Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Feigning that some controversy actually exists over the fact of evolution, the Rocky Toppers have decided to grant job protection to teachers who choose to criticize the scientific doctrine. To be quite proper, they have inserted language that stipulates that “this section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine.” But Becky Ashe, the president of the Tennessee Science Teachers Association, is not fooled. She told a subcommittee of the Tennessee House that the Bill “is an anti-evolutionary attempt to allow non-scientific alternatives to evolution (such as creationism and intelligent design) to be introduced into our public schools.”
Seems the famous trial and the movie version (“Inherit The Wind”) are always on the minds of theocrats. Tennessee State Representative Richard Floyd (R) even alluded to them in the floor debate commenting that “since the late ’50s, early ’60s when we let the intellectual bullies hijack our education system, we’ve been on a slippery slope.” Aptly named Republican Sheila Butt even found a way to criticize environmentalists in the debate saying she was told in high school that Aqua Net hair spray hurts the environment. In a conclusion worthy of mention she added, “Since then scientists have said that maybe we shouldn’t have given up that aerosol can because that aerosol can was actually absorbing the Earth’s rays and keeping us from global warming.” Ah, the joys of anti-intellectualism.
The Bill passed the House 70-23 and now goes to the Senate. Hopefully, they reached a stage of high intellectual evolution.
Source: TPM
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Tootles,
Article IV contains the Supremacy Clause, which reads:
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Those are the exact words that give the Feds the power to forbid religious curricula in state run schools.
And for the record, I don’t have to do anything you tell me to do.
I make you look like a fool not at your command, but simply because I think it’s funny.
Buddha:
The supremacy clause only refers to the powers authorized and not to the powers you would like usurped.
The federal powers are “supreme” only in those specified things allowed by the Constitution. That is all the supremacy clause means. It does not mean what you say.
Yeah, Tootles, I do think the Establishment Clause applies to the states. Because it does. Via the Supremacy Clause.
That you’re too zealously ignorant of Constitutional law to accept that is just . . . hysterically funny and pathetic all at the same time. States can no more adopt a state religion than they can re-institute slavery or repeal women’s right to vote.
Tootie,
You are embarrassed for me? Wow! You have gone and hurt my feelings now. And you bring in the Tenther crap as evidence that religion can be taught in public schools and you are embarrassed for me? I tried to give you the facts. Buddha showed you the facts in great detail, but yet very succinctly, but you can’t see past your nose. Have fun with your religious beliefs, just don’t force them on students who actually want to learn science and not religion.
Buddha:
You have to tell me everything but the exact words which say that the feds have the power to dictate public school curricula.
This is because the Constitution says no such thing so you cannot defend your argument from the text of it.
Young people are rejecting your old fashioned and misguided corruptions of the Constitution.
Tootles,
Ahhh. I should have known nothing like facts could stop your verbal diarrhea. You never surprise.
“But they were voting to forbid the FEDERAL government from establishing a state religion. They were NOT voting for the federal government to forbid the states from having their own state sanctioned religion.”
Yes. They were. Because the also voted for the Supremacy Clause when the adopted the U.S. Constitution. The same Constitutional powers that allows the Feds to dictate curricula are the same powers which forbid states from individually adopting state religions: the 1st Amendment via the Supremacy Clause.
My, you are particularly dumb this evening.
Tootie
1, April 11, 2011 at 12:44 am
Blouise:
So you join your friends in not being able to prove the feds have power to dictate public school curricula?
================================================
Nope … as you can see from my posts I support you 100%
Poor Buddha.
He thinks the establishment clause refers to the states. LOL And I’m the one with the problem!
Who is this “congress” that the first amendment is referring to? The federal congress or the state congress?
Facts got your tongue again, Tootles?
“James Madison was very short and as such had an aversion to any words that contained more than 5 letters … he called them tall words. If something is purported to have been written by Madison and contains words with more than 5 letters … be skeptical.” (ushistoryforrepublicansdotcom)
BIL
You are joking? Right?
You said “The original states ll knew for a fact the 1st Amendment (Article III) banned state sanctioned religion and they all voted for the 1st Amendment as it stands today.”
When did I say I disagreed with that? I agree. But they were voting to forbid the FEDERAL government from establishing a state religion. They were NOT voting for the federal government to forbid the states from having their own state sanctioned religion.
This is really not that difficult. I think a 5th grader could figure it out.
Are you past the fourth yet? If not, my apologies.
Let me make it simple: they voted against federal establishment
: they knew individual state establishment
was allowed
BTW, Tootles, I just proved how the Feds have rights to determine curricula. But don’t let the law and facts get in your way. Or was your inability to understand English that tripped you up again?
Tootles,
Are you so dense that you think that Madison quote does anything other bolster what I said about him and the Separation of Church and State?
That’s really funny.
No one said you couldn’t teach creationism in private schools, church and at home.
Just not in public schools.
You are a simple creature.
Wrong too.
And apparently illiterate.
Blouise:
So you join your friends in not being able to prove the feds have power to dictate public school curricula?
Tootles,
Who has the right to decide curricula is the red-herring here.
The 1st Amendment applies to the states via the Supremacy Clause. State laws cannot violate Federal laws including the Bill of Rights. State laws can supplement or provide greater protections than Federal law, but they cannot violate it. Local jurisdictions can indeed determine local curricula – just so long as said curricula doesn’t violate the Constitution. Teaching creationism – as it is a religious belief – through state run schools is a violation of the 1st Amendment and the rights of every non-Fundie student going to school there.
So again, suck it, Theocrat.
rafflaw:
I’m embarrassed for you, but certainly not surprised, and would be happy to always cite the Constitution in defense of my arguments (unlike you). The part of the Constitution which says the feds cannot dictate school curricula is here:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” 10th Amendment to the US Constitution
Since the power to dictate school curricula was never delegated (nor prohibited to the states) said power to determine anything regarding public schools is served to the states (or the people).
James Madison to Reverand Adams 1832 (yes, 1832! decades AFTER the ratification).
Here Madison discusses the fact that there are still states (former colonies) with state supported religion. No where does he claim this is unconstitutional (because it is not). In summary he writes that he is sure that, whatever the right or wrong of it, the federal government has NO business interfering with it.
He writes in the last paragraph:
“The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.”
The passage in question reads:
“In the Colonial State of the Country, there were four examples, R. I. N. J. Penna. and Delaware, & the greater part of N. Y. where there were no religious Establishments; the support of Religion being left to the voluntary associations & contributions of individuals; and certainly the religious condition of those Colonies, will well bear a comparison with that where establishments existed.
As it may be suggested that experiments made in Colonies more or less under the Controul of a foreign Government, had not the full scope necessary to display their tendency, it is fortunate that the appeal can now be made to their effects under a compleat exemption from any such controul.
It is true that the New England States have not discontinued establishments of Religion formed under very peculiar circumstances; but they have by successive relaxations advanced towards the prevailing example; and without any evidence of disadvantage either to Religion or good Government.
And if we turn to the Southern States where there was, previous to the Declaration of independence, a legal provision for the support of Religion; and since that event a surrender of it to a spontaneous support by the people, it may be said that the difference amounts nearly to the contrast in the greater purity & industry of the Pastors and in the greater devotion of their flocks, in the latter period than in the former. In Virginia the contrast is particularly striking, to those whose memories can make the comparison. It will not be denied that causes other than the abolition of the legal establishment of Religion are to be taken into view in accountg for the change in the Religious character of the community. But the existing character, distinguished as it is by its religious features, and the lapse of time now more than 50 years since the legal support of Religion was withdrawn sufficiently prove that it does not need the support of Govt. and it will scarcely be contended that Government has suffered by the exemption of Religion from its cognizance, or its pecuniary aid.
The apprehension of some seems to be that Religion left entirely to itself may run into extravagances injurious both to Religion and to social order; but besides the question whether the interference of Govt. in any form wd. not be more likely to increase than controul the tendency, it is a safe calculation that in this as in other cases of excessive excitement, Reason will gradually regain its ascendancey. Great excitements are less apt to be permanent than to vibrate to the opposite extreme.
Under another aspect of the subject there may be less danger that Religion, if left to itself, will suffer from a failure of the pecuniary support applicable to it than that an omission of the public authorities to limit the duration of their Charters to Religious Corporations, and the amount of property acquirable by them, may lead to an injurious accumulation of wealth from the lavish donations and bequests prompted by a pious zeal or by an atoning remorse. Some monitory examples have already appeared.
Whilst I thus frankly express my view of the subject presented in your sermon, I must do you the justice to observe that you very ably maintained yours. I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.”
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions68.html
Also Tootles, while I’m thinking about it, just because you wouldn’t have ratified the 1st Amendment?
Is irrelevant. Do you know which of the original ratifying states did approve of the 1st Amendment? Let’s take a look at that, shall we?
The process of ratification requires 3/4 of the states to approve of the proposed amendment(s). The first ten amendments, commonly called the Bill of Rights, was drafted by James Madison (you may remember him from this week’s previous drubbing over Constitutional history) and submitted to Congress for ratification on December 15, 1791. The original submission included twelve amendments, but the first two were not ratified. What is now the 1st Amendment was originally Article III of the proposed Bill of Rights.
The first one not ratified (Article I) was about apportionment and number of Representatives and it was never incorporated into the Constitution.
The second one not ratified (Article II) limited the ability of Congress to raise their salaries and was later incorporated into the Constitution as the 27th Amendment.
Of the remaining ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, all of them were ratified in the form in which they exist today. On the original dates of ratification (from November 20, 1789 to December 15, 1791) of the voting states none – I repeat NONE – of them voted against what would become the 1st Amendment. The only three states that didn’t vote to ratify the Bill of Rights in toto were Massachusetts, Connecticut and Georgia.
When these three holdouts finally voted for the ratification of the Bill of Rights on the 150th anniversary of the original adoption in 1939, they did so without exception.
Thus this historical set of facts belies your assertion that the original states would never have voted for the 1st Amendment if it banned state sanctioned religion.
The original states ll knew for a fact the 1st Amendment (Article III) banned state sanctioned religion and they all voted for the 1st Amendment as it stands today.
So suck it, Theocrat.
The historical facts prove you’re wrong once again.
rafflaw,
I purposely replaced the “.” with “dot” so he/she can’t copy and paste … make ’em work for it is my motto which I believe is stated somewhere in Article 54 …
Blouise,
You are on a roll!!
Buddha,
I think the response that Tootie needs is to ask here where in the Constitution does it say that the Feds can’t dictate curriculum?