JSO: Is This Unconstititional?

[kalm]

"Liberty" Counsel certainly thinks so. Aren't they one of the top law schools in the nation?

State of Kentucky Forbids Pastors Calling Homosexuality ‘Sinful’
— 25 July, 2015

The state of Kentucky has begun imposing a religious test on volunteer pastor counselors in its youth division, insisting that they refrain from calling homosexuality “sinful” and dismissing those who cannot bend their religious faith to accommodate the state requirements. The policy was uncovered by Liberty Counsel, which has sent a letter to Bob Hayter, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, demanding that the state religious test be dropped and that a dismissed counselor be reinstated.

“Liberty Counsel writes regarding the blatantly unconstitutional revocation of volunteer prison minister status of ordained Christian minister David Wells, who has provided voluntary spiritual counseling and mentorship to juvenile inmates under the control of the Department of Juvenile Justice. … This revocation was issued by Warren County Regional Juvenile Detention Center on the basis of the April 4, 2014, DJJ Policy 912, which mandates full DJJ support of homosexuality and transvestism.

“With no evidence of any violation of DJJ policy on Mr. Wells’ part, his volunteer status was revoked by the Warren RJDC superintendent because he could not sign a state-mandated statement that homosexuality was not ‘sinful,’ among other things,” the letter said. The policy states that DJJ staff, volunteers and others “shall not imply or tell LGBTQI juveniles that they are abnormal, deviant, sinful or that they can or should change their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

http://endtimeheadlines.org/2015/07/sta ... ty-sinful/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CID1990]

Wait... the state is employing (allowing them to volunteer) these pastors?

Seems to me the state can do what it wants if it is a state organization, but the pastors arent being compelled to volunteer... so no, not unconstitutional - but maybe a tad hypocritical- the government dictating religious conviction

now, if the state tried to regulate what pastors were preaching on their own time and not as a part of any government counseling program then that would be a problem

[JohnStOnge]

No I don't think it is. I think it's sad but I don't think there's anything in the Constitution that prohibits a State from establishing criteria for people who are going to be allowed to counsel prisoners. Also, the first Amendment does not apply to States at all. It explicitly governs laws passed by the Congress of the United States. I do not agree with the "interpretation" that the 14th Amendment really causes every aspect of the original restriction on US Congress to apply to States.

Of course that means I also do not think things like prayer in public school is really unconstitutional. It's not really prohibited by the Constitution. It's another one of those edicts imposed by the Judicial Oligarchy.

[houndawg]

No I don't think it is. I think it's sad but I don't think there's anything in the Constitution that prohibits a State from establishing criteria for people who are going to be allowed to counsel prisoners. Also, the first Amendment does not apply to States at all. It explicitly governs laws passed by the Congress of the United States. I do not agree with the "interpretation" that the 14th Amendment really causes every aspect of the original restriction on US Congress to apply to States.

Of course that means I also do not think things like prayer in public school is really unconstitutional. It's not really prohibited by the Constitution. It's another one of those edicts imposed by the Judicial Oligarchy.

The only reason to want prayer in school is because you're an asshole who just likes to annoy people.

[SuperHornet]

That phrase "prayer in public school" isn't exactly what it seems. There will ALWAYS be prayer in schools, public, private, or whatever. And that will be the case as long as there are tests.

What people actually MEAN, of course, is administrator- or teacher-led prayer. Why not just come out and say so? You can't just shut down a kid praying over his/her meal or for divine help prior to a test. That WOULD be an unconstitutional violation of a kid's freedom of exercise of religion.

[Ibanez]

That phrase "prayer in public school" isn't exactly what it seems. There will ALWAYS be prayer in schools, public, private, or whatever. And that will be the case as long as there are tests.

What people actually MEAN, of course, is administrator- or teacher-led prayer. Why not just come out and say so? You can't just shut down a kid praying over his/her meal or for divine help prior to a test. That WOULD be an unconstitutional violation of a kid's freedom of exercise of religion.

Right. Every child has the right to quietly pray before/after school, during lunch, etc... whenever. However, the administration has to right to force children to pray and if they are, they better do a prayer from every single religion represented in that classroom.


But, it's best to just not allow teacher led prayer. You want teacher led prayer? Go to a religious school.

[JohnStOnge]

Yes I mean school led prayer. Like all the kids are in their home rooms in the morning and the principal comes on and says a prayer. One can make arguments against doing that. But it's not prohibited by the Constitution. Not by what the Constitution actually says anyway and I also don't think there was ever any intent by anybody who was involved in crafting or ratifying Constitutional language to do that. That kind of prohibition is purely a fabrication of the Judiciary.

Unless you think that a principal reading a prayer over the intercom is a law passed by the Congress of the United States with respect to the establishment of religion you should realize that such a thing is not a violation of the First Amendment.

It just amazes me that people accept what the Judiciary does to the extent that they do. To me it doesn't even matter if you think the end was a good one. Thinking that it's good to allow the Judiciary to do what it does just because you think that the outcomes have been good is like favoring Monarchy as a form of government because you like what the King has done. It's not good to continue to allow the intellectually dishonest oligarchy that is the Federal Judiciary to do what it does.

Or if we are going to do that we ought to just come out and say we're throwing the Constitution out because that's not what's controlling things anyway. The Judiciary controls the Constitution rather than the Constitution controlling the Judiciary so why even have a Constitution? It's a complete sham to act as though the Constitution even means anything.

[Grizalltheway]

The country was founded on the idea that the state shouldn't sponsor any one religion. Publicly funded schools are an extension of the state, and the leaders of those schools should leave their personal religious beliefs at the door. It's really that simple.

[JohnStOnge]

The country was founded on the idea that the state shouldn't sponsor any one religion. Publicly funded schools are an extension of the state, and the leaders of those schools should leave their personal religious beliefs at the door. It's really that simple.

No, the idea was that the national government wouldn't establish a specific religion. A number of States had official State religions for decades after the First Amendment went into effect.

Also I think they were talking about very specific religion. Like the Congress passing a law saying that the official religion would be Episcopal. Shortly after the First Amendment went into effect the Congress appropriated funds to hire a Christian chaplain then began holding Christian Church services in the House Chamber. There was obviously no concept involving keeping even the national government from sponsoring religion. If Congress is appropriating funds to hire a Chaplain and holding Christian Church services in the House Chamber they are pretty much sponsoring religion. And I kind of think they knew more at the time about what the intent of the Establishment Clause was right there after it was ratified than the friggin' Supreme Court decided it "knew" about it during the latter half of the 20th Century.

The current concept of "Separation of Church and State" established by the Judiciary is totally out of whack with what they were talking about.

[kalm]

The country was founded on the idea that the state shouldn't sponsor any one religion. Publicly funded schools are an extension of the state, and the leaders of those schools should leave their personal religious beliefs at the door. It's really that simple.

No, the idea was that the national government wouldn't establish a specific religion. A number of States had official State religions for decades after the First Amendment went into effect.

Also I think they were talking about very specific religion. Like the Congress passing a law saying that the official religion would be Episcopal. Shortly after the First Amendment went into effect the Congress appropriated funds to hire a Christian chaplain then began holding Christian Church services in the House Chamber. There was obviously no concept involving keeping even the national government from sponsoring religion. If Congress is appropriating funds to hire a Chaplain and holding Christian Church services in the House Chamber they are pretty much sponsoring religion. And I kind of think they knew more at the time about what the intent of the Establishment Clause was right there after it was ratified than the friggin' Supreme Court decided it "knew" about it during the latter half of the 20th Century.

The current concept of "Separation of Church and State" established by the Judiciary is totally out of whack with what they were talking about.

Jefferson disagrees with you. He also thought we should have a constitutional convention every generation or so. It's almost like he knew we'd progress and become more secular.

[JohnStOnge]

Jefferson disagrees with you.

Jefferson attended the Christian church services in the House Chamber.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared.

That's from the Library of Congress web site, by the way. Give it up man. If you want to argue that there SHOULD be a "separation of church and state" as it is interpreted today that is fine. But PLEASE don't argue that it's what those guys were thinking back then and/or what they intended when they ratified the First Amendment because it clearly is not. What we have today is not what the First Amendment literally says and the behavior of those guys at the time makes it clear that it's obvious that it''s not what they intended.

And stuff like the situation described in the language I quoted above is why the Supreme Court's "separation of church and state" edict is one of the clearest examples of the intellectual dishonesty routinely practiced by the Supreme Court.

[kalm]

Jefferson disagrees with you.

Jefferson attended the Christian church services in the House Chamber.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared.

That's from the Library of Congress web site, by the way. Give it up man. If you want to argue that there SHOULD be a "separation of church and state" as it is interpreted today that is fine. But PLEASE don't argue that it's what those guys were thinking back then and/or what they intended when they ratified the First Amendment because it clearly is not. What we have today is not what the First Amendment literally says and the behavior of those guys at the time makes it clear that it's obvious that it''s not what they intended.

And stuff like the situation described in the language I quoted above is why the Supreme Court's "separation of church and state" edict is one of the clearest examples of the intellectual dishonesty routinely practiced by the Supreme Court.

No, you give it up.

I'm not sure you realize this but the courts literally based their decisions off of Jefferson's "wall of separation" writings.

Capital church services were voluntary. School is compulsory.

Besides, we have further evolved since then and the constitution was designed to evolve with us.

I know you hate that but it's true.

We are a secular nation founded on reason.

[houndawg]

The country was founded on the idea that the state shouldn't sponsor any one religion. Publicly funded schools are an extension of the state, and the leaders of those schools should leave their personal religious beliefs at the door. It's really that simple.

No, the idea was that the national government wouldn't establish a specific religion. A number of States had official State religions for decades after the First Amendment went into effect.

Also I think they were talking about very specific religion. Like the Congress passing a law saying that the official religion would be Episcopal. Shortly after the First Amendment went into effect the Congress appropriated funds to hire a Christian chaplain then began holding Christian Church services in the House Chamber. There was obviously no concept involving keeping even the national government from sponsoring religion. If Congress is appropriating funds to hire a Chaplain and holding Christian Church services in the House Chamber they are pretty much sponsoring religion. And I kind of think they knew more at the time about what the intent of the Establishment Clause was right there after it was ratified than the friggin' Supreme Court decided it "knew" about it during the latter half of the 20th Century.

The current concept of "Separation of Church and State" established by the Judiciary is totally out of whack with what they were talking about.

This is not true.

By the time the first amendment took effect Congress had already declared in writing that "the United States are in no sense a christian nation".