WAS ROBERTS RIGHT?

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050815/ap_on_go_su_co/roberts_4

It looks like Judge Roberts was favoring school prayer here, and maybe he was.

But if you read the article you'll see that, just like the recent ten commandment ruling in Texas, he says they could get prayer legalized if it "worded more carefully to avoid expressing a religious purpose behind the measure."

So the way to get prayer into the schools is to make it non-religious prayer. Non-religious prayer? Think about that a while. Would making prayer non-religious be a good thing for religious liberty?

Does non-religious prayer even make any sense? It's an oxymoron, like "government intelligence".

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Teno is exactly right, and most "conservatives" will not pick this up, partly because they are too enamored over anything Bush, the GOP and its front organizations, such as the American Center for Law and Justice, tells them.

Similar to the recent Ten Commandment rulings which allowed one non-religious religious display while forbidding another religious religious display, it upholds what is commonly known as "the Lemon Test" - a complete travesty of Supreme Court jurisprudence that has literally trashed the Constitution.

The Lemon test was fabricated in 1971 in Lemon v Kurtzman (403 US 602). Basically, the test says, "First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion."

The problem with any "victory" that religious liberty advocates proclaim with the latest Ten Commandments cases is that it solidifies this precedent and attempts to "protect" religious liberty by making sure that religious displays are "not religious."

So, what Teno insinuates is absolutely correct: by making prayer "non-religious" in the public square is totally detrimental to the concept of religious liberty, let alone the upholding of the original intent of the Constitution (TG: As well as being detrimental to the concept of prayer!).

I encourage you to read a recent editorial that I penned last spring entitled, "Pluralism to Trump Ten Commandments in June", accessible at http://www.reedheustis.com/articles/03072005.htm . You will notice that what I predicted in that article last March has come to pass:

"It is interesting to note that two of the issues to be analyzed by the Court is (1) whether there is a 'secular or religious purpose'; and (2) whether there is an 'endorsement' of religion.

"Although there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids any government from having a 'religious purpose' or 'endorsing religion,' the Court will partly decide the cases on these dubious grounds."

As it turned out the Court indeed decided the cases on these grounds. Therefore, any apparent "victory" for Christian forces are in actuality defeats because the grounds upon which such "victory" was achieved are the enemy's foundation, not genuine Constitutionalism.

Reed R. Heustis, Jr. <><
http://www.constitutionalists.us
http://www.reedheustis.com
Los Angeles County Central Committee Member
California State Central Committee Member
American Independent Party (Calif. Constitution Party)