You’re conflating “charity” with “charitable purpose”. In this sense, “charitable” basically means “for the public good”. There are plenty of public goods that a religious organization provides to its community that have nothing to do with the advancement of religion. For that purpose, the federal government has a motivation to encourage the formation of similar organizations (be they religious groups, social groups, etc.).
I believe this is correct. “Establishing” a religion would involve something like passing a law saying, “The official religion of the Government is the Pentecostal Conference of Salvation, Reformation of 1865. This church will receive direct financial support out of general tax dollars.”
A religion can be established even if there is freedom of religion. For example, England has an established church but, unless you are hoping to be Monarch, there is no legal requirement that you follow the Church of England. You just don’t get funding from the Government and you have to go get your own money.
It needs to be pointed out that the First Amendment doesn’t say anything about Congress not “establishing a religion”, but rather passing “no law respecting an establishment of religion”. The active verb here is “respecting” not “establishing”.
…or is it “make” ? Doesn’t “respecting” have the same meaning as “with regard to” ?
No. Either that or the people who wrote it and passed it somehow forgot about all the praying they were doing before, during and after the process.
Read what Chroinos posted. Neither SCOTUS nor any upper-level Federal or State court has ever banned praying in schools. (I’m phrasing that to avoid suggesting that no court ever has, because there’s probably some minor court somewhere which has misread precedential doctrine, and this board has a plethora of people who would find such a case.) What has been ruled is that Congress, and by extension the Federal, State, county, local, and school district governments, their officials and employees, may not require recitation of a prayer written by such officials or others, or prescribed by them, nor may they oblige any child to sit through prselytization by any person whether emoloyed by said district, a student, or otherwise, nor may they by action or inaction permit any student to feel pressured to conform to the religious practices of others. Students retain the right to pray, individually or as groups of freely choosing individuals. Nobody using the powers or resources of government may tell them to pray, not to pray, or what to pray or not pray – with of course a time, place, and manner caveat; the middle of a math final is an inappropirate place to break into audible prayer!
The Religious Right is hot on this supposed “banning of school prayer”; what they don’t say is that students still retain the right to pray; what got banned was their opportunity to coerce the school officials into prescribing what prayers the kids would be expected to pray.
Terr, IMO the music teacher needs to grow a set and simply state that Christmas (Easter, etc.) music is a longstanding part of our cultural heritage, which can be studied and performed without its being seen as an establishment of religion.
Note that the amendment bans Congress from passing any law respecting *an establishment of religion, *, not “establishment of a religion.” To my ears, that means establishing any religious practice as ,mandative on the public.
Succinctly put. But I disagree with the bolded part. Problem #17 is a bitch!
Does this mean that when I win the 2016 presidential election and am getting sworn in that I don’t have to do it with a holy artifact of any kind? Can I just hold up my paw and promise, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Honest injun?
Yup - you’d join Teddy Roosevelt and John Quincy Adams.
That has nothing to do with SCOTUS and everything do with a weak-ass music teacher and/or bitching parents. Many, many schools around the country perform explicitly religious music all of the time with nary a peep from the courts.
A quick test for Christians to run to decide if something is acceptable is whether they would accept it from a non-Christian religion. Singing Jewish songs for Hannakuh? No problem. 5-times-a-day teacher-led prayers on a rug towards Mecca? Not gonna fly.