ADF: What’s LEFT of the Constitution? Inaugural Edition
Hey folks! Today, ADF launched a news digest that will focus on latest coming out of the new administration and Congress. Here is the “Inaugural Edition” of “What’s LEFT of the Constitution?“
A district court judge has rejected a lawsuit filed by Dr. Michael Newdow and a score of his atheist allies against U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the Rev. Rick Warren, and other people and agencies over President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice to continue the long tradition of including prayers at his inauguration on Jan. 20. Of course, the court’s decision is appropriate, and Newdow lost round one. But he’ll almost certainly appeal.
ADF is no stranger to Newdow. ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence debated him at Columbia University in New York in March. Lorence and ADF have been following Newdow’s various lawsuits for a long time, which have challenged everything from the Pledge of Allegiance to our present topic, inaugural prayer:
· Freedom From Religion Foundation v. The Congress of the United States of America
· Newdow v. The Congress of the United States of America
· Newdow v. Bush
· Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow
To many, this latest lawsuit seems like yet another frivolous piece of litigation, and most believe he can’t win. That’s true on one level. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this issue back in 1983 in Marsh v. Chambers. But despite the obvious fact that Newdow and company are out of touch with what our Founders intended when they penned the Constitution (essentially arguing that the Founders were violating the Constitution as they were writing it), Americans do need to take this seriously. The fight to erase the long-standing (and perfectly constitutional) tradition of opening public meetings with prayer is one the radical secularists aren’t ready to abandon any time soon.
ADF has been fighting this sort of thing across the country for a…very…long…time. Repeatedly, in communities throughout the country, secularists are demanding veto power over their neighbors, who overwhelmingly line up with the authors of the Constitution in their belief that public prayer is constitutionally appropriate. Here’s a smattering of examples involving the issue of public prayers and invocations:
· Mesa County, Colo.
· Tangipahoa Parish, La.
· Transylvania County, N.C.
· Forsyth County, N.C.
· Thomasville, N.C.
· Oconee County, S.C.
Many times, ADF has been successful in stopping the madness, as with the model prayer policy that ADF continues to offer to public bodies that wish to open their official meetings with an invocation, whether that involves a local community, like the school boards and counties listed above, or larger bodies:
· Ohio House of Representatives
· South Carolina General Assembly
But the threat isn’t going away. The secularists are well-funded and relentless. They are filing lawsuit after lawsuit in a determined effort to secularize the country, and all it takes for them to gain traction is for a judge to see things their way instead of the way that the Founders saw it.
So here’s both the irony and the danger:
President-elect Obama will have prayers at his inauguration, and our guess is that his administration won’t have too much of a problem with issuing the annual National Day of Prayer proclamation. But the breed of judge preferred by Obama (certainly not the likes of Justices Roberts and Alito, both of whom then-Sen. Obama voted against) is typically sympathetic to the secularization advanced by Newdow and groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. These same judges could ban Mr. Obama from having prayer at the next inauguration should he be re-elected.
“What’s Left of the Constitution?” is a periodic news digest featuring Alliance Defense Fund legal analysis of proposals, policies, and trends advanced by the federal government. On a regular basis, this digest will specifically highlight policies and actions that move America away from the principles of the U.S. Constitution and closer to the demands of the political Left, especially ones that threaten religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and the family.
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Posted by Greg Scott on January 16, 2009 5:24 pm
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Activist Judges, Bill Of Rights, Church And State, Communism, Constitution, History, News, Political Correctness, Politics As Usual, Secular Humanism, U.S. Constitution, Video, religion
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9 Responses to “ADF: What’s LEFT of the Constitution? Inaugural Edition”
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Syndicate Me
Does Michael Newdow need a job? I mean, I’m my own boss so I can goof off on blogs for a little while whenever I feel like it, but generally speaking i support my family (and about 5 others through my taxes) I work, fix stuff around the house, etc. That takes up most of my life. Who are these people who enough time to protest everything under the sun and file lawsuits a couple of times a year?
My Grandfather immigrated from Sicily in the early part of this century. He always said that eventually, people in this country would have too much time on their hands and they would use it to destroy themselves. I’m just glad he didn’t live to see his prediction come true.
As the Left has figured out, the best way to destroy the Constitution is to ignore it. Go ahead and do any damned thing you want, write any law you wish and let the courts figure it out.
The confounding part of this is it’s coming from lawyers, whom, one would think, were trained in Constituional law and would know when something is illegal or not.
Elector, Newdow is a practicing lawyer and an emergency room surgeon. What makes you think that standing up for one’s civil rights automatically means someone has too much time on their hands?
Johann,
If he were worried about survival, like most of us are, he would have other things to occupy his time besides sue everyone who says the plegde of allegiance or prays. Most of us mind our own business because we have to. What rights has Newdow been denied? Like every little Hitler he has been denied the right to tell everyone else what to do and what not to do.
My guess is that every American would be better in a country without a Mr. Newdow. Here comes the busybody Socialist. Mr. and Mrs. Main Street, will you beat him senseless?
Seriously Johann, what “civil right” is Newdow being “denied” when a public official mentions God?
Greg – When a public official “mentions” God? None. When public officials throughout this country, from its lowest offices to its highest, use the power of their office to promote the notion that a god (and specifically the Christian god, here) exists and that those who don’t subscribe to this view are inferior as people and citizens? I trust you can see how that becomes a problem.
Many of the religious references being fought over now, such as “under God” in the Pledge or “In God We Trust” on our money, date back to the early stages of the Cold War in the 1950s. They were inserted into American civic discourse as a specifically anti-atheist measure, to contrast the U.S. position with the official atheism of the Soviet Union. And they continue to have that effect today – I’ve long since given up on counting the times I’ve been told “Look at what it says on your money, and if you don’t like it, get out of this country”.
Do Jews, Hindus or Muslims get a similar treatment? Not really, and in many cases government officials go out of their way to make sure that the way they express their beliefs isn’t disrespectful of those who subscribe to a different religion. Why, then, is open contempt for atheists and their views still politically acceptable, even though there’s more of us in this country than Jews, Hindus and Muslims combined?
Elector – I do believe you’ve Godwined yourself out of this conversation. Go back to your sandbox and play out your violent fantasies there.
What constitution? We are about to inaugurate a “President” legally unqualified, per Article II of the Constitution. If this stands, the Constitution is obsolete, and we live in a dictatorship, ruled by the whims of those in power; a government of men, not of law. Hail, “Seizer”!
“Go back to your sandbox and play out your violent fantasies there.”
Violence is what WE are preparing for. We are ready and have no fear (and lots of training).
Johann–
Ever read the Declaration of Independence?
This country’s founding and the freedoms we enjoy are predicated on the necessity of God’s existence, the omnipresence of a power higher than man or the state. The existence of God, as Jefferson wrote in words I know you understand, is assumed and necessary.
Because you don’t believe does not make you a second-class citizen. You have every right to not believe and be a citizen of equal worth, even while your psyche is wounded by the public acknowledgment of the God in Whom you do not believe. See, that’s beauty of the whole CREATED equal thing and the the liberty of conscience — even though what you believe is counter to what the Founders believed about our Ultimate Source of liberty, you STILL are nourished of those very fruits.
Asking for God’s continued blessing, in settings private and public, in a manner official or unofficial, in no way violates your rights, is in no way coercive and in no way runs afoul of the Constitution.