The first amendment explicitly protects both the freedom of and the freedom from religion:"There is no constitutional basis or historical basis for the ruling. It was a political and ideologically based ruling."Freedom from religion is not a constitution concept. It was created by an activist court with Engel v. Vitals 370 U.S. 421 (1962). There is no constitutional basis or historical basis for the ruling. It was a political and ideologically based ruling.
To state that public schools, etc cannot favor one group over another is stating that the men who wrote the Bill of Rights and the men who ratified the Bill of Rights did not know what it meant and from the day of ratification, these men, the federal government, and the courts did not understand the Bill of Rights and violated it for 200 years until a Supreme Court in the 1960s with the super power of Devine Interpretation finally figured out this 200 year mystery hidden in the text of the First Amendment using magic decoder rings. (Meant to be humorous, not snarky)
Yeah, that's how it works. It took us even longer than that to recognize that LGBT rights to marriage are protected, just as it is for straights. By coming to that realization we have further perfected the rights granted in the constitution. Supposedly.
It's all politically and ideologically motivated. Precedent is great until it doesn't exist and we really, really want to do something and then we just create the precedent. Originalists! Riiight.
Dear Elvis Obama I would say the right to marriage is protected under RELIGIOUS FREEDOM and not directly under the Constitution.
Even the Right to Life is spelled out more specifically in founding documents,
but the meaning of Right to Life is not agreed upon enough to enforce it as many rightwing believe.
So if the "Right to Life" is under question by the Left, when it has more written history.
Why are the "right to marriage" and "right to health care" elevated to Constitutional rights,
while principles that ARE in writing (such as the Right to bear arms and the Right to life)
get struck down and ignored as if nonexistent and "optional"
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; "
Don't establish (or endorse) a religion = freedom from religion.
Don't prohibit a religion = freedom of religion.
This kind of nitpicking, legalistic sophistry is pointless. Our courts have proven over and over again that the simplest of phrases can be twisted to mean whatever the so-called jurists want it to mean. Yes, there is an explicit right to life mentioned in the constitution. Wanna kill babies anyway? Just say they're not people. Wanna carpet bomb some folks? Declare war! Then it's perfectly OK. Succeed in getting sympatico judges appointed to the SC and abortion will be found to be murder. Does that mean that it is? Does that mean that it matters? No one, the day after the SC changes the balance of their collective mind on abortion, will change their own opinion. States which are hostile to abortion will do everything within their purview to make it practically impossible to obtain, the law be damned. No one cares about constitutionality. All anyone cares about is "their side", and getting to claim victory for "their side".
But what constitutes endorsement? The anti-religious group thinks any public prayer or or expression religious expression or even the Ten Commandments engraved on a work of art constitutes endorsement of religious. The rest of us see that as our constitutional right to practice our religion. So which is it?
the court has repeatedly held against prayer in school because it creates a religious preference and marginalizes minorities.
you can practice your religion. you can't force others to practice your religion or be marginalized by proponents of your religion.
I don't see a student led or traditional generic community prayer as anything other than a constitutionally protected personal expression of religion. It requires no participation from anybody else. It requires no contribution from anybody else. It makes no requirement of anybody. The only expectation from anybody else is their non interference and perhaps some courtesy.
IMO every time the courts have ruled against spontaneous non-mandatory prayer or any other non-mandatory expression of religious belief or faith, the court has itself been in violation of the First Amendment.