View original postSo if your 95% Christian town wants put a nativity scene on the city property they have that right. The right of communities to express their beliefs outweighs the made up separation of church and state clause. People have the right to have their religious beliefs influence their voting habits but government does not have the right try and suppress that practice. The Constitution basically guarantees us the right to have and express religious beliefs without interference from the government. A voluntary prayer before a meeting in no way infringes on the rights who do not want to participate but banning them interfere with the rights of those who do want to start with a prayer. If you don’t like the prayer elect a different city council.
The exact words are "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" - the second part guarantees the freedom of religion as you mention, but the first part does guarantee what you might accurately describe as separation of church and state, by forbidding Congress (and, as the Supreme Court has made clear afterwards, other levels of government) to "establish" any religion.
Mind you, I'm on the side who is inclined to agree with this decision, though not wholeheartedly. The Constitution does absolutely ban the city of Greece from establishing Christianity as the town's official religion, the conservative justices' opinions were very clear on that. They just ruled, rightly I think, that Greece's actual practice doesn't constitute "establishing" Christianity, and that while it's not the optimal way of handling things (Alito made several remarks about how Greece's policy was certainly not a "best practice"
, it's not so bad as to violate the First Amendment and require striking down.
SCOTUS - Time to pray at Town Council meetings!
- 05/05/2014 06:54:56 PM
902 Views
I'm agnostic but I think they made the right decision
- 05/05/2014 08:09:21 PM
512 Views
Absolutely.....I'm not religious, but I love this decision.....
- 06/05/2014 02:36:29 AM
455 Views
I think you're misunderstanding the problem. It's not a question of being "offended"
- 06/05/2014 02:43:26 PM
422 Views
But look at what you're advocating for...
- 06/05/2014 10:55:56 PM
433 Views
let's not go to extremes
- 07/05/2014 12:33:38 AM
429 Views
please point out where constitution calls for a separation of church and state
- 07/05/2014 06:44:42 PM
434 Views
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...."
- 08/05/2014 12:37:06 AM
391 Views
"... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" You left that part out, kinda important *NM*
- 12/05/2014 01:11:02 AM
263 Views
America doesn't have seperation of church and state it has freedom of relgion
- 07/05/2014 06:42:19 PM
428 Views
Not exactly.
- 07/05/2014 07:01:23 PM
424 Views
I am reading de Tocqueville right now and he expresses similar sentiments.
- 05/05/2014 08:20:51 PM
450 Views
Yeah, seems sensible.
- 05/05/2014 10:08:39 PM
447 Views
our Constitution expressly prohibits the establishment of religion by government, though
- 06/05/2014 09:20:19 PM
419 Views
The Economist's take (which offers something for both sides, I'd say)
- 07/05/2014 06:52:23 PM
524 Views