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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 16999
[Legal]
Date Posted:
1/4/2007
3:53:34 pm EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 6,341
RSS: 19,103
Comments: 12
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Supreme Court Urged To End 'Special Privileges' For Atheist Activists
Author: Susan Jones Source: CNSNews.com
Title: SUPREME COURT URGED TO END 'SPECIAL PRIVILEGES' FOR ATHEIST ACTIVISTS
A conservative civil liberties group is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to put a stop to lawsuits filed by "church-state separationists."
"For years, atheists and others who are antagonistic to religion have had special privileges in federal court," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which litigates religious liberty issues.
"It's time the Supreme Court took another look at whether taxpayer suits under the Establishment Clause make sense under the Constitution," Sekulow said.
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Community Thoughts: There are 12 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Bad Argument | Jan 6th. at 4:05:45 am EST
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Stormsinger (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) - Email Me
Sekolow states his case as if no one but "atheist activists" have ever used the Establishment clause to make their case or bring a suit in court. As a matter of fact, people of all religions and none have done so. Jehovah's Witnesses. Jews. Catholics. Quakers. Moslems. Wiccans. To make a claim based on a constitutional amendment, you do not have to prove "injury." You simply have to have standing to sue -- and "citizen" is considered sufficient standing. That's the law of the land and has been for over 200 years. If he removes the protection of standing and insists on a stricter standard of "injury," he is in effect establishing the majority religion as protected by government -- which violates the Establishment clause. By this thinking, any religion with the ability to get the ear of the government would be able to do whatever it could get away with (religious monuments on government property, clear evidence of religious bias in the courts, religious discrimination and activity in jobs ranging from school teacher to the halls of Congress, for instance) and no person who did not want to be subjected to such intrusion would be able to complain, unless they could prove "injury."
This is why the Founding Fathers chose to allow ANY citizen (taxpayer in the instance of cases having to do with the distribution of tax-generated monies) to have the standing to challenge the actions of the government under this or any other part of the constitution. Because the alternative was to slide into a kind of dictatorship where the ones with the biggest sticks (or the deepest wallets) make the rules.
I'm sure Mr. Sokolow would enjoy the results of such a change -- until some other group got a bigger stick or a deeper wallet.
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| Sekulow Is A Fraud | Jan 5th. at 11:42:09 am EST
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Sabaean (Metairie, Louisiana) - Email Me - Web
Jay Sekulow is trying to create a precedent where none really exists because he knows he has no case. The ‘special privilages’ argument is a slippery slope for him to travel. The establishment clause in of itself is special privilege.
It allows any pseudo-religious hack to assume the role of counselor for any number of fields (without a license) for psychological, political and even physical (i.e. abortion) and is exempted from legal liability.
Scientology is a perfect example. L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dyanetics in prison after he lost his psychology license and continued on doing the same thing by forming a new religion. The ‘special privilege’ of the Establishment Clause allowed him to do so.
If the court does in-fact buy into Sekulow’s argument, it will open the legal flood gates for Preachers, Priest, Clerics and Rabbi’s to the same legal waste-land as Tarot Card readers. You’ll start seeing sign’s upon entering church, “For Entertainment Purposes Only.”
Remove ‘special privilege’ and all other laws will start to apply.
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| I Could Use Their Argument | Jan 4th. at 10:38:10 pm EST
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Rubyglare (Sacramento, California) - Email Me
for blocking white men from voting; they would have to prove that having their votes disregarded would hurt them first, with all that nonsense of Establishment Clauses giving frivolous protections, blah, blah, etc. Their real point would be those who wish to uphold the laws of separation of church & state would have to allow the union of church & state to happen first in order to "prove" how truly damaging & harmful such an arrangement is...& by then the church shall be writing the laws of the land again, like before 1776. Only idiots feel the need to repeat painful history-that & the sadistic who feel that it will be others that suffer but they shall personally gain from it all.
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| Know Thy Enemy | Jan 4th. at 9:17:26 pm EST
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AnnieBW (Laurel, Maryland) - Email Me
That's why Wren posts stuff from CNS and other wingnut sources.
I know someone who writes for CNS. I'm half expecting him to have committed seppuku today. :D
As for "special priviledges", I guess that means that they don't want us to be treated as equal under the law anymore..
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| Fatuous! | Jan 4th. at 7:50:38 pm EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
What special privileges?
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| ... | Jan 4th. at 7:31:44 pm EST
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
CNS = Crackpot NonSense
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| (none) | Jan 4th. at 4:16:35 pm EST
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Llunmere (Germantown Hills, Illinois) - Email Me
They'd be singing quite a different tune if they were in our shoes.
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