Spiraling Towards The Abyss Courtesy of the Supreme Court

by LostinLiberalLand

Before I begin let me state for the record, I am not a member of the religious right, I'm not an evangelical Christian. I do believe in God and Jesus Christ. I attend a Presbyterian church 15-20 times a year. I swear too much, I've been known to laugh at or tell an off color joke. I watch R rated movies. I used to drink and smoke. I've known women in a biblical way without the benefit of marriage. What I'm trying to say is that I'm an average American. I don't want religion controlling the government, but I fear for my country and therefore I must speak out.

Most conservatives would respond "Roe vs. Wade", if asked to declare the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court. I would respond differently as I believe the worst decision ever made by the Court is "Everson vs. Board of Education" authored by Justice Hugo Black in 1947. While Roe has allowed the destruction of untold numbers of unborn children a tragedy of epic proportions, Everson has ever so subtly resulted in the destruction of the very foundation of this country and I fear if it is not overturned the days of our country's very existence are numbered.

You may be asking what is this decision? How could it be worse than Roe? How could anything be worse than the destruction of life? Before I answer let me ask you to respond to these questions. Do you believe the Constitution says there is a wall between church and state? Do you believe the authors of the Constitution intended that there be a wall even if they didn't state it in the Constitution? Do you believe that the first ten words of The Bill of Rights "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" was intended to apply to all levels of government? If you answered yes to all of these questions you are probably in agreement with most Americans who have read newspapers, watched TV news and gone to school in the last 30-40 years. You would also be incorrect on all accounts. By spending three hours reading "Ten Tortured Words" by Stephen Mansfield (which I highly recommend) and doing a little research in The Heritage Guide To The Constitution I was able to ascertain the real intent of the framers.

Justice Black in his landmark decision chose one letter out of volumes written by Thomas Jefferson, misconstrued what Jefferson was saying and then used it to write a tortured decision. There are several things that are at the very least ironic and almost criminal about his decision and the logic he used. The Jefferson letter he used to base his decision on was written 15 years after the Bill Of Rights was authored. Jefferson was not party to the crafting of the Bill of Rights. He was in Paris at the time. The day after Jefferson wrote the letter in question he attended church services held in The Capital Building, a practice that went on for decades to standing room only crowds. Most confusing of all is that after using twisted history to establish this imaginary wall between church and state Black went on to determine that in the case at hand the wall had not been violated.

The Establishment Clause was only meant to apply to the federal government. What the writers feared was the establishment of a "State Religion" in this case state meaning federal. They did not want Congress to be able to dictate a national religion used to oppress people as was in the case in England. At the time the Bill of Rights was crafted several states had official state religions which the states supported. The states slowly dropped these official religions as time passed, but at the time of the drafting and enactment of the Bill Of Rights it was perfectly acceptable for the states to incorporate these religions into their constitutions and governments.

Quote after quote, letter after letter, speech after speech indicate that almost without exception, to a man the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights all believed that God granted us certain rights as humans and the religions that helped people worship that God needed to be included as an important part of this nations foundation and involved in all future debates of the issues that the country would face. It was their firm belief that without such an inclusion that the nation would not stand.

Here we are some two hundred plus years later. God has basically been wiped out of the public square. My question to you is: How long can we last once the soul, the backbone, the foundation of our country is completely gone?

I will write about what has happened since 1947 and the consequences in pt two of this piece.