you go on to state in the following paragraph, essentially.
TheBlackCat: “Therefore, since the 1st amendment lists certain privileges and immunities, and the 14th amendment says all privileges and immunities must be respected by the states, then it follows logically that the privileges and immunities in the 1st amendment must be respected by the states. That is basic logic based on a literal reading of the text in the two amendments.”
Sure, the privileges and immunities must be respected by the state. The state cannot be Congress and infringe upon those rights. Of course that’s a ridiculous statement, but that’s what you get when you apply the Fourteenth Amendment to the First. In reading the amendment in that way you take an orange (a state), make it into an apple (Congress), then compare the two. But in fact, if you compare the apple and orange as they are originally constituted, you will find no similarity. To quote you, “That is the basic logic based on a literal reading of the text in the two amendments.”
June 8th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Robbie uses a traditional creationist tactic, I see. His 15 minutes of pondering some topic has given him an insight that decades of experts have somehow overlooked.
June 8th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Naked Bunny with a Whip: “Robbie uses a traditional creationist tactic, I see. His 15 minutes of pondering some topic has given him an insight that decades of experts have somehow overlooked.”
Hahahahhaha!
I never get tired of this argument. Congratulations.
Your argument is a logical fallacy on its face, though some people on here disagree with that statement because the Supreme Court are the experts on the Constitution.
Then let’s look at how it’s a fallacy in another way. As I have stated in this thread, the Constitution was written in plain English so anyone with a dictionary and an average intelligence can understand it. I am no Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton or Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, but I can read the Constitution and understand the meanings of its words and statements.
There can be no doubt, based solely on the language and wording used in the Constitution that it was written in this way. With that in mind, how can one be an expert on the Constitution? Anyone that reads it and tries to comprehend it in its simplicity is thus an expert and your argument is illogical.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
If you want to down that road, what I am saying is the 1st amendment prevents congress from infringing on those rights. The 14th amendment expands that, preventing the states from infringing on those rights either.
So we have in the 1st amendment:
“Congress shall make no law” about certain things
and the 14th amendment states:
“No State shall make or enforce any law” about certain things, things that include the things listed in the 1st amendment.
So we start with congress not able to make those sorts of laws, and the 14th amendment makes it so the states can’t either. This is not a difficult concept.
And you seem to be making some sort of distinction between “granting rights” and “not allowing infringement of rights”. If the government is not allowed to infringe on a right, then by extension the people have that right. The federal government recognizes that people have certain rights, so it shows the recognition by settings rules that it cannot break those rights. It then expands that, saying the states cannot break those rights either.
I’m sorry, but now you are just being intentionally obtuse. The first amendment sets limits on congress, preventing congress from abridging rights (or violating certain privileges and immunities). The right is not the protection from congressional action, as you keep saying the rights are “inalienable”. Rights are inherent properties the people should have, they are not protections from government intervention. What the first amendment does is it prevents congress from passing laws that interfere with those rights. In fact the amendment specifically lists one of them as rights (“the right of the people peaceably to assemble”), therefor the right cannot be the protection from congressional interference or else the amendment would make no sense. The second amendment expands those limits to the states.
To put it another way, rights are things the government should not interfere in. But governments in principle can and do interfere in the rights of people very often. The first amendment is a rule that prevents the federal government from interfering will those things. The 14th amendment is a rule that prevents the states from interfering with those things. As you keep saying rights are inalienable, they can neither be given nor taken away. But what can be and often is taken away is government recognition and respect for those rights.
No sane person would say “a government is incapable of interfering in freedom of speech”. Governments can and do interfere often in freedom of speech. So the right to not have the government abridge free speech is far from inalienable. Therefore, what is inalienable must be something else. What is really inalienable is that people deserve to have free speech. That what the government cannot take away. What the government does do cannot change would the government should do. That is a “right” in any self-consistent meaning of the word, if you include the text of the declaration of independence (which you seem determined to do, although since it is not a document that actually pertains in any legal manner to our current government I would not be so inclined to do so).
The same applies to “privileges and immunities”. The privileges and immunities are not the rule that congress cannot interfere as seen in the 1st amendment, the 1st amendment simply forbids congress from interfering in those privileges and immunities. The privileges and immunities are there even without the rule, as stated in the 9th amendment:
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
But since those rules are specifically protected from congressional encroachment, the citizens very much do have them.
So what you get when you apply the 14th amendment to the first is, essentially, adding “and the states” after congress, so you get:
“Congress and the states 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.”
June 8th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
But a lot of things are far from clear. What constitutes “an establishment of religion”? What are “privileges and immunities”? What is “excessive bail”? What is a “cruel and unusual punishment”? What are “high crimes and misdemeanors”? None of the terms in the constitution are defined (except treason, and even then what constitutes “giving them Aid and Comfort”?) The phrasing may be clear in some cases, but the meanings of the words often are very ambiguous if you actually try to apply them to real-world legal situations. Therefore interpretation is almost invariably needed in order to determine exactly what specific words and phrases mean.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
TheBlackCat: “If you want to down that road, what I am saying is the 1st amendment prevents congress from infringing on those rights. The 14th amendment expands that, preventing the states from infringing on those rights either.”
This is the fundamental point and the main point of disagreement between us. And I still contend that you’re reading it in an illogical way.
Again, Congress cannot infringe upon the rights of the people listed in the First Amendment. The people are immune to infringement upon their religion by the Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment then says that the states cannot infringe upon immunities and privileges of the citizens or deny anyone equal protection under its laws. How can this possibly apply to the Congress?
Here we have a law restricting the federal government, then later we have a law restricting the states. The states are not the federal government. The laws do not cross paths. How can a state possibly abridge the privilege and immunity a person has from the Congress making a law respecting an establishment of religion?
That’s where my apples and oranges came from. A state is not Congress nor does it have any power over it, nor is Congress under its jurisdiction in any way.
TheBlackCat: “But a lot of things are far from clear.”
I disagree with every example you listed, but I can’t get into THAT conversation tonight as it is late. Furthermore, a liberal (not politically liberal, no need to go there) interpretation of the Constitution has given us all sorts of the problems we have today. Doing so more cannot reverse this course. Only a stricter interpretation can do that.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
As far as the rest of your post, I agree with it for the most part, and have no idea why you wrote it. I stated something similar before that about the government certainly having the power to infringe upon rights, but not the authority.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
That is the main point of disagreement here. We disagree on whether the “privilege or immunity” is talking about the limits on congress or the issues those limits are in regards to. To give an example, I am saying the immunity is from “an establishment of religion.” The 1st amendment prevents congress from breaching that privilege. The 14th amendment extends that prevention to the states. You are saying that the immunity is from “congress passing a law respecting an establishment of religion”, and thus it cannot apply to states. Similarly, I am saying that the privilege is “freedom of the press”. You are saying the privilege is “congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press”.
These are two different interpretations of the meaning of those three words. You have taken a specific interpretation of their meaning. You have not provided any justification for using that interpretation. Pretty much everyone, including the people who wrote the amendment, courts, and experts on the issue, use a different interpretation. You are taking as a given that your interpretation of “privilege and immunity” is correct, but you have provided no reason to accept your interpretation over my interpretation and the interpretation of pretty much everyone else who has looked at the issue.
This is exactly why I am saying that we need to look at context and intent. I have one definition for the words, you have a different definition. Which definition is correct? That is where the difficulty in interpreting the constitution comes in. You assume your definition is correct but have not actually provided any evidence that is, either from the text itself or from any other source.
My point was to show that we are disagreeing on the definition of “right”, and by extension “privilege and immunity”, and that your definition ultimately ends up being self-contradictory while my definition does not, therefore my definition is the better one. To put it simply, if, in the 1st amendment, the right is “congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press”, then it is not inalienable because governments can and do make such laws. However if the right is only “freedom of the press”, then it is still inalienable because even if governments make laws preventing it the right still exists. To put it another way, In your definition a right is a rule that can and is broken and thus is not inalienable. In my definition a right is an idea and thus can never be touched by a government,. It is not possible for a government to eliminate an idea, but it is possible and in fact common for the government to eliminate a rule. By putting the right in the form of a rule it is no longer inalienable, and if you define rights as being inalienable than you get a contradiction. If, however, the right is merely and idea (or an ideal) than it is inalienable and thus there is no contradiction.
June 8th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
TheBlackCat: “To give an example, I am saying the immunity is from “an establishment of religion.” The 1st amendment prevents congress from breaching that privilege. The 14th amendment extends that prevention to the states. You are saying that the immunity is from “congress passing a law respecting an establishment of religion”, and thus it cannot apply to states. Similarly, I am saying that the privilege is “freedom of the press”. You are saying the privilege is “congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press”.”
Exactly. And I was giving plenty of reason for that interpretation every time I stated that we read the words and determine their meaning from the words and their definitions as they were written at the time. (It is our fortune that these words possess the same meanings today as the day they were written.) Only if those words are unclear do you look at intent. The reason for this is because the words are absolute as they were written, while intent can be fudged this way or that by whomever is doing the interpreting.
I highly recommend reading http://www.tsowell.com/judicial.htm as it is very thorough and informative and persuasive. It is very long and tough to get through, but cites many examples from history.
TheBlackCat: “These are two different interpretations of the meaning of those three words. You have taken a specific interpretation of their meaning. You have not provided any justification for using that interpretation. Pretty much everyone, including the people who wrote the amendment, courts, and experts on the issue, use a different interpretation. You are taking as a given that your interpretation of “privilege and immunity” is correct, but you have provided no reason to accept your interpretation over my interpretation and the interpretation of pretty much everyone else who has looked at the issue.”
That is not what you are saying at all. In the previous paragraph you are only considering the part that you feel applies or is necessary, where I am considering the entire statement as it is written. In this paragraph you try and attribute to me what you plainly admitting to doing yourself in the previous paragraph.
I have enjoyed the debate, and will check this post again tomorrow. Good night.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:05 am
That does not support your interpretation over everyone else’s. The interpretation I accept follows just as well from a literal reading of only the words, better in my opinion. You have provided lots of reasons why we should only base it on the words of the constitution itself, but my interpretation fits that criteria at least as well as yours does (in my opinion). My interpretation also has the benefit of matching the interpretation of those who wrote it, but that is only useful for differentiating between two interpretations that fit the text equally well. If you are just going by what the written text says it works just as well as yours (if not better).
You have not provided any reason whatsoever why your literal interpretation of those words based only on the text of the constitution is better than every other literal interpretation of those words based only on the text of the constitution. You cannot simply state that we should base our decision only on what is said in the constitution. I am doing that as well, yet I come to a different conclusion. Therefore that cannot be the sole criteria used to judge one interpretation as better than the other, since it allows for multiple, mutually-exclusive conclusion. You must show that your interpretation is superior to all other interpretations that are based on only reading the text. You have not done that. You have simply taken it as a given. You have simply assumed that your reading of the text, devoid of any context, is the correct one.
I don’t understand what you are saying here. Of course certain parts of certain amendments apply to certain issues. Of course only parts of a given amendment will be applicable to certain issues. I fail to see how including irrelevant parts of an amendment is important. Of course if you can show that they are relevant that is another issue, but you have not done that.
What I accuse you of is not using the part that you feel is important or necessary, what I accuse you of is assuming the interpretation you choose is the only valid interpretation. There are several equally valid ways to interpret the text alone, and no real way to figure out from the text alone which of those interpretations is the valid one. As far as I can tell you have arbitrarily selected one and stated that it is the only valid way to interpret the text without getting into intent. I say that my way is also an equally valid interpretation of the text without getting into intent. Because they are equally valid it is impossible, based on the text alone, to draw a conclusion about which is the correct one. Therefore, we must either guess (and I do not like guessing about fundamental rights) or we must start looking at other lines of evidence. When we are faced with two conclusions that equally fit one set of evidence, we must turn to other lines of evidence. That is where intent comes in.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:43 am
The federal and state levels can’t stop a student from putting “God did it” on his science test, but they sure can give him a failing grade… and free speech is still preserved, amen.
June 9th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Robbie:
(pasted from http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_documents&docid=f:hd050.110)
The actual text of the preamble to the US Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide
for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure
the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America.
Nowhere in there does it mention a creator, nor does it mention inalienable rights. You seem to be conflating the Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence as penned by Thomas Jefferson.
Now, as to your interpretation of the application of Amendment XIV to the US Constitution as it pertains to Amendment I:
It is irrelevant.
Article VI, section II: (from same link)
\2\This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States
which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in
every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the
Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding.
Since Article VI defines the Constitution as the supreme law of the United States, and all States formed under the authority of the Constitution, Amendment XIV merely clarifies the point- “bringing it to the front burner” as it were. As the supreme law, the Constitution applies to the states- Amendment XIV effectively removes the “any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding” clause.
There is no “State legislating Congress” as you seem to be reading into this- just clarification. XIV says that the states cannot enact any law that Congress cannot.
quote: (again, from GPO website link above)
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
As I read this, (IANAL, btw) the immunity to having a religion established (from Amendment I) is pushed down to the state level by XIV. My privileges to speak freely (less sedition, &c), peaceably assemble, seek redress from government, &c are protected as well.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am
That doesn’t actually help in the case of the first amendment, since the law in the case of the first amendment only applies to congress. That is where the 14th amendment comes in. Article 6 makes it so the states cannot write laws that violate the rules of the constitution, amendment 14 expands that so states cannot write laws that violate the rights listed in the constitution. This is particularly important for the 1st amendment since the rights are universal but the rules are specific to congress.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Chris said:
> As the supreme law, the Constitution applies to the states- Amendment XIV effectively removes the “any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding” clause.
I believe you are confused over the meaning of “notwithstanding”. To rephrase Article VI:
\2\This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made [to detail and enact said Constitution]; and all Treaties [currently] made, or which shall be made [in the future], under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in
every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary [included].
“Notwithstanding” means “not left out”. Judges in every State are bound by the “Supreme Law of the Land” regardless of any other comments in either the Constitution or in State Law. Ergo, the 14th does not remove the “notwithstanding” line, it reinforces it.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
The Bad Astronomer said:
> Normally I would laud the governor for doing this… if he had said that this bill was anti-reality and intended to promote religious belief. Instead, though, he was all namby-pamby about it:
It’s called “tact” or “diplomacy”. Brad Henry is a Democrat, elected governor of a rural, conservative state. He is centrist and plays to the middle. Also note that the wording of the bill was slightly different than your previous blog post version:
Note the bolded part. One could reasonably interpret this legislation to protect, for instance, a child drawing a picture of Noah’s Ark as part of an art class, or a high school English student exploring the “Christ-like symbollism of The Old Man and the Sea.” * While I do think the intent behind the law was to protect creationism, the particular wording was ambiguous enough to be argued that factual statements could be graded wrong without violating it. This ambiguity would have created lots of ground for lawsuits. It could also allow well-meaning citizens to support the law if they were unaware of the writers’ intent and fell for the ambiguity. It’s the current Creationist ploy, protecting “free expression”.
*I actually had an essay test question in high school about this very topic. Fortunately, all I had to do was regurgitate the teacher’s discussion on the topic, because I thought the examples given were pretty thin.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I won’t go through the usual business of quoting everything, in the interest of brevity, but I do (finally) see your point TheBlackCat.
Let my try and explain my overnight conversion. It came from the part of your post I didn’t address before my last post.
The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
What I think you have said, and I now see, is that this statement, by removing the right of Congress promote or limit religious freedom acknowledges (does not grant) the right to religious freedom US citizens have.
Then the Fourteenth Amendment says no state can abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens and the First Amendment acknowledged that very privilege. So therefore the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from infringing upon those rights previously acknowledged. With that in mind, I don’t think the Fourteenth Amendment then directly extends the First Amendment, but it does logically. I don’t think it’s necessary to try and tie the two together, but that’s irrelevant now.
To me then, it would seem that any promoting of religion in a state or federally funded institution of any kind should be entirely prohibited. Laws allowing “equal opportunity,” as it were, for religious promotion shouldn’t exist because of the vagueness involved.
For anyone just reading this, please keep in mind that I never advocated the teaching of religion in any school. This was merely a debate on the constitutionality of it.
I think you went unnecessarily far in your last post addressed to me, and said things which aren’t true, but no big deal.
I still disagree that the words of the Constitution and Bill of Rights are unclear.
TheBlackCat: “You have provided lots of reasons why we should only base it on the words of the constitution itself, but my interpretation fits that criteria at least as well as yours does (in my opinion).”
Tip for arguing on the Internet: It’s okay to concede defeat, but you should never compromise.
I’m going to mark this on my calendar. I believe this is the first time anyone has ever won an argument on the Internet and actually had the loser admit it.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:31 am
>>>”You seem to be conflating the Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence as penned by Thomas Jefferson.”
Another creationist tactic. Though to be fair, most of them don’t do that one on purpose.
June 10th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Darth Robo: “Another creationist tactic. Though to be fair, most of them don’t do that one on purpose.”
Who are the creationists in this argument?
June 10th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I don’t recall saying there were any.
However, if this prediction turns out to be true in a future thread, don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
