A look at the recent decision that declared the federal law establish the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. NB: Sorry about my mistakenly listing 1956 as the date the Pledge of Allegiance was amended. A stupid error. Links: 1. Freedom from Religion Foundation, et al. v. Obama and Gibbs www.wiwd.uscourts.gov 2. The National Day of Prayer Task Forces website nationaldayofprayer.org 3. Federalist #78 www.constitution.org 4. Lemon v. Kurtzman scholar.google.com 5. Part 2 of this video www.youtube.com 6. For a classic example of the ignorance of constitutional law that “informs” opposition to this ruling, have a look at the following video by a YouTuber who calls himself TheMoralNation: www.youtube.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5
gravekeepersven
March 25, 2011 at 6:26 pm
@ProfMTH That is what i see could theoretically happening if this nation becomes a christian nation.
ProfMTH
March 25, 2011 at 6:51 pm
@gravekeepersven “Forced national day of prayer”?
gravekeepersven
March 25, 2011 at 7:02 pm
The whole forced national day of prayer just screams Sadomachisim on subconcious level! Forced mental slavery and a forced my religious bullshit down your throat against your will! Sounds like the same idoits who believe god raping mary was an ok thing!
beamla
March 25, 2011 at 7:11 pm
@theguywhohadabone123 The objection is that government should not be involved in religion. It’s not an objection to prayer itself or religion. Why not have a national day of prayer that is just organized by religious leaders themselves? It would be exactly the same and people could pray but not involve government. Plus it might be a nice exercise in inter-faith discussions.
ProfMTH
March 25, 2011 at 8:02 pm
@6ganey9 …Amendment, not whether it’s a step in the direction of a future violation. Again, the “downward thrust” bit was about purportedly small violations of the Establishment Clause that form a body of precedents that support more significant violations in future.
ProfMTH
March 25, 2011 at 8:36 pm
@6ganey9 With respect to Prop 8, I encourage you to read Justice Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, where he argues that the Court, in striking down as unconstitutional laws prohibiting oral and anal sex between consenting adults, had established a precedent for the Court to rule at some time later that the Constitution requires the legal right to marry to be extended to same-sex couples. As to your second hypothetical, the issue would have to be whether the ban *does* violate the 2nd…
6ganey9
March 25, 2011 at 9:18 pm
@ProfMTH if and when California’s prop 8 case comes before the supreme court do you think the “usual suspects” there will include slippery slope arguments in their opinions (presumably) supporting the original law? if so do you think this is intellectually consistent with the “bad precedent” language in lemon? if this is a poor example, say a locality has banned extended ammo clips? could a scalia, using lemon reasoning, rightly argue this is a step towards infringement of 2cd amendment rights?
ProfMTH
March 25, 2011 at 9:23 pm
@6ganey9 The interpretation of American constitutional law relies in large part on precedent. Moreover, judicial interpretations of the Constitution are extremely difficult to reverse: either the Court has to overrule itself or the Constituion has to be amended. Therefore when judges interpret the Constitution, they must, among other things, be mindful of the precedent they are establishing for future cases. This has nothing to do with the “slippery slope” fallacy.
6ganey9
March 25, 2011 at 9:40 pm
@ProfMTH i have no use for the national day of prayer but lemon v kurtzman uses, at least in part, the “slippery slope” argument, which i’ve seen categorized in logic as a fallacy of presumption. the opinion’s section you quoted actually includes the phrase “downhill thrust”! how is kurtzman’s reasoning different, if at all, from say that of gay marriage opponents (“it will lead to polygamy”), or second amendment zealots (“limiting clips is the first step to banning guns”)? ciao.
TJ5897
March 25, 2011 at 10:32 pm
@theguywhohadabone123 You don’t seem to understand this do you? What if we do not want to kneel down and and think to our self I mean pray Atheists have no one to pray to this is why this law is not constitutional
chgosatrap
March 25, 2011 at 11:04 pm
I don’t want the government in my bed or my bible.
V45Rider
March 25, 2011 at 11:54 pm
@theguywhohadabone123 Why do religious people CONSTANTLY need to make their praying and worship a public thing? If you’re delusional enough to believe in god, do it at home, and leave the REST of the NATION out of it.Religion is like your penis, don’t show it in public and don’t shove it down little kids throats! If there were a god, it would be an atheist.It wouldn’t be STUPID enough to believe in a higher power, now would it? And why create a nation of obese sheep? For fun? Yikes, WTFU!!
ProfMTH
March 26, 2011 at 12:17 am
@theguywhohadabone123 “Its national day of prayer it didnt say national prayer of day to Jesus you can pray to any God you want to so whats the big fuss over it”
The only fuss is the government’s getting involved. You’re totally right: people can pray whenever and to whomever they want, if they want to pray at all. They don’t need the government involved.
theguywhohadabone123
March 26, 2011 at 1:10 am
Its national day of prayer it didnt say national prayer of day to Jesus you can pray to any God you want to so whats the big fuss over it, I feel that its pointless to ban a national day of prayer becuase everyone is free to pray or not pray or pray to who ever they wanna pray to if they choose to pray…….
Dracopol
March 26, 2011 at 1:19 am
@Baby6att The first Muslim call to prayer was using a Black slave. “Call the prayer,” they told him, and he had no more choice of what to do or not do than a cuckoo coming out of a cuckoo-clock.
creepyoldman2
March 26, 2011 at 2:06 am
@Baby6att it is government endorsed religion. thats why.
creepyoldman2
March 26, 2011 at 2:27 am
@Dracopol fucking racist.
ProfMTH
March 26, 2011 at 2:28 am
@Dracopol “I’m saying quite flatly that MAYBE Segregation wasn’t such a bad thing.”
And I’ll say quite flatly that only an idiot and a bigot would make such a claim.
Dracopol
March 26, 2011 at 2:32 am
@ProfMTH I’m saying quite flatly that MAYBE Segregation wasn’t such a bad thing. After it stopped there were 25 MILLION White victims of “civil rights” crimes: murders, robberies and rapes that wouldn’t have happened if we had just kept the screws on Blacks.
ProfMTH
March 26, 2011 at 3:27 am
@Dracopol What the fuck are you talking about?
Dracopol
March 26, 2011 at 3:47 am
9:21 It’s hard to see where the precipice lies. Sort of like with Integration, the opposite of Segregation. Twice he sneers at Segregationists, but now we have rap music and 12% of the population committing 60% of the crimes, and our own kids are following in Black footsteps because Blacks overwhelm the employment in the educational system. Time to bottle up the destructive genie again. There’s no up-side.
Baby6att
March 26, 2011 at 4:09 am
@Trailslayer well it’s another right we as american citizens have called ‘freedom of speech’. we should be able to talk about our God and have our prayer day without ‘offending’ people. it shouldn’t even be offensive if you don’t believe in it in the first place. if you don’t believe in God why is it offensive first of all ?
Trailslayer
March 26, 2011 at 4:56 am
@Baby6att “God” being there at all is unconstitutional, you can still believe in God but flaunting your God in the face of everyone else is not and should never be tolerated.
ProfMTH
March 26, 2011 at 5:19 am
@Baby6att Christians can have every day of the year as a prayer day if they like. They don’t need the government involved.
Baby6att
March 26, 2011 at 5:24 am
although removing it won’t make us not be able to pray, but we’re heading in that direction, they keep removing God from everything little by little. but Islams want a mosque for their prayer and they have the bell or whatever it is to let them know when to pray, why can’t the Christians have their prayer day? it’s only fair.