I saw the TV ads for a new film called ‘Last Ounce Of Courage‘ the other day and noticed Jennifer O’Neill and Fred Williamson were in it so I decided to check out the trailer and information on the film. I was actually shocked. The message of the film seems to be equating military death in war with being able to subvert the 1st Amendment that keeps church and state separate.
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Tag Archives: bill of rights
What Does Religious Freedom Day Really Mean?
January 16th is National Religious Freedom Day. The day commemorates the Virginia General Assembly’s adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s landmark Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786. The Virginia Statute was the basis of the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution and also can be used to support Jefferson’s idea of the separation of church and state. The Religious Right have of course co-opted the day by mass marketing misleading information about what real religious freedom means in this country. Luckily, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) has some help available to tell the truth.
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An actual historian misleads about religious freedom
You expect anti-knowledge people like “historian” David Barton to mislead the public about US history especially when it concerns religious freedom. You don’t expect an actual historian to mislead the public. I found one yesterday who tried to defend saying prayers during government meetings. He misses the point of the 1st amendment.
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GOP wants to stamp your uterus with “In God in We Trust”
Of course we all knew the Republicans who stormed to office this past November would continue their effort to cram their religious views down our throats. With close to 10% unemployment and the public demanding attention to creating jobs, Congressional Republicans instead want to stamp your uterus with the motto “In God We Trust”.
From the American Humanist Association:
Tell Your Representative To Vote “No” on H. Con. Res. 13
Dear Friends,
Yesterday, H. Con. Res 13, a resolution which reaffirms the official motto of the United States as “In God We Trust,” was passed in the House Judiciary Committee, and now faces general debate in the House. If passed on the House floor, the resolution would encourage the display of “In God We Trust” on public buildings, including government institutions and public schools.
And of course the right wing nut jobs want to end abortion and here is one way of trying to do that.
GOP’s H.R. 3 abortion bill would require IRS to do “abortion audits”
Remember one of many big lies Republicans came up with to scare Americans about the Affordable Care Act, the one where the IRS would need 16,000 new agents to enforce health reform? Newt Gingrich pushed it, and Rep. Paul Ryan jumped on board saying that the IRS would get “16,000 agents to police this new mandate.”
It was, of course, patently untrue. But apparently the GOP liked the idea of IRS agents policing Americans’ healthcare decision so much they decided to adopt it as their own, but of course just apply it to women, and to abortion. Among the horrors of H.R. 3, the bill that redefined rape to only count if it was “forcible” (until enough people raised enough hell, they decided to drop it), is the degree to which abortion restrictions extend to private—not public—spending.
In H.R. 3, Republicans revive the mid-90s “Istook amendment” theory of the fungibility of money to include under their definition of “taxpayer funding for abortion” all tax deductions, credits or other benefits for the cost of health insurance, when that insurance includes under its plan coverage for abortion.
GOP’s H.R. 3 abortion bill would require IRS to do “abortion audits”
You know the drill. Call your Congress critter and let them know how you feel about these two bad bills. Unless you want the motto tattooed on your uterus?
Church says South Dakota abortion ban violates its right to freedom of religion
In response to the passage on February 24th of an outright ban on abortion from the South Dakota legislature, an Internet based church, The Church of Reality, has issued an edict that the ban violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the church’s exercise of its religion.
The edict states:
Pursuant to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and consistent with the Supreme Court decision upholding the right to religious freedom, I Marc Perkel, as the highest authority of Church of Reality law do hereby declare and decree by edict the following:
1. That the Church of Reality finds that the South Dakota Abortion Ban is repulsive, unethical, and immoral.
2. That it infringes upon our freedom of religion under the First Amendment and places a substantial burden on our sincerely held religious belief in the right of women to choose to have abortions.
3. That the law criminalizes abortion providers from providing abortions services cutting off our female member’s ability to legally obtain an abortion.
4. That it is our position that the State of South Dakota has no compelling government interest in prohibiting abortions and therefore the rights of Realists to get Abortions in South Dakota take precedent over South Dakota law.
We therefore demand that the State of South Dakota make provisions in their law enforcement system to allow members of the Church of Reality to legally obtain abortions and to provide doctors and other health care professionals immunity from prosecution for providing abortion services to Realists.
South Dakota Aborting Law Infringes on Religious Freedom of Realists
I loved the idea of using a law like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993)( aka RFRA) against laws that are passed mainly to legalize someone’s religious agenda.
Something, however smelled fishy.
I remembered during the news this past week about a US Supreme Court ruling that set aside a ban on the religious use of hoasca, a hallucinogenic tea used by a small Brazilian-based church known as Uniao Do Vegetal, that the RFRA was ruled unconstitutional when applied to the states in 1997. See Religious Freedom Restoration Acts
A rehashed version of RFRA called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. (RLUIPA) (2000) only addresses land use laws and the religious practices of prisoners.
A simple idea would be to challenge the abortion ban based on the 1st Amendment’s free exercise clause.
However a court case from 1990, Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court held:
Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts done in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so.
and
Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, observed that the Court has never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse that individual from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the government is free to regulate. Allowing exceptions to every state law or regulation affecting religion “would open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind.” Smith, 494 U.S. at 890.
We saw a bit of that during the Judge Roy Moore 10 Commandments case when the Judge claimed that he could ignore a Federal court order to remove the Decalogue because he answered to a higher law (God).
The Smith decision basically says that a law doesn’t violate the 1st Amendment just because it conflicts with one’s religious beliefs as long as the intent of the law wasn’t to burden religious practices.
Applying that test to an abortion ban would be a very tough road unless those who introduced the law were stupid enough to say they were doing it for religious reasons. (Possible but not probable)
A much better constitutional argument against a state abortion ban would be to say it violates the 13th Amendment which protects people from involuntary servitude:
The term “involuntary servitude” is plain and simple. A person cannot be made to perform services for another person against his or her will. Neither Roe v. Wade nor any subsequent Supreme Court opinion has defined the bearing of a child to be something other than a form of labor. Indeed, childbirth is described medically as “labor” and no woman who has been through it would dispute that description. Thus, it is plain and obvious that any law that forces a woman to go through the labor of nurturing a fetus involuntarily is a violation of the 13th Amendment.
But that kind of argument is off topic for this blog.
I did contact the author of the edict on the Church of Reality’s site and he agreed that he can’t use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act against South Dakota’s ban.