Friday, July 22, 2005
Anti-Christian Legal Units Strike Again
I swear, the ACLU does not give a rat's rear about "civil liberties" anymore -- they have simply become anti-religion, and really anti-Christian, down to the nth degree. The WSJ reported recently (subscriiption required):
Given this line of reasoning, how long will it be before the tax exempt status granted to churches will be deemed a violation of "separation" or worse "establishment?"
I am genuinely at a failure to respond to this stuff -- it so defies anything I understand as reason or logic, that is defies argument - one is left only with persuasion. And that may be the saddest thing of all -- courts are about argument and judges are supposed to reason. This keeps up and it we'll see courses in law schools taught by advertising executives.
The American Civil Liberties Union has found a sympathetic ear for its latest assault against the Boy Scouts. At issue is the famous Jamboree, held since 1981 at Fort A. P. Hill in Virginia and indirectly receiving support from the Army in billeting, infrastructure, and so forth. The ACLU argues that this arrangement breaches the First Amendment's separation between church and state. A federal judge in Chicago concurs, declaring government aid for the Jamboree unconstitutional.Do you notice the logical slight-of-hand there? "Exclusion" now equates, somehow, to "establishment."
Because the Scouts require members to "privately exercise their religious faith as directed by their families and religious advisors," the ACLU petitioned the court to declare the organization "theistic" and "pervasively sectarian." Judge Blanche Manning didn't go quite that far last month, but she did rule it an overtly religious association because it "excludes atheists and agnostics from membership." She ordered the Army to expel the next Jamboree from Fort A. P. Hill in 2010, by which time we trust the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals will have overturned her decision.
Given this line of reasoning, how long will it be before the tax exempt status granted to churches will be deemed a violation of "separation" or worse "establishment?"
I am genuinely at a failure to respond to this stuff -- it so defies anything I understand as reason or logic, that is defies argument - one is left only with persuasion. And that may be the saddest thing of all -- courts are about argument and judges are supposed to reason. This keeps up and it we'll see courses in law schools taught by advertising executives.
