Learning what Bill of Rights is all about
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/13370817.htm
[excerpt]
Miami Herald - FL,USA
BY NAT HENTOFF
Years ago, I was in the chambers of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan,
a persistent defender of the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of
Rights. I was writing a profile of him for The New Yorker, and I asked him
which of those first 10 amendments were most important for the protection
of our individual liberties against the government.
''The First Amendment, of course,'' Brennan said immediately. ``All the
rest of our liberties flow from our constitutional rights of free speech,
free exercise of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of association --
and the right to criticize our government.''
[snip]
''It is so necessary,'' Brennan said, ``to get the words of the Bill of
Rights off the pages and into the lives of students. Therefore, tell them
stories. Tell them how we earned those rights and liberties.''
[snip]
One story I told them was how children of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion
had been expelled from the public schools of West Virginia more than 50
years ago because they refused to salute the flag. This was not because
they did not love this country but rather because their religion taught
them not to bow to ''images'' -- and that included the flag. Not only were
they expelled from school but also their parents were subject to be
prosecuted for complicity in their children's delinquency.
The parents went to court, and eventually the case came before the Supreme
Court of the United States. Writing for a majority of the court -- in West
Virginia Board of Education vs. Barnette -- Justice Robert Jackson, who was
later to be the chief prosecutor of Nazi criminals during the Second World
War -- ordered the children back to school.
In doing so, he not only defined the essential meaning of the First
Amendment but he also, in his view, provided a definition of what it is to
be an American:
''If there is a fixed star in our constitutional constellation,'' Jackson
ruled, ``it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be
orthodox politics, nationalism, religion or any other matters -- or force
citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.''
[end excerpt]
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Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the U.S. and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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