(continued from yesterday)

First, the same clause that prohibits Congress from making any law to establish a religion, provides that Congress shall “make no law…prohibiting the free exercise of [religion].”  Those courts which have held that the so called “establishment clause” prohibits public display of religious symbols, ignore the fact that the courts’ very decisions prohibit the majority from freely exercising their religion in public places which are funded by public dollars.

When a school board prohibits the symbols of Christmas, it prohibits the free exercise of religion by the vast majority of its students, teachers and citizens.  It cannot constitutionally prohibit the placement of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or Muslim symbols if in fact students, teachers and citizens desire the placement in order to express their religious beliefs in the learning atmosphere of the schools.  The placement of Native American symbols cannot be stopped constitutionally either, because the Tribes’ symbols have religious significance.

When a City or County elected council or Board prohibits placement of religious symbols on public grounds or in public buildings, it violates the express constitutional provision respecting the interference with free exercise of religion.  Any county that tells an employee not to place a biblical quotation on his desk, or on his email, because it is “unconstitutional” is guilty of unconstitutional violation of the employee’s rights. 

The second clause that is violated is that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”.  How can any rational person suggest that to prohibit teachers and students from setting up religious symbols at appropriate seasons of the year is not to “abridge” their freedom of speech.  The symbol is in fact a measure of speech, of conveying a message through visual communication.  How can a school board justify eliminating the reading of the Bible, old and new testament, in school class rooms---reading the Bible is an expression of speech, and we were told by the Framers that the government shall not “abridge” the freedom to speak in any manner.

Even more fundamentally, if the public, the citizens, overwhelmingly support placement of a religious symbol on public grounds or in public buildings, it is expressing its right to speak.  Any action by local government, state government, federal government, or court of any kind, to abridge the right to utter that speech through visual communication blatantly violates the First Amendment, and therefore also the Fourth.

So, back to the question as to why we in the majority sit back and let the moaners control the display of our religion and our speech?  I believe the answer is apathy brought about by years of passive submission.  We are told by our local government and state government elected and appointed officials that it will be “too costly to litigate” claims brought by the minority.  And, we accept that pathetic excuse. 

When did it become acceptable to forsake our public rights because it is “too costly” to defend them?  If the “cost” angle is an excuse for giving up our rights, then why pay for police protection, for fire protection, for border protection, for the entire court system itself?   How can we defend actions in Iraq and Afghanistan (as I suspect most local elected officials at least through the western states do) if “cost” is the determinative factor?

In fact, we in the majority are busy making our livings to pay taxes, and when we can afford it, send our children to private or parochial schools where the minority does not make the rules. We accept the weak excuses of our elected officials because it is more convenient to do so than to stand up and begin to roar.  Our roar would be greater because we strongly outnumber the minority.

Well, we near a new year.  Will we go ahead as in the past decades and blithely watch our rights continually violated------and then complain about it?  Or will we decide that it is time to take our cases to the school boards, to the city councils, to the county commissioner boards, and make our legal argument from the positive standpoint------and then be prepared to pursue it into the courts from a positive and proactive position?

Then, if our elected officials will not listen, will we take the time to find candidates to run against them----at every level, school boards, mayors, city councils, county boards, and all other elected officials who exercise control over public property and buildings.

I called earlier for commitment.  I started during the past year.  When I administer the oath in a hearing, I end the oath with the historically traditional  “so help you God”.

  I keep in mind that when the Justices of the United States Supreme Court which created the “establishment” farce take the bench, the last words uttered by the Court Crier is “God Save the Members of This Honorable Court.”  Ironic isn’t it, that the Justices who have proclaimed that religious symbols cannot be provided for the public do not hesitate to seek the protection of God as they sit.  Ironic that the president of the United States can say “God Bless America” in a speech to a Joint Session of Congress, but if a teacher were to say that, some “politically correct” member of the minority would raise cain.

Every member of the majority can make commitment this year to take back the observance of our heritage.  Alone, and in coalition with neighbors and friends, make your views known to elected officials. 

Contribute to organizations willing to challenge the “politically correct” status in litigation.  Join with members of those organizations who go to meetings of elected officials and demand that they take a stand against the “politically correct” removal of our public rights.

Join in efforts to find candidates who share your views and then help them seek election.

Be courageous and write letters to the editors, and write comments to blogs, and comments to the news outlets that will run them to help fill up the 24/7 news voids.  I say “courageous” because the minority will ridicule you---they will attempt to intimidate you with replies which make it seem that you are out of step with modern America.  Remember that you are not out of step---you are just out of step with the minority view.  But, also remember that even if you are out of step----so were the dedicated and courageous men who drafted our Constitution.

I plan to contribute this year to  organizations which have led the movement to restore our public rights---at least to those organizations which have shown propensity for taking action, rather than just proclaim outrage.   I will contribute in many ways---financially, and in writings urging them to focus their efforts, their strength of organization, on the elected officials who allow and cause the abridgement of free speech and the free exercise of religion.

Keep in mind the language of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as it is written, not as interpreted and re-written by the courts:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to  petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Think it might be time to “petition” your local government for “a redress of grievances”?  As you undertake whatever you do, keep in mind the phrase that captured the majority of Americans in the last election: “Yes, we can.”

Quotation of the Day:  “We must not, in trying to think about how to make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee”

Marian Wright Edelman  

  (born in  Bennetsville, South Carolina; graduate of Yale Law School; first Afro American woman admitted to practice law in Mississippi; founded the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973 dedicated to providing advocacy for endangered children; funded the Center only with private funds to keep it independent of government  strings.)

DURING THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON,  WE IN THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS MUST COMMIT TO A CRUSADE TO RECLAIM OUR CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOMS

Every Christmas for the past two decades, I have resented the fact that the freedom of public expression of religious belief and historic heritage is denied.  I am a member of the majority of Americans who believe that Christmas displays should be allowed on public grounds and in public buildings (including schools and class rooms), and that “God” should appear in our national symbols and in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Since the days when our Supreme Court first decided to re-write the First Amendment which prohibits any Congressional act that establishes a state religion, a squealing minority has had its way with the Courts, and with elected officials who lack the temerity to stand strong against them.  As a result, there are no Christmas displays at courthouses, city halls, or schools.  “Merry Christmas” has been abandoned in some chain stores in favor of the “politically correct” “happy holidays”.  “Politically correct”.  That is a phrase that mystifies me.  If the majority of Americans favor recognizing the birth of Christ at Christmas, how is it “politically correct” to prohibit such recognitions—even in greetings.

Probably it is “politically correct” because every politician knows that the whining minority organizations will give more money in campaign contributions than will the common, ordinary citizens in the majority who aren’t represented by special interest organizations.  And, they know that the minority organizations will fund litigation aimed at obtaining decisions from judges who either haven’t taken the time to fully compare the precedents with the language of the First Amendment, or who harbor a bias against the religious and historical beliefs of the majority, or who don’t have the nerve to step out and independently analyze the Amendment.

It could not be “politically correct” if we in the majority took back our nation.

I take this time to issue a call for commitment.  The hurry and scurry is over.  Families are recovering from the hustle and stress of getting ready for Christmas.  And, as in every other year of my adult life, I hope that the message of Christmas was not mostly lost.  Understand, I don’t buy the argument that commercialism destroys the meaning of Christmas.  I fully believe, as I always have, that one can buy presents for his or her loved ones without losing the message of Christmas.

At Christmas Eve Mass, as I enjoyed hope and cheer in the songs of a school choir, it occurred to me that fundamental to the message of Christmas, as I see it,  is that it is the birth of Light.  The Light that came to end the darkness of centuries of waiting.  The Light that came when God gave to the world His Son---so that any who believe and follow will have the faith to survive all that life can serve up.

Later on Christmas Eve, alone with my Boxers, I watched a movie which depicted a Mass where all the parishioners entered the church with a lighted candle.  The only light in the church was from the candles.  Then, when the readings reached the Birth, the lights came on---the birth of Light.

Even for my Jewish friends, it should be a time to celebrate Light---not only through the candles of Hannuka, but through the Light surrounding the Christ.  He came at least as a great prophet to them, a prophet whose words were spread throughout the land of the Jews and have been retained for two thousand years.

What have we done to keep that Light burning?   In this nation, born of faith, we have allowed the Light to be reduced to a second rate status.  

It is beyond dispute that God, and faith in God, was terribly important to our Founders---not only the uncommonly wise men who wrote the Declaration, Articles of Confederation and Constitution---but the vast majority of the colonists who became Americans.  God was worshipped in many ways---by Quakers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans and other denominations who sought religious freedom on these shores---BUT, GOD WAS WORSHIPPED.  

He was called on for guidance and assistance during the most trying of those early days---and the evidence is in the Journals relating to the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention, and the state legislatures and town meetings.  The evidence is perhaps most persuasive when found, as it is, in documents of common usage, where the authors were not writing for public consumption:  deeds, wills, warrants, tax notices and other regular day business documents.

We have allowed the cynics, the nay-sayers, the fringe element to remove the Light from our public life.  We have allowed God and His Son to be removed from public buildings, public ceremonies, public grounds, our schools, our police stations, our fire stations, our courthouses and a most important type of public buildings—our libraries.  Those who complain most about our Republic and its governmental style, use that very government to oppose the majority. Every statistical poll shows that a majority of Americans favor leaving religious symbols in our public life, favor leaving “God” in our symbols of authority such as currency, and favor leaving “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Now, before moving on, let me make it clear that I don’t for one minute believe that eliminating a Bible reading to begin classes destroys religion, or undermines the quality of teaching.  I did not gain my faith from the class room reading of the Bible.  I know that the reading was used as a means of settling the class to its work of the day.  My faith came from my home and from the Church.  But, I did attain knowledge of great worth from the teaching of religion which is at the core of our national history, and at the core of the history of the Anglo Saxon peoples who founded this nation.  And, that is in fact an important part of the learning experience which is denied to the public school students today.

What  the majority wants is lost to the roaring minority.  Why?  Because the minority does roar, and whine, and whimper.  They rail at us, and they use the mechanisms provided by our Republic to prevent us from worshiping and believing as our ancestors have through the more than two centuries since the settlement of our colonies.

How does a manger scene on a courthouse grounds deprive anyone of freedom from establishment of a religion?  The majority has been so brainwashed and beaten into passive submission by a string of empty-headed court decisions that we have forgotten what the Constitution really does protect.  There is nothing in the First Amendment (made applicable to the states and local governments by the Fourteenth Amendment) that forbids the placement of a manger scene at a courthouse, or a plaque with the Ten Commandments on a courthouse wall, or a scene of Moses leading the Israelites from Egypt in a public school room.  There is nothing in that Amendment that forbids the singing of Silent Night at a public school Christmas program, or a sign proclaiming Shalom in the public school lunchroom.

What the First Amendment actually says is that the “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

The word “establish” is a common word, and the courts have always told us that a word of common usage should be defined and read as it is commonly defined.  Merriam-Webster defines “establish” as “execute (as in law) permanently by enactment or agreement”.  This definition certainly includes what the Framers intended with the language prohibiting Congress from executing in law, enactment into law or agreeing into law, an establishment of a state religion.  Any half-way reasonable student of our history knows this, and knows why the prohibition was placed in the Amendment:  to prevent the central government from “establishing” by law any one religion as a State Religion.

When an ultra left opponent of religion brings action in a United States District Court or even a misled state court to prohibit some expression of religious history, what act of Congress is cited as being unconstitutional?  None.  The citations of authority are case decisions by the United States Supreme Court and lower courts which have never spent the time to compare those precedents with the actual language of the Amendment and then distinguish the precedents.

 Not a single manger scene, or Ten Commandments plaque, or seal proclaiming In God We Trust, has been enjoined by a court during the past two decades on the basis that an act of Congress has attempted to establish a religion.

Yet, the majority stands  by and allows the roaring, whining, scheming, haranguing minority mislead thoughtless judges into following a series of precedents which in themselves violate the Constitution.

How do I say that the precedents are unconstitutional?  With great ease.  The rest of the First Amendment contains a couple of clauses rarely, if ever, used in the so called “establishment of religion” cases.  When you read those clauses, and analyze them, you will know, as Paul Harvey says, “the rest of the story.” 

[Tomorrow, we continue with the specific language of the First Amendment, and how that language would protect the rights of the majority, if applied correctly and reasonably.]