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Louisiana Passes Intelligent Design Law
H0D_G writes "The US state of Louisiana has passed the 'Science Education Act,' a piece of legislation that could allow Intelligent design to be taught in schools. From the article: 'The act is designed to slip ID in "through the back door"'"
Changed his name from Piyush because he was ashamed of his Indian heritage and could never become a politician in the bible belt with that name. Same reason for changing his religion and becoming Cristian from Hindu. Whenever he is asked about his India heritage, he refuses to discuss it (see his recent Q7A on CSPANN) almost as if it is a dirty little embarrassing secret. He never talks about his parents and refuses to be seen with them in public places. There is absolutely nothing wrong in changing your faith, but shunning your parents, historical root and then pretending to be a white guy just to fit in .... Well I guess thats why he is a politician
As a lawyer, i am tired of hearing from the ACLU about separation of church & state. there is no such thing. the supreme court re-defined the 1st amendment which they are not supposed to do or any other judge. the 1st amendment means that the government not be partial. ready to learn some history you won't be taught in public schools?
The supreme court took one passage from Jefferson's Danbury Baptist speech and inserted it into the 1st amendment. whats funny is that Jefferson was not talking about taking religion out of public life. All of what i am about to tell you isn't fake, it's in black and white in your public library and in the library of Congress.
In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the United States Supreme Court was asked to interpret the First Amendment's prohibition on laws "respecting an establishment of religion." In the words of Jefferson, the justices famously declared, the First Amendment "was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and State" "[that] must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach."
Since then, the "wall of separation" has changed meaning...the notion that the First Amendment separated religion and the civil state, thereby mandating a strictly secular polity.
Time to learn some history. the Danbury Baptist letter was a response to John Adams and other Federalist foes who saw him as an outright atheist and once he was elected people vilified him and started worrying that they would be burned at the stake for carrying their Bible or preaching. People saw him as an enemy to religion. In his letter, Jefferson said. "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
Although this letter is thought to a statement of a constitutional relationship between church and state it was in fact a political statement written to reassure pious Baptist constituents that Jefferson was indeed a friend of religion and to strike back at the Federalist Congregationalist establishment in Danbury, Connecticut for shamelessly vilifying him as an infidel and atheist in the recent campaign. Throughout his public career, including two terms as President, he endorsed the use of federal funds to build churches and to support Christian missionaries working among the Indians. The absurd conclusion that the ACLU, judicial courts and the media would have us reach is that Jefferson routinely pursued policies that violated his own wall of separation??? Jefferson's wall, as a matter of federalism, was erected between the national and state governments on matters pertaining to religion and not, more generally, between the church and all civil government.In other words, Jefferson placed the federal government on one side of his wall and state governments and churches on the other.
Jefferson's refusal, as President, to set aside days in the public calendar for religious observances contrasted with his actions in Virginia where, in the late 1770s, he framed a bill for appointing days of public fasting and Thanksgiving and, as governor in 1779, designated a day for public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.
The First Amendment, with all its guarantees, was entirely a check or restraint on civil government, specifically Congress. The free press guarantee, for example, was not written to protect the civil state from the press; rather, it was designed to protect a free and independent press from control by the federal government.
Why this concerns me is because the wall is all too often used to separate religion from public life, thereby
Damnit, Intended to post without karma bonus, not AC.
C.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."