It took a little thinking to figure this one out but I got it. You make a valid point but not an airtight one. These are minor offenses with some hope of reformation. If the two choices are equitable as I mentioned earlier, then I don’t see any undue burden. Do you assume that time in county lock up is far more aggregious than going to worship? Perhaps either choice is a burden depending on the individual doing the chooseing. They are free to choose what they think is their best alternative. I think a third choice is a good idea but in rural area their may not be three. In fact in Urban areas there probably more non religious choices. In rural areas I see it as just useing the resources available.
Whats the reasoning behind not attending church. The reason to attend is the hope for reformation and turning a danger to society into a good citizen. If a Chrsitian zealot committed crimes that could be directly linked to his church attendence {can’t imagine that scenario} then offering the choice to stop attending church might be a viable alternative.
Thats a good point as well. It occured to me that in this area of 96% white Christians {please God not again} that offering worship services might be tantamount to promoteing Christianity specificly. In answer to your question if the religion was limited to one specific religion or denomination, then I would say yes thats unconstitutional. That concept opens another can of worms such as pagen or even satanic services. I would think since the point is rehibilitation then there would have to be a clear opportunity of that happening. What if a church ran a counciling program for addicts that was religious based. Would it be unconstitutional to offer that as a choice?
Of course it makes a difference. If the most effective method is unconstitutional then we’d better look at a new amendment.
Again I see your point. I just think we should at least consider the purpose that is hoping to be accomplished when deciding if this is unconstitutional. I believe the spirit of the 1st amendment is as I stated. No promotion or supression of a specific religion. With obvious exceptions. As long as the action isn’t promoteing a specific religion it’s not in violation.
Yes it certainly is more burdensome. Have you ever been inside a prison? I mean, I have been to some pretty crappy church services, but to compare them with going to jail is kind of off the chart as far as I can see. The problem being one (jail) is a burden that the state has a right to enforce. The other (worship) is something that they have absolutely no right to enforce.
Again you are kind of missing the point with your obsession with efficacy. That question does not matter when you are considering the constitutionality of the matter. If you cannot compel someone not to attend Church, then you cannot compel them to attend church (or impose an unconstitutional condition on them attending or not attending). Unless you suscribe to the narrow view of the First Amendment which says that it prevents the government favoring one religion over another, but not religion in general over non-religion. Even then you would have to allow the person concerned to attend whatever worship service they deemed appropriate.
Hard core separationists (a position I kind of flirt with, and come closest to with my views on education) would say you could not include a religious based counselling program as an alternative. I’d personally not have a problem if there were secular based programs available too, and the religious aspect of the program was not dominant (as it is not in AA). I find it interesting that you would find limiting it to Christians only would be unconstitutional, but limiting it to ‘believers’ is not. It’s a divide I have seen before, but not one I find sustainable.
As for the definition of what religions to include, the state has cast the net incredibly broad. If you look at the way the Department of Justice treats prisoners claims (that make up a massive proportion of the Free Exercise claims in this country) then you will see a willingness to accept pretty much any set of beliefs someone professes. I can find the actual standard if you want. Prisoners with bugger all else to do found religions all the time, such as one a Professor of mine worked on which had as its chief sacrament steak to be taken in daily worship services.
If you are going to allow attendance at mainstream religion, you have to allow attendance at minority religious services. Otherwise you have the government deciding which religions are good enough, and that ain’t right.
So you are happy with the promotion of religion in general as opposed to non-religion. Well, so are at least three members of the Court at the moment. I think that is a misinterpretation, but I sure don’t want to get into a long argument on framers’ intent etc. The problem with your approach is that the benefits of the program are immediate, and its effect on the First Amendment big picture are small. Your way will almost invariably allow government support for religion. It ignores the cumulative effect of consistent government involvemnt in religion.
And before people jump on me as being hostile to religion, I’d say that I think the danger is much more for the churches concerned than for the state. Government involvement corrupts religion - growing up in the UK I only had to look at the Church of England to see what it can do.
Yes, if it is unconstitutional and works, you might want an amendment. I think that is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, though, when you consider that it can be made constitutional (IMHO) by adding a secular viable option. Is that so hard for the judge to do? To be honest, though, if all the ‘religious’ requirement is is attendance at services, not rehab etc, then I don’t think it can be rescued, however effective it is.
White- No more likely to be Christian than the general population IIRC they are actually less likely to be so.
WASP- Christian by definition. Most likely a small minority of Appalachia qualifies as a WASP. The predominant ethnicity in Appalachia is Irish and Scotish.
Now as you can see ** Liberal’s ** comments made no sense in the context he gave them. As such he was asked for clarification and finally gave us that they were Rural Appalachians.
Rural Appalacians- predominantly Christian.
Halleluah we have a factually correct and accurate statement and it only took us a page to get it!
My original post unambiguously identified the town, its tiny size, and its location, along with the race of almost the entire population. Only the dingest bat would not know that this was rural Appalachia. A shit stirrer spotted one of the knee-jerk words, ripped it out of context, and screamed about it. There ensued inexplicable calamity over some perceived forbidden expression. After paraphrasing the original OP with the most obvious implications written out, I was given a pass by Miller, who wrote: “That’s something I can absolutely agree with.” I would appreciate people just dropping the matter. Even murderers are not subjected to double jeopardy.
In this case enforcement must mean if you fail to attend as you agreed to then it’s off to the lockup you go.
I insist it does.
If a church created a doctrine that advocated breaking the law. then we can compel them to abandon said doctrine. See Polgymy. If a nutjob preacher insisted his members do anything within their power to prevent abortion and that might lead to a situation where he himself was arrested as an accomplice. My point being that these laws are subject to interpertation precisely because of efficacy. We are morally bound to examine and redefine them when the need arises.
That seems to describe my view. I support peoples right to choose for themselves. If non religion works for you great. I would defend your right to choose that. I also don’t see any reason to cry, “unconstitutional” at any hint of religion and goverment being involved together. Religion is a huge part of our history and cultural makeup. second part; I would say they should pick from services that had the possibility of aiding rehibilitation.
The laws are applied to the world we live in which is not an ideal one. Their intention is to protect and serve. It is often tricky to discern exactly what that means so we choose. Not based on an absolute principle, but what we judge will best protect and serve in that particular circumstance.
Personnaly I can’t find a way to be nuetral. As I said, removeing all religious association from goverment can be argued as supporting atheism which is also a belief structure. If we can’t successfully be completely nuetral then we choose what best protects and serves the interest of our citizens. We examine the lines drawn and redraw them when nessecary.
Funny, that would be primarily the serve portion of protect and serve
And here I see a major problem. As I said. Use the resources available to you to best protect and serve. In an urban area there might be too many religions to examine and consider, and more secular programs available. So use those programs. In a rural area there may not be much access to secular programs but plenty of churches willing to help. Use those resources.
Me neither. It depends a little on how you want to interpert promotion. This is where I disagree with the strict sepratist.
Thats why we have to examine and redefine the boundries from time to time. For the record. I am a strong supporter of the seperation of church and state. I understand why it’s importent.
I agree. History shows horrible corruption when governments and churches get together.
I’m in favor of a secular option. I think thats a wise balance. I’m saying that if that resource isn’t available to some rural areas then allow them to exercise their own judgement {within reason} and do what works without making a stink.
No, efficacy does not matter when considering the constitutionality here, however much you insist. To take a different example, even if you can demonstrate that takign Pat Robertson off the airwaves would dramatically reduce attacks on homosexuals, preventing him from having freedom of speech would still violate the First Amendment, unless you can show his speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” (Brandenburg v Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (sorry no pinpoint). So general speech cannot be restricted even if it has a KNOWN effect of causing harm, and even if the most efficient way of reducing that harm is to restrict the speech. This is exactly what Katie MacKinnon ran into when she tried her pornography banning statute, and it is exactly the garbage I hear that she teaches to this day. See American Booksellers Association v Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 (7th Cir. 1985). If this is a violation, its a violation regardless of whether there is any other way of running effective rehab schemes. The idea being that separation of church and state is (gasp) more important than having successful rehad programs.
Again no. A church can preach breaking the law all it likes, and unless there is a clear and present danger of legal violation occuring (and of those violations being serious enough to warrant such action) then stepping in would violate the First Amendment (again, see Brandenburg v Ohio). To fit into the present scenario, let us say a religious faith encourages the use of peyote (many Native American religions) or marijuana (Rastafari). If someone is convicted of use of either of these substances, do you really think it would pass muster to say to them they did not have to go to jail if they agreed to no longer go to worship services of their faith, because of what was being preached there?
Atheism has been found repeatedly not to be a religion under the law. Not an argument I want to get into, but that’s where it stands. I fail to see how no supporting religion over non-religion can possibly be seen as supporting atheism. Giving people an advantage because they endorse one religion out of a whole panoply of religions is by its very nature discriminatory against atheists. As I said, it is a view some hold. I just wish people would be honest about it and admit they think atheists are entitled to fewer benefits from government, rather than dress it up as ‘neutrality’ when it patently isn’t.
Please don’t hold the idea that I don’t think these laws should be tested for efficacy. I certainly do. A constitution, ineffective law (like many of the drugs laws) should be abolished. But the First Amendment is way too important to say that because a certain program is effective in drug rehab, we should forget that it breaches the separation of church and state. As I have said, the gain from individual effective programs will almost always offset the loss to the First Amendment, when looked at on the micro level.
Think carefully about what this is suggesting. People are faced with a choice of prison or going to Church. No secular alternatives allowed. I’m willing to guess no permission for Satanist or Wiccans, Janists or Santarians to practice. No punishment for your crime if you go pray to God (or any God). How is that in ANY way tolerable in this nation?
Very informimg. Thanks. I see your point. Let me clarify mine. What I’m suggesting is that if something isn’t clearly a violation and seems to be doing good then take it’s effectiveness into consideration. I’ve already agreed that seperation of church and state is important. I just don’t agree where the lines of seperation should be drawn.
I need more specifics. Where are the lines drawn? Surely if a preacher advocated killing homosexuals or blowing up abortion clincs for God then that would be illegal. What was the deal with Polgymy? There’s a belief that doesn’t even present a clear danger to anyone and it was outlawed.
Well in that scenario I would say no. You’re talking compulsion. Thats not really the issue. What if the choice is to spend some time in jail or get community service and agree to not go to those services. If they choose not to go it’s a different matter. Ali chose jail because of his belief in Islam. He wasn’t excused because of his beliefs.
I did not know that but understand it. I did not refer to atheism as a religion did I? My response would be that the word God is not a religion either. If we are not promoteing any specific religion from as specific as Baptist to as general as Christian but continue to support the freedom to worship, then some fringe involvement between government and a church is not a violation.
You’ll have to rephrase that one. I didn’t get it. What I’m saying is that by striveing to remove any mention of a diety of any kind from anything associated with government we **may ** be supporting a religous belief just as much as leaveing some in.
You lost me again. What specificly are you speaking of? What advatages? What fewer benefits are you speaking of?
Again. If it clearly violates the first amendment then I believe the danger in such a practice should be apparent to most. Then again there’s plenty of stuff I consider dangerous violations of civil rights going on now that are touted as legal. I’m in no way advocateing judgeing a program only by it’s success rate.
It has yet to be decided if this is a clear violation or not right??
I don’t have to think to carefully to see that your description here is not what we’re talking about. We’re probably not talking prison but rather a county lock up. We’re talking minor possesion charges right? We’re also not adding a “you must pray” clause. You can choose to attend. Pay attention and participate or don’t. It’s up to you. My guess is that the judge is hoping that a room full of church goers will have a better influence than a room full of other criminals. That devious bastard. As I mentioned. I’m in favor of secular third choice in any area that has that resource.
I’ll take a swing at this part. Keep in mind, although I’ve read law for years as part of my work, I’m not a lawyer, so this is the opinoin of an informed layperson, no more.
A preacher can preach sermons in church, send out newsletters, yammer on TV advocating killing homosexuals, destroying abortion clinics, and so forth, and have his/her right to do so protected under the First Amendment. If that preacher leads a march on an abortion clinic (even better, staffed with homosexuals – a two-for-one special!), orates outside it demanding its obliteration, and concludes by urging on the mob that proceeds to kill and burn, then yeh, I’d say s/he’d be facing prosecution for inciting to riot. If that preacher singles out a specific individual as deserving obliteration, and one of his/her followers shortly thereafter kills the targeted person, I believe there’d also be grounds for an action, civil for damages if not criminal.
As to polygamy, there again I believe to advocate it is protected under the First Amendment, but to practice it is outlawed because marriage is way more than a joining in God’s sight of two persons. There are a host of legal implications, rights, obligations created by marriage, and these rights, obligations, etc., do concern the civil authorities. Things like responsibility for children’s support and welfare, inheritance rights, so on and so forth, would be affected by polygamy. Since our society has chosen to define marriage and thereby to formulate its civil/legal implications based on monogamy, to practice polygamy has been made illegal as contravening the entire structure of the institution.
As I say, I’m no lawyer, and if one of our members of the bar would like to correct me on any of this, I’d appreciate it.
I guess the issue is that this is clearly a violation. There’s no secular alternative offered, the person is not being sent to rehab, they are being sent to a church service. There is no way this is constitutional. None. If this was religious rehab, it might be different, but it isn’t. There just is no right to tell people to go to church.
Freddy has done a prety good job of the first part here. As to the polygamy thing, I am really not sure what you are asking specifically. As far as I know, no Church has ever been barred from supporting polygamy (not to say they haven’t, as the treatment of the Mormons was pretty suspect), and I would imagine it has serious First Amendment issues attached. There’s a fundamental difference between that and banning polygamy. The government is allowed to pass laws of general applicability that burden religions, as long as the intent is not to specifically burden the religion. But to turn around prevent the church from preaching that the baned activity should be allowable or indeed is religiously required is a violation of both freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
I am utterly lost here. Telling someone they can stay out of jail by not going to church is not allowed; but telling them they can stay out of jail by gong to church is impermissible? Or am I missing your point? I think there is a massive First Amendment issue any time the government says someone has to give up their totally legal religious activities or go to jail, even if they have committed a crime that under law warrants jail time.
You called atheism a belief structure. My mistake was to extrapolate from that (which is part of the test for religion under the First Amendment IIRC) to you saying atheism was a religion. My bad. But by requiring attendance at a worship service, the government is supporting religion over non-religion, religion here being seen as including attendance at worship services.
The advantages are the ability to go to worship services of one’s own faith and not go to jail. The atheist is presented with the choice of attending worship services he may find morally objectionable or going to jail. That’s the benefit that religious people are given under this law. You may not think it important, but it is certainly constitutionally cognizable.
You don’t think county lock up is a big deal? I’d also be interested to see the difference in effect on people’s criminal record, depending on how it is recorded (I accept we don’t have that information right now). You may well be in favor of a secular third choice. But that ain’t present here. I’m not sure it would save the program even if it was, but it does not exist here, so it is not exactly relevant for the discussion at hand. This isn’t a judge saying go to religious rehab or go to jail. He’s saying go to a Church service or go to jail. It’s not even close to being constitutional.
Wow!! Thanks. That seems really loopy to me that any religion in the US could openly advocate killing anyone. My head is spinning. I’m a big free speech advocate but I thought there were laws against that. I guess if free speech was limited to never advocateing any illegal act then the authorities could use that to persecute any group they chose to.
Has it been declared a violation by officials or is this your personnal assessment?
Undeclared by officials =not clearly ; clearly in your opinion is a different matter.
I’m seeing your point but you keep wording this as if they have no choice. They do. It may be that the choice amounts to coercion. I think thats a valid arguement but please don’t keep refering to it as them being forced to go.
I see. So preachers can advocate murder but if someone actually does the deed they have to pay. I’d be interested in doing some reading on when and how polygymy was banned. I’m guessing it was very much influenced by other religions. Not relevant to our discussion though.
Yeah that was poorly worded. I think I was grasping at straws as well. I was trying to stress that it was a choice not compulsory. It looking at it again and considering the points made above, I see that even if a judge made it a choice the same kind of issue would come up. I assume the judge could reccomend they not attend a church that advocated something illegal.
I see. I might object to the word require but I see the point. If it is part of a sentance, even as a choice, once church attendence is chosen by the offender then the goverment “requires” them to fulfill that sentance. Excuse my ignorence, but is there a legal precedent that has stated a government cannot support any form of religion over non religion, or is that an ongoing unresolved arguement?
Ah yes, now I see. Thanks for explaining. It seems you’re assuming some things not in evidence. Who said it was “one’s own faith” If one offender was religious and while another was atheist I could see that as a good point. I was assuming that the offenders didn’t want to do either. I guess we don’t know. Your point is well taken.
Didn’t say that did I? I pointed out that it’s not the same as the term prison which you used. Do you disagree? It occurs to me that in minor offenses the judge may have much more lattitude in imposeing sentance than he would in more serious crimes. That might also effect the issue of it being constitutional or not. Maybe not.
Here’s how I see this scenario, although it’s mere guesswork based on little information. A judge in a rural area sees church attendence as haveing a better chance at rehibilitation than the county lock up. These offenders are probably locals who may have attended church in their youth. He gives them what he sees as am equitable choice. Do your time and get it over quickly or spread it out over a series of Sundays. Now the ACLU is alerted and rushes down to defend the rights of people who have no objection to something that works on a local level.
I don’t see this as a threat to the first amendment. It’s in the area of states rights to make a local decision or federal intervention to protect the rights of citizens.
If my impression is wrong and we have a religous zealot trying to coerse non believers into accepting Jesus under threat of jail time thats a different story.
You seem to be saying that the details don’t matter. I’m saying that when a judge makes a decision about how to deal with a certain situation then the details do matter and he takes them into account.
Although I find the idea somewhat abhorrent (attending a worship service as a condition of release is not necessarily going to impart any spiritual benefit to the quasi-compulsory attendee, the only reasonable ground on a metaphysical theistic level for such a requirement), in point of fact, alternative sentences can be quite creative (make restitution, community service, attend a rehabilitative program, etc.) when imposed as an alternative to jail time and/or a fine. The idea is that there is a maximum sentence specified in law, and the judge may temper justice with mercy in offering an alternative that he believes will be of more benefit to the offender and the community than merely locking the offender up. Given that idea and the opinion of the judge that attending a worship service may be beneficial to his sentencees’ spiritual welfare, it would be a legitimate alternative to offer.
However, I can see major Establishment Clause problems with such a sentence, even though there are some justifications for it.
Has it been declared unconstitutional yet? Not as far as I know, though I see no way this could survive under existing precedent. It is though, linked to the later question you ask - whether the court has ever decided if the Estalishment Clause means the government cannot promote a religion, or religion in general or what. The problem here is not that the Court has never decided, but they have decided on every single side of the equation, and not in really any consist pattern. There are at least 5 differing interpretations of the religion clauses on the Court at the moment, and if my guess of Rehnquist’s replacement is right (McConnell) you will get a 6th. The fun will come because it is a 6th view, on the ‘right’ plitically, yet violently opposed to Nino Scalia’s interpretation of religious matters.
To me, the right to advocate illegal activity is pretty important, for the reasons you came round to later on. One of the things that pissed me off about British law wass the spread of laws designed to prevent free speech.
We seem to have come to a point which while not an impasse, is pretty much a terminus. I think even the present court would strike such a program, but the case will never ever get there. My hope is we never get the constitutionality question answered, because the judge drops the program and moots the question.
I’ve very much enjoyed our discussion. It’s been educational for me which is one of the reasons I enjoy SDMB. I think one of the beautiful things about our government is was built to evolve. Our founders knew they didn’t have all the answers. I appreciate the fact that one of the main principles is that to insure my own rights I am morally bound to defend those same rights for other citizens.
As I said, I support seperation of Church and State. There are people who seem to think that historically Christianity has some kind of dibbs on this country. It’s ridiculous. They speak of Christian principles and values which are figments of their imagination. We are now more multicultural than ever includeing the variety of religions. In many respects I think a move toward neutrality is the wise choice. I do want spiritual beliefs{includeing atheism} to be included as an important of our culture and part of the dialogue. In some ways I see the strict sepratists as saying and acting on an attitude of “I don’t want to hear about it anymore” In my mind that smacks of supression of free speech as well. It will be interesting to do a follow up and see how this goes.
