1st Amendment 'doesn't create church-state wall of separation'
Court whacks civil-liberties group, OKs Ten Commandments display
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48006
December 20, 2005
A U.S. appeals court today upheld the decision of a lower court in allowing
the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse display, hammering the
American Civil Liberties Union and declaring, "The First Amendment does not
demand a wall of separation between church and state."
Attorneys from the American Center for Law and Justice successfully argued
the case on behalf of Mercer County, Ky., and a display of historical
documents placed in the county courthouse. The panel voted 3-0 to reject the
ACLU's contention the display violated the Establishment Clause of the
Constitution.
The county display the ACLU sued over included the Ten Commandments, the
Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the
Star Spangled Banner, the national motto, the preamble to the Kentucky
Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the U. S. Constitution and a picture of
Lady Justice.
Writing for the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Richard Suhrheinrich
said the ACLU's "repeated reference 'to the separation of church and state'
... has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of
separation between church and state."
Suhrheinrich wrote: "The ACLU, an organization whose mission is 'to ensure
that ... the government [is kept] out of the religion business,' does not
embody the reasonable person."
The court said a reasonable observer of Mercer County's display appreciates
"the role religion has played in our governmental institutions, and finds it
historically appropriate and traditionally acceptable for a state to include
religious influences, even in the form of sacred texts, in honoring American
traditions."
Francis J. Manion, counsel for the ACLJ, argued the case before both the 6th
Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
"This is a big victory for the people of Mercer County and Kentucky
generally," Manion said. "For too long they have been lectured like children
by those in the ACLU and elsewhere who claim to know what the people's
Constitution really means. What the 6th Circuit has said is that the people
have a better grasp on the real meaning of the Constitution; the court
recognizes that the Constitution does not require that we strip the public
square of all vestiges of our religious heritage and traditions."
[ed. ...or that the void is filled with the Secular-Marxist religion...]
--
Jim
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Western_Nationalist
Unite Against Multiculty
"Abolish Multiculty and String Up The Traitors!"
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220901. 1st Amendment 'doesn't create church-state wall of separation'
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