Theocratic United States?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Southtown

I don't think you see my point. The basis for new law isn't what counts. What counts is what the new law enforces. Majority rule is the mechanism that curbs the radical ideas whether they be scriptural, hallucinative, or coldy AI-conjured.

This strikes me as completely disingenuous. The basis for establishing our Constitution IS what counts, and it is and was radical. Furthermore, your AI reference is a strawman argument and I nowhere suggested it.
If a legislator started waving the Koran around in a session of Congress as the justification for enacting a law, do you seriously contend no one would balk?

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by Turtle

This strikes me as completely disingenuous. The basis for establishing our Constitution IS what counts, and it is and was radical. Furthermore, your AI reference is a strawman argument and I nowhere suggested it.

I wasn't talking about establishing the Constitution. I was saying that what counts is what a new law does, not how it's conceived. Where the idea for a law comes from is a totally different concept that what the law does. New legislation can come from any subjective morality and still possibly be Constitutional.

Originally Posted by Turtle

If a legislator started waving the Koran around in a session of Congress as the justification for enacting a law, do you seriously contend no one would balk?

Nobody's touting anything as justification. It's the inspiration, that's all. New law still has to conform to the Constitution.

[Freddy]

There is but one oath in the US Constitution and that is the specified Oath of Office for the President which is in quotations. This means it must be said exactly as the Constitution provides with nothing added to it or missing from it.

Congressional and Judicial branches' oaths were made law by Act of Congress and do not appear in the Constitution. Both oaths contain and compell a person to utter the phrase, "...so help me God." This is a clear violation of the Constitution.

The SCOTUS did rule on this issue in TORCASO v. WATKINS, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), where Maryland law tried to force all people holding public office to make, "a declaration of belief in the existence of God." It was ruled unconstitutional. What really is sad is the Court failed to overturn federal oaths as well in this unanimous decision!

From the Torasco v. Wadkins decision:
"We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person "to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, 10 and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs. 11

In upholding the State's religious test for public office the highest court of Maryland said:

"The petitioner is not compelled to believe or disbelieve, under threat of punishment or other compulsion. True, unless he makes the declaration of belief he cannot hold public office in Maryland, but he is not compelled to hold office."

The fact, however, that a person is not compelled to hold public office cannot possibly be an excuse for barring him [367 U.S. 488, 496] from office by state-imposed criteria forbidden by the Constitution. This was settled by our holding in Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 . We there pointed out that whether or not "an abstract right to public employment exists," Congress could not pass a law providing "`. . . that no federal employee shall attend Mass or take any active part in missionary work.'" 12

This Maryland religious test for public office unconstitutionally invades the appellant's freedom of belief and religion and therefore cannot be enforced against him.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals of Maryland is accordingly reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded."


http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bi...=367&invol=488

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Southtown

Where the idea for a law comes from is a totally different concept that what the law does.

Laughing through my tears. Let's see...who's arguing against stem cell research and why?

Originally Posted by Freddy

Congressional and Judicial branches' oaths were made law by Act of Congress and do not appear in the Constitution. Both oaths contain and compell a person to utter the phrase, "...so help me God." This is a clear violation of the Constitution....

Thank you for this clear & succinct statement and the jurisprudential facts in support of it.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Freddy

There is but one oath in the US Constitution and that is the specified Oath of Office for the President which is in quotations. This means it must be said exactly as the Constitution provides with nothing added to it or missing from it.

The interpretation that the POTUS’s OOO must be spoken exactly as written by the constitution is reasonable, but historically, nearly every president has added their own, additional, closing line, and this line has usually been “So help me God”

The First President, George Washington, is widely reported to have added “So help me God” (though accounts of this are conflicting, so the reports neither confirmed not denied). He also introduced the tradition of reciting the Oath with a hand placed on a Bible, which he afterwards kissed.

Fanklin Pierce (1853) recited the oath with “affirm” in place of “swear”, without the “So help me God” closing, and didn’t kiss the Bible (though he still placed his hand on it). Teddy Roosevelt had no Bible in his 1901 inauguration, but did in his 1905. Dwight Eisenhower replace the traditional Bible-kissing with the recitation of a prayer he had written for the occasion.

I’m unable to confirm it, but may accounts hold that John Kennedy was the first POTUS to be prompted by the Chief Justice to repeat the line “So help me God”. Before and occasionally since, it’s been traditional for the Chief Justice to end his prompting where the text of the Constitution does.

An legal academic friend of mine contended that once the actual Constitutional oath has been spoken, the swearing in is complete, and the Chief Justice and the President could take off their cloths and recite Shakespeare, if they were so inclined, without in any way invalidating it. That would surely win them a place in history

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by CraigD

An legal academic friend of mine contended that once the actual Constitutional oath has been spoken, the swearing in is complete, and the Chief Justice and the President could take off their cloths and recite Shakespeare, if they were so inclined, without in any way invalidating it. That would surely win them a place in history

On that technicality I'm not so sure I agree. While I agree that a concatenation by the President of the phrase "so help me God" is a personal expression of religion I believe such an addendum by the Chief Justice administering the oath is a solicitation of a belief in God. To this extent I believe the Chief Justice has crossed a line. The reality of this is that the person being administered the oath is the only one with standing to challenge it in court though and a man of faith would never do that.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by C1ay

While I agree that a concatenation by the President of the phrase "so help me God" is a personal expression of religion I believe such an addendum by the Chief Justice administering the oath is a solicitation of a belief in God. To this extent I believe the Chief Justice has crossed a line.

This is a good and astute point. I remember some of my more political friends ranting about this invalidating G.W. Bush’s 2001 inauguration – at that point in the political process, people were desperately grasping at straws.

There’s some legal significance, I think, that the oath is prompted for a line at a time (this is true at least for the last 2 oaths administered by Chief Justice William Renquist), and that the oath is actually complete when the President Elect completes the line “… the Constitution of the United States.” Constitutionally, there’s no requirement that the oath be administered by anybody – a President Elect who just stood up and recited the oath would still be President. There’s no requirement that it even be made publicly – in 1963, following the assassination of John Kenedy, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in aboard the Air Force One presidential airplane by a local US District Judge, Sarah T. Hughes.

The inauguration is almost completely pomp, precedence, and tradition, with a touch of imagination and improvisation – in short, it’s a state party where, coincidentally, the President Elect recites his oath and becomes President.

It’s my personal opinion that Renquist and other Justices routinely go too far, and that his inaugural improvisations give the least cause for concern.

[Turtle]

Theocratic United States? Well now, the appearence is given by this title and the discussions herein that this is something new; nothing is further from the truth. While I have not started a complete reading of Pulitzer Prize winning author James Wood's new book Revolutionary Characters: What Made The Founders Different, I went looking for some exerpts I knew I would find there.
It didn't take long and so here is just one little view of how pernicious the intrusion of religion into government is.
From page 116

Originally Posted by Gordon S. Wood

Ordinary people, in whom he placed so much confidence, more certainly than his friend Madison, were not becoming more enlightened. Superstition and bigotry, which Jefferson identified with organized religion, were actually reviving, released by the democratic revolution he had led. He was temperamentally incapable of understanding the deep popular strength of the evangelical Christian forces that were seizing control of American culture in these early decades of the nineteenth century. He became what we might call a confused secular humanist in the midst of real moral majorities.

That such superstition and bigotry continue in our government to this day is a sad commentary on not only the US, but any nation or culture applying religious tenets to law. While strictly by the numbers one may claim we are a Christian nation, it is not Christian principles we are founded on. I am obligated and honored to take up Jefferson's , Franklin's and the other founders battle against religious superstition and bigotry with the same enthusiasm. Don't tread on us.

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Laughing through my tears. Let's see...who's arguing against stem cell research and why?

I don't know. You tell me.

Originally Posted by Turtle

Thank you [Freddy] for this clear & succinct statement and the jurisprudential facts in support of it.

I can't defend the oath of office thing, though. That's unconstitutional.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Southtown

I don't know. You tell me.

You're teasing an old turtle now Southy. That would be the theists.

PS This machine is experiencing intermitent blue screen of death as the video card dies, so I am at the mercy of the intermitent system administrator's intermitent attempts to repair/replace the problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.