No it doesn’t. Putting up a statue of Jesus isn’t an establishment of religion. If you can demonstrate that the framers of the Constitution believed that putting up a statue of Jesus is an establishment of religion, then I’ll acknowledge that this statue should be removed.
Then please define “establishment of religion” since we seem to have a fundamentally different understanding of the phrase.
Obviously I can’t reanimate any of the FF to ask what they think, nor would I want to. Invoking the FF is a ridiculous attempt to avoid addressing an issue. Separation of church and state is a basic human right.
Of course it is; that’s the point, that’s the intention. Just like putting the Ten Commandments on a courthouse wall or a judge embroidering them on his robe; it’s a way of shoving Christianity in people’s faces, of saying “this is a Christian country, and if you aren’t Christian you aren’t a real American”.
Actually, I bet there were a few founding fathers who thought statues of Jesus (and Mary, and other icons) were unacceptably papist, but no matter.
So, has anyone else seriously applied for a similar sweetheart lease arrangements in this park, to put up other statues? I can think of a few suggestions.
The government builds nondenominational chapels on military bases. Are you asserting that Jesus is nondenominational?
I’m willing to cut military chaplains some slack - members of the military are, to varying degrees, cut off from their family and social circles and if they need or want religious ministrations (and having access to it makes them better at their jobs), so be it.
Besides, the various chaplains I’ve run into over years have been a fairly mild and friendly lot. As long as they’re not proselytizing, and service attendance is not mandatory (or encouraged along the lines of “go to the chapel or clean out the latrine”) and they provide nonreligious counseling-type services… fine.
The 8th AM has no bearing and is not applicable to a cop beating someone, period.
The 8th deals with incarceration and such related penal factors.
I have this case in my notes which is somewhat similar in a legal context. The city sold some land to a church, then the Q was, was the property still a “public forum” for 1st AM purposes? This is one way the 1st AM can bind a private entity.
It indicates endorsement of a particular religion by your own statement, because it was the “will of the people” this is equivalent to establishment.
Do you really think that the majority of the British were not CoE members?
This is the reason many groups immigrated to the new world, oppression from the Majority.
The statue belittles the beliefs of others who do not have said access and government gifts.
Exactly like how the courts decided that church groups can meet on school grounds but only if they are also available for secular purposes.
There is no way that this statue meets the historic or secular standard as SCOTUS semi-decided in Van Orden vs. Perry and McCreary County vs. ACLU of Kentucky.
Very well. When the First Amendment was written, England had an establishment of religion, namely the Church of England. The Church of England was melded with the government of England such that there was no separation; anyone who participated in English government had to be a member of the Church of England, and the head of government was also the head of the Church . That’s an establishment of religion. Erecting a statue of Jesus is not an establishment of religion.
Reanimation is not necessary. The framers of the Constitution left us copious material explain what they intended the Constitution to mean. I’m asking whether you can find anywhere in that material where they said that destruction of statues of Jesus was among the things they supposed to be Constitutionally mandated.
Who decided that “separation of church and state is a basic human right”? Was it you or someone else?
Who’s saying the statue has to be destroyed? Can’t it just be removed?
Umm…maybe the UN?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Vienna Concluding Document
Or closer to home?
“Every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshiping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.” George Washington, Letter, United Baptist Chamber of Virginia May 1789
" … I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state." Thomas Jefferson, Letter, Danbury Baptist Assn. January 1, 1802
Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between Church and State, and that in my action as President of the United States I recognized no distinction of creeds in my appointments office." James K. Polk
“I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this county in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.” Andrew Jackson, Statement refusing to proclaim a national day of fasting and prayer.
“there is not a shadow of right on the general goverment to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation. I can appeal to my uniform conduct on this subject tha I have warmly supported religious freedom.” James Madison
“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained. Its interests are intrusted to the States and the voluntary action of the people. Whatever help the nation can justly afford should be generously given to aid the States in supporting common schools; but it would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of the revenues of the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian schools. The separation of Church and State in everything relating to taxation should be absolute.” James A. Garfield
“I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be non-sectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools.” Theodore Roosevelt
Do you want me to go on?
Here’s a copy of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You can verify for yourself that it does not say that separation of church and state is a universal human right.
That one doesn’t say so either.
Does that contain the sentence “Separation of church and state is a universal human right” or any sentence meaning the same thing?
Nothing there about separation of church and state.
I must have missed the moment in history when Thomas Jefferson’s personal letters became the basis for universal law.
etc…
The statue does not belittle the belief of anyone. It does not say anything about the belief of anyone.
Well, I daresay it says something about the beliefs of the people who paid to have it constructed and placed. Let’s not be silly, here.
It belittles the belief of everyone who isn’t Christian, and says that the people who put it up and allow it to remain are Christian and are at best contemptuous of anyone who isn’t. It’s the religious version of a middle finger, a deliberate provocation and insult.
Well, for a start it would not have been erected by a Muslim, and it’s pretty unlikely to have been erected by a Jew.
If you don’t believe that separation of church and state is a basic human right and a necessary condition for a democratic government to exist, then we have no basis for having a discussion.
Oh, and you gotta love this:
The Sacred Heart.
Yeah, I had noticed that too. He wants to go by what the people who created our government intended, but he wants to ignore the clearly stated intent from the guy who wrote the state law that the amendment in question is based on (Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom which the religion part of the First Amendment is based on).