Louisiana State Representative Katrina R. Jackson has a curious take on the religion clauses. Despite contrary Supreme Court precedent under the First Amendment, Jackson is pushing legislation to require students to learn the Lord’s prayer every morning in public schools. Jackson insists that requiring the Lord’s prayer (though students cannot be punished for failing to recite it) is simply a way to get them to appreciate . . . you guessed it . . . religious freedom.
House Bill 660 (known as the “Parental Choice Historical Prayer and Pledge Act”) would “require the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to establish a policy and develop procedures relative to school prayer and the pledge of allegiance.” It further states:
Students shall be reminded that the Lord’s Prayer is the prayer that the pilgrim fathers recited when they came to America in search for freedom.
Students shall be informed that these exercises are not meant to influence an individual’s personal religious beliefs in any manner.
The recitations shall be conducted so that students learn of America’s great freedoms,including the freedom of religion symbolized by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
Having the government require the recitation of a prayer to God is certainly a lesson on religious freedom but one that is taught by the denial of that freedom. Jackson wants public employees to lead children in saying to God “Hallowed be thy Name; Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth; As it is in heaven.” They will also state together that “For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever.”
The effort to require students to recite the Lord’s Prayer (or sit and listen to its daily recitation) is an obvious effort to endorse its religious message. It is not a lesson on freedom of religion. It is a lesson on state-endorsed religion. Once again, if passed, the law would trigger litigation and the expenditure of time and money before it is struck down — in a state that has limited educational funds. Louisiana currently ranks with the worst ranked school systems in the nation with over half of its schools deemed as failing. While that is certainly a good reason for students to pray that they will have any future with a subpar education, it would be better to actually offer education to help them find a job and a future.
On her bio in the state legislature, she is described
She states:
Attorney Jackson attended Lincoln Elementary, Carroll Jr. High school, Carroll High School. She also attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Pre-Law and Legal Studies. . . . In efforts to quench her thirst and longing to help others, Ms. Jackson attended Southern University Law Center and received a Juris Doctor degree in 2004. Ms. Jackson ended her law school career by graduating in the top fourteen percent of her class (18 out of 128). In April 2005, Ms. Jackson was admitted to the Louisiana State Bar Association.
Clearly, the constitutional law classes did not seem to stick on the issue of separation of church and state.
She further states on her bio:
Ms. Jackson attributes her accomplishments to not just having a dream, but having a dream that lines up with God’s plan for her life. She believes her footsteps are ordered by God and everyday Ms. Jackson works to allow God to guide her in the process of realizing her dream. Her family worships at Riverside Missionary Baptist Church in Monroe, LA.
I understand the importance of faith to Ms. Jackson and her insistence that her work as a politician is part of God’s design. However, once again, the insistence on requiring others to recite and/or listen to professions of that faith is the step beyond personal faith to state endorsement. There are many people who are as faithful and devout as Jackson but do not run for office on that claim of faith or try to impose it on others. Indeed, there are many who view the use of faith by politicians to be offensive as they do mandatory recitation of religious prayers in schools. As Justice William Brennan states in his concurrence in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963):
There are persons in every community—often deeply devout—to whom any version of the Judaeo-Christian Bible is offensive. There are others whose reverence for the Holy Scriptures demands private study or reflection and to whom public reading or recitation is sacrilegious…. To such persons it is not the fact of using the Bible in the public schools, nor the content of any particular version, that is offensive, but the manner in which it is used.
Source: Patheos
Perhaps Ms. Jackson and her Louisiana legislative colleagues are unware that the Louisiana Supreme Court in Herold v. Parish Board of School Directors in 1915 declared school sponsored and/or mandated Bible reading and prayer unconstitutional! Suggest they look it up and read that decision.
jackwisdom:
I checked your blog, but of course it contains no entries or even your real name. What a surprise. Your rather spotty knowledge of constitutional history is an appropriate companion to Ms. Jackson’s somewhat spotty commitment to intellectual honesty. Both of you are examples of the importance of freedom of religion and of the remedy of injunction. It is unfortunate, however, that should this laughable bill be enacted (a real possibility in Louisiana), it will be declared facially unconstitutional in short order, and neither you nor Ms. Jackson will have a clue how that decision was reached. Mockery is a sad substitute for knowledge, but I guess you have to go with what you’ve got.
A lot of comments mocking Rep. Jackson. Those mocking comments are more a sign of the times, than a comment about the vision and truth of Rep. Jackson’s legislation. The truth is that it was ok to read the Bible and pray in the public schools until the Supreme Court decision of 1963 as the article states (although there were a few cases leading up to that point). You see the so-called Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was understood, until 1947, to mean that the federal government could not support nor be identified with a particular religious denomination. Tax money could not go to support one particular religion, and the state could not require by law identification with or membership in a particular body as an essential part of being a citizen as was the case in 18th century Great Britain. Loyalty to the King or Queen of England affirmed and required loyalty to the Church of England because, since King Henry VIII, the King or Queen of England was the head of the Church of England as well. By the end of the 17th century, a law was passed that the King or Queen of England could not be a Roman Catholic because that was understood to be a conflict of interest.
The above is the background of why the the First Amendment was included in our Constitution. It was not to prevent unbelievers from ever having to hear a word of Scripture or a prayer in a school or anywhere else, or, as the atheists would wish, never even to hear the word “God” used in any public venue or to appear on our currency.
Thus, I am explaining to the uninformed mockers who have commented on this blog (notice I have diplomatically used the word “uninformed” instead of “ignorant”) that the Lord’s Prayer expressed in public, in school or anyplace else, is consistent with the generic use of the concept or idea of God of the writers of the Constitution. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament was the God at the founding of this country. We were not founded by the “free thinking,” radical, atheistic types of people of the French Revolution with a couple of notable exceptions. The thought of supplanting, suppressing, or stifling public as well as private expressions of faith in the God of the Holy Bible was never entertained and is un-American and spiritually and ethically repulsive to me, and to such dissimilar individuals as Sam Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Witherspoon.
I respond to the mockers by mocking them. Stand on your head boys and girls, because if you look at life upside down from what you are doing right now, you will actually be approaching a more real perspective. Bye for now godless ones. Say a few prayers to Bo Diddly, Jay Z, or Karl Marx. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of peace of mind.
the whirld will come to know a great baptism.
Hmmmm!
it is sew easy that a child will do it.
… go into a small room, close the door, pray for giveness everytime, so GOD will hear what you really have to say for speaking against GOD…
…the world will be covered in filth and false teachings…
… nothing sacred will ever hit the ground… (so I suggest they eat and drink all that they have ate and drank unworthly from GOD)…
…satan will come to know a certain doom.
… why did JESUS allow JOHN to baptize Him…
…(Jesus would never need to be baptized)…
…sew why did JESUS do it.
… scentsTHE BIBLE is writ in for ever in trans-late-shuns people will wonder what the antichrist will say next to avoid the knashing teeth of eternal pain!
… Jesus did know to be careful of what He taught His disciples…
… the church will be told to speak of the true baptism that Jesus spoke of…
… In that small room they will ask for permission to make a movement…
… the antichrist have chosen to crown themselves.
The bible has been contorted more than you know by religions. They act like a little angel hovering with wings being a devious mastermind behind all war. It is the lie about hell that is at the hub of all the lies. Other lies are like spokes to the wheel of death. Gods light is hell to evil. Make hell a place makes lightless people think they give wrath. It makes people in anger say burn in hell. That is Satan fearing Gods light.
another tax year has passed, and GOD was given nothing again. GOD owns every tax, and the tax agents house, home, or cave. the church claims to give the money to GOD. thee antichrists also claimed to know the signs…
…so why does any body claim to have the right to claim patent any genes. is it leave- ” I ” !
…if any mormon had taken office of the president, all the other antichrists doors woould have been kicked in, and all forced to accept the mormon ways. then the world would have really been fucked!
…why do the antichrists still tell people they know the way to GOD when THE HOLY BIBLE SAYS that EWE will hear THE GOSPEL from GODS OWN MOUTH, all over the world, in the blink of MY EYE.
The gospel is in my mouth. People without the Lord are fixating on the signs not on getting ready by knowing Jesus so they can do the good works of him. People obsessing on the signs or what they think are the signs have scared devils in them.
The KJV needs to be taught. Religions are not doing their job. I know the truth in it.
Had Moses seen Jesus when he walked on earth as a carpenter and teacher he would have recognized him as being God who he talked to on Mount Sinai.
Taking Christ’s name in vain is not doing the works of him when people say they represent him.
Gays are not the sodomites.
On top of that people are supposed to judge themselves not condemning others.
Condemners will ignore what is in the KJV intent on a militaristic point of view to do worse to whoever. That is a sodomistic way of thinking.
Genesis 19:9 :And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
The Sodomite is talking in the third person wanting to judge condemn whoever was in Lots house condemning Lot himself. Police are the ones who say stand back when entering a persons house forcibly. Luke 6:37: King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
I see the cub scouts and boy scouts as a stepping stone to the military. that is something to talk about. Whoever wants to kill already has a dead soul giving what the dead soul has. The KJV says do not condemn. God who we do not see is the judge,
Matthew 7:2:For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Romans 14:10;King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
That judgment seat will have light coming from it looking like fire to the wicked that oppress not being like Jesus is.
Religions lied to you about Satan. Had he show up like religions depict would be a laughingstock of the world. People would mock him laughing him to scorn. He is the bright fallen angel Lucifer who fell like lightning given every good thing ,but Lucifer was not satisfied. He wanted more. Satan is in the body that dies getting what he thinks is more. Satan is battling for the mind. He wants to prove people can’t keep loving whoever as yourself.
Had the mind of a child be unaltered by adults giving shame people would be walking nude not giving it a second thought. Self-hatred is slowly and subtly given over time. Words and body language make people call the things people make good calling the other parts junk or indecent or disgusting or obscene. That is not self-hatred? Those parts are part of you like the branches are a part of a tree. Call the parts of a human body those names you might as well past that name-on the whole body.
Sodomites were religious. Read Isaiah 1 KJV. The practices of the sodomites were religious. Ungodly religious people have hidden truth in a book in their own hands. 9 places in KJV says the heart figuratively is to be circumcised not the penis tip at all. Deuteronomy 30:6, Deuteronomy 10:16 ;Jeremiah 4:4, Jeremiah 9:26; Colossians 2:11-15;Acts 7:51;Leviticus 26:41;Romans 2:29, Romans 3, 30, Islamic religious parallels the deceptions of the west. Truth has been hidden in a shroud of darkness.
Religions echo Satan’s concept of hell had Adam, and Eve been allowed to stay in the garden partaking of the tree of life. Earth would have been an ever worsening hell with people not dying feeling pain misery and woe weeping. Wars trying to kill people unsuccessfully. living mountains of bodies grow for billions of years culminating with the expanding sun roasting people. The divine comedy with the air being burned off. People screaming with no sound and then then freeze. God is helpless.
You have not the slightest inkling about Satan. I understands him and God perfectly. Satan is a deceiving, hateful, conniving, froward, high minded liar loving with dissimulation hatting all that God made. He is a murderer in war having people think that things that go boom killing in any way having a person think it saves them. He tries to make each side think they are right silently out of sight watching souls two by two going into his hidden jail that is not hidden from my spiritual eyes.
Religions lied to you about Satan. Had he show up like religions depict would be a laughingstock of the world. People would mock him laughing him to scorn. He is the bright fallen angel Lucifer who fell like lightning given every good thing, but Lucifer was not satisfied. He wanted more. Satan is in the body that dies getting what he thinks is more. Satan is battling for the mind. He wants to prove people can’t keep loving whoever as yourself.
Had the mind of a child be unaltered by adults giving shame people would be walking nude not giving it a second thought. Self-hatred is slowly and subtly given over time. Words and body language make people call the things people make good calling the other parts junk or indecent or disgusting or obscene. That is not self-hatred? Those parts are part of you like the branches are a part of a tree. Call the parts of a human body those names you might as well past that name-on the whole body. •
Religion maintains with a stiff neck that nudity is indecent with God hatting it. KJV says;1 Corinthians: 11, 14Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? 15But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. Hair is covering to a woman. Man with long hair is in the form of a question. That means that the man and woman can have long hair having it as a covering, but what have religons taught influensing oppresive indesency
.Armageddon is described in Rev, 20, KJV. That Battle is not man against man.
Matthew 24 >>
King James Bible
15When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation,
Mark 13:14 : But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains.
That will be Satan looking like a bright angel trying to fool people into thinking he is God.
The devil does not look like religions depict in art.
Sodomites were religious. Read Isaiah 1 KJV. The practices of the sodomites were religious. Ungodly religious people have hidden truth in a book in their own hands. 9 places in KJV says the heart figuratively is to be circumcised not the penis tip at all. Deuteronomy 30:6, Deuteronomy 10:16 ;Jeremiah 4:4, Jeremiah 9:26; Colossians 2:11-15;Acts 7:51;Leviticus 26:41;Romans 2:29, Romans 3, 30, Islamic religious parallels the deceptions of the west. Truth has been hidden in a shroud of darkness.
Religions echo Satan’s concept of hell had Adam, and Eve been allowed to stay in the garden partaking of the tree of life. Earth would have been an ever worsening hell with people not dying feeling pain misery and woe weeping. Wars trying to kill people unsuccessfully. Living mountains of bodies grow for billions of years culminating with the expanding sun roasting people. The divine comedy with the air being burned off. People screaming with no sound and then then freeze. God is helpless.
• Hell is Gods glory to evil darkness. People choose who they want to serve. Do evil arresting, accusing, condemning, being a malicious conniving hateful liar thinking you are crafty to hurt people or hoarding riches thinking it will save you, and warring putting people down persecuting them, and putting people in hand cuffs, and jailing, stoning, hanging them thinking that doing that, and making laws against them being merciless makes you better will see Gods light not as a friendly thing = hell.
Religions encourage warring against many. zoosexual being one. Religions needs to change. All sex is one beast to another. People eat, drink, poop, piss, eukaryote cells, physiologically, biologically, scientifically, chemically, microscopically, fight flight, territorial instincts fences, no trespass signs. KJV, Ecc 3;18-20. Argument against the zoo have holes big enough to drive a galaxy thorough. The mentality against the zoosexual has the same spirit religious people had against Jesus.
Religions misinformed us about what the word defiled, abominable, perverted, and naughty meant fueling a persecuting fire. James:1 20 – 21, Pro: 6:12, Pro: 17: 4, Jer: 24,2, Sam: 17,28, zero about sex or nudity. Pro: 17:23, Pro: 15 4, Job 6 – 30, Pro: 12 -8, Isa: 30 -12, 1 Tim: 6 -5, Deut: 16 -19, Job 8 -3, Jer: 23 -36, Gal: 1 -7, Ecc:, 5 -8, Mic: 3 -9, Pro: 19 1, Pro: 4 24, Pro: 3, 32, Pro: 12; 22, Pro: 20 :10, Pro: 6;16, Heb: 12:15: Isa: 59 -3, Mat: 15 – 11, Mark, 7 – 15, Mark 13:14.
Religions encourage warring against many, zoosexual being one. Religions needs to change. All sex is one beast to another. People eat, drink, poop, piss, eukaryote cells, physiologically, biologically, scientifically, chemically, microscopically, fight flight, territorial instincts fences, no trespass signs. KJV, Ecc 3;18-20. Argument against the zoo have holes big enough to drive a galaxy thorough. The mentality against the zoosexual has the same spirit religious people had against Jesus.
Religions misinformed us about what the word defiled, abominable, perverted, and naughty meant fueling a persecuting fire. James:1 20 – 21, Pro: 6:12, Pro: 17: 4, Jer: 24,2, Sam: 17,28, zero about sex or nudity. Pro: 17:23, Pro: 15 4, Job 6 – 30, Pro: 12 -8, Isa: 30 -12, 1 Tim: 6 -5, Deut: 16 -19, Job 8 -3, Jer: 23 -36, Gal: 1 -7, Ecc:, 5 -8, Mic: 3 -9, Pro: 19 1, Pro: 4 24, Pro: 3, 32, Pro: 12; 22, Pro: 20 :10, Pro: 6;16, Heb: 12:15: Isa: 59 -3, Mat: 15 – 11, Mark, 7 – 15, Mark 13:14.
I think Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes nailed the whole “official religion” thing when he said: “Controversy equalizes wise men and fools alike — and the fools know it.” So as the prayer-in-public-school charlatans love to say: “Teach the Controversy!”
According to Louis Menand in The Metaphysical Club, Justice Holmes also had to disagree with his great friend William James’ religious views since “He thought that James had made scientific uncertainty an excuse for believing in an unseen world. ‘His wishes made him turn down the lights so as to give miracle a chance.'”
Once the lady-fool-politico-theologian manages to turn down the lights of inquiry in the public schools, she can then proudly look at the intellectual darkness and call it a “miracle.” (Saves the city school district having to pay the electricity bill, too.)
As my dear departed mother used to say about people “testifying” to others about their own religion: “If you’ve got something good, you don’t have to sell it. Other people will steal it from you.” The implied corollary to that wise aphorism, naturally, translates to: “If you’ve got to try to sell it to others, then you obviously have no confidence in it yourself.”
As Charles Sanders Peirce put it:
In view of the above observations, then, I would not use the word “intelligent” in reference to the erstwhile lady politico-theologian. Rather, “cunning,” “calculating,” and “cynical,” for example, seem far more appropriate and germane to me.
How could anyone here say there is “no doubt” this woman is intelligent?? White guilt! There are plenty of dumb black, white, brown folks. Of course, all the Asians are smart. Just based on what was presented here I would put my money on this woman being dumber than a box of rocks.
People do not know what prayer is. You do not know what prayer is. Muslims do not know what prayer is. Prayer to be heard of men is not prayer. It is to get the praise of people. Have it obtain the praise of men is not of God. Who then can it be from? Satan is a terrorist.
Why do I get the feeling that she’s one of those people that will argue that “religious Freedom” means that you get to choose whichever Christian sect you want.
Religion that takes Christs name sullying his name is in no way connected to freedom. I teach the truth turning rteligons on their ear to correct them or destroy them. Before me religions will not stand.
Sodomites were religious. Read Isaiah 1 KJV. The practices of the sodomites were religious. Ungodly religious people have hidden truth in a book in their own hands. 9 places in KJV says the heart figuratively is to be circumcised not the penis tip at all. Deuteronomy 30:6, Deuteronomy 10:16 ;Jeremiah 4:4, Jeremiah 9:26; Colossians 2:11-15;Acts 7:51;Leviticus 26:41;Romans 2:29, Romans 3, 30, Islamic religious parallels the deceptions of the west. Truth has been hidden in a shroud of darkness.
Religions echo Satan’s concept of hell had Adam, and Eve been allowed to stay in the garden partaking of the tree of life. Earth would have been an ever worsening hell with people not dying feeling pain misery and woe weeping. Wars trying to kill people unsuccessfully. living mountains of bodies grow for billions of years culminating with the expanding sun roasting people. The divine comedy with the air being burned off. People screaming with no sound and then then freeze. God is helpless.
· in reply to JustHoseItOff (Show the comment)
Religions encourage warring against many. zoosexual being one. Religions needs to change. All sex is one beast to another. People eat, drink, poop, piss, eukaryote cells, physiologically, biologically, scientifically, chemically, microscopically, fight flight, territorial instincts fences, no trespass signs. KJV, Ecc 3;18-20. Argument against the zoo have holes big enough to drive a galaxy thorough. The mentality against the zoosexual has the same spirit religious people had against Jesus.·
Religions misinformed us about what the word defiled, abominable, perverted, and naughty meant fueling a persecuting fire. James:1 20 – 21, Pro: 6:12, Pro: 17: 4, Jer: 24,2, Sam: 17,28, zero about sex or nudity. Pro: 17:23, Pro: 15 4, Job 6 – 30, Pro: 12 -8, Isa: 30 -12, 1 Tim: 6 -5, Deut: 16 -19, Job 8 -3, Jer: 23 -36, Gal: 1 -7, Ecc:, 5 -8, Mic: 3 -9, Pro: 19 1, Pro: 4 24, Pro: 3, 32, Pro: 12; 22, Pro: 20 :10, Pro: 6;16, Heb: 12:15: Isa: 59 -3, Mat: 15 – 11, Mark, 7 – 15, Mark 13:14.
Elaine,
Old time religion trumps any civil laws in her mind.
As Gene H. noted in one of the threads on blasphemy laws, so-called “religion” means nothing other than the disguised attempt by one group of men and women to control the behavior of other men and women. “Freedom” has absolutely nothing to do with the totalitarian desire to limit, constrain, subdue, and punish others for any possible transgression against the official privileged orthodoxy. In fact, the term “religious freedom” itself constitutes an oxymoron.
I can remember when the Eisenhower/McCarthy Republicans drove religious prayer into the public schools during my elementary school days in the 1950s. Our teachers told us that we didn’t have to recite the offensive new religious prepositional phrase — key offensive word: “under” — if we didn’t want to. Yet as George Orwell said about the mandatory Two Minutes Hate in 1984:
I suggest that we just get this group self-hypnosis thing out into the open where all can see and memorize the real totalitarian issue: namely, non-thought as America’s highest educational aspiration. For my part I offer:
There. I think that about covers it. Recite that, America. Do something interesting and creative for a change.