Right on! Natural Law rules! Good response on the idea of people using their free speech rights to support or defend laws for any reason they choose, including religious ones.
Two other points. No where in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights will you find the words "separation of church and state." The phrase comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, but there is no evidence that any of the Founding Fathers intended it to mean what many people who use it mean. Second, the 1st Amendment says that "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion _or the free exercise thereof_" A lot of people forget that second clause, including judges in Federal courtrooms. H. -----Original Message----- From: Lon Lentz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 12:41 PM To: CF-Community Subject: RE: Bush Wins! I don't fault religiously oriented people making their legal arguments based on their religious affiliations. We all have to have a basis for the way we see things, even if their reasoning annoys other people. We as a society do not see marriage with another as a right and therefore, we pass laws to control it. Therefore, the majority wins, no matter why they believe that way. Also, and I'm not trying to pick nits. Constitutions are about defining the roles and limitations of government. The US Constitution tells the government what its job is and what authority the people allow it to have. The Bill of Rights reminds the government of some of the people's rights. Rights which can not be infringed. We do not derive these rights from the Constitution. We do not derive these rights from the Government. Our rights are based on our mere existence. And the Government's authority is based on our permission. -----Original Message----- From: Fleischer, Beth [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 12:13 PM To: CF-Community Subject: RE: Bush Wins! <snip> However, as an example of where religion has no place in law: in alaska they just voted to add to the constitution that a marriage can only be a man and a woman in order to prevent same sex marriage from ever being legalized in this state. When discussing this with proponents of it they claimed the reasoning was that a) same sex marriage is against the law of the bible - the bible specifies man and woman so therefore a same sex marriage can never be a marrriage and b) its a crime against god and c) it makes a "mockery" of heterosexual marriage. Now, same sex marriage was not legal in alaska before this happened, but they wanted it in the constitution of the state to ensure their religious beliefs would be inflicted on generations to come. I had the opportunity to talk to a woman who was involved in writing the Alaska State Constitution and she was just terribly upset about the whole thing - it goes totally against the constitution which is about the rights given to the people by the state - to make its purpose to remove rights from individuals is just apalling to her. But I digress: the point being is that these folks reasoning involves god all the way - the bible says its bad, god struck down sodom and gomorrah - these concepts have no place in law, whatsoever. And generally folks who believe this stuff do not understand that their religious beliefs are just that - there is no conception that their religious views dont' apply to everyone. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
