Yeah, I call bullshit on your opinion based on not just the opinion of the Supreme Court:
But also where the State of Maryland called it public office too:
And that article ended with:
No, it is my position that the Madison City Council is a bunch of clowns who concern themselves with things that haven’t happened and which are already covered.
Obviously the SDMB is going to fall for it - it feeds the sense of righteous indignation some of us enjoy so much. Whether or not it is based on any kind of reality. Mostly not.
Regards,
Shodan
You’re mistaken, stpauler, most probably because you don’t understand what you’re reading.
The No Religious Test Clause of the United States Constitution is found in Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution. You quoted it in your post:
(emphasis added to show the words stpauler quoted.)
I pointed out that you were quoting an inapplicable section of the Constitution – that the office of notary public in Maryland, a state office, was not an office or public trust under the United States.
Your “rebuttal,” quotes a Supreme Court decision that says Maryland couldn’t require a religious test for the office of notary public… because such a test violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.
See the difference? It’s not the Religious Test Clause in Art VI. It’s the First Amendment.
In fact, the opinion of the Court in Torcaso contains this footnote:
You see what they did there, stpauler? They explicitly refused to decide the question of whether Art VI, para 3 can apply to the states. And since that day in 1961, they haven’t decided it, either. They don’t really need to: the robust First Amendment jurisprudence produces even more expansive results.
Your mistake is confusing the result of the decision with the grounds upon which the decision is based. You thought my opinion was that a religious test was constitutional – it was not. My opinion was exactly and precisely what I said: “A Maryland notary public is not an ‘office or public trust under the United States.’ The religious test clause has never been applied to the states by the Supreme Court.”
Do you now understand and agree?
Shodan, old pal, I’m going to have to part company with you here.
I agree that atheists were very likely already covered. (Young v. Southwestern Savings & Loan, 509 F.2d 140 (5th Cir. 1975), to pick one example). But in my view, precision in legislation is a worthy goal; it saves us from courts feeling the need to connect the dots with their own pencils. To make explicit what was a matter of interpretation does two concrete things: it replaces the courts’ judgement with the express will of the people, as made manifest by the legislature, and it sends a clear message of intent to the populace. These are both worthy goals.
If I thought precision in language would prevent the courts from legislating, I would be in favor of it. I don’t think it does.
And it is a gray area, but ISTM that requiring a belief in God is so obviously a religious test, and that it is equally obvious that state offices are offices under the United States, as to constitute not interpretation but textualism. Of course atheists are covered by the Constitution, and they were covered long before the moonbats on the Madison [del]Institution for Political Correctness and Time-wasting[/del] City Council decided they were.
YMMV. But as I mentioned, I graduated from UW-Madison, and I was there when the student government voted to spend student funds defending the people who bombed the Army Math Research Center and killed a grad student. Which is what put the Pail and Shovel party into power.
Madison contains a high proportion of nutbars, and many of those nutbars are politicians. Sometimes their nutbarness is harmless mutual masturbation like this atheist thing. Sometimes they support murderers with my student fees.
It’s nutbars all the way down.
Regards,
Shodan
Somehow, I’d feel better if they hadn’t passed this on April Fool’s Day.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PROTECTING_ATHEISTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-05-03-11-04-45
And of course there is no way you would try to associate these two totally different types of people in anyone’s minds by bringing it up this way, right?
It doesn’t stop them. But it slows them down, makes them feel at least a little shame, and any bulwark against the process of legislation from the bench is a good one.
[/quote]
And it is a gray area, but ISTM that requiring a belief in God is so obviously a religious test, and that it is equally obvious that state offices are offices under the United States, as to constitute not interpretation but textualism. Of course atheists are covered by the Constitution, and they were covered long before the moonbats on the Madison [del]Institution for Political Correctness and Time-wasting[/del] City Council decided they were.
[/quote]
Yes, to the first. But state offices aren’t federal offices, and “under the United States” refers to offices created by the federal government.
I’m sure they’re still hopelessly liberal. But I doubt the people you complain of are still there.
I remember him well; I went to school at UW-Madison in the 80s. He sold off American TV years ago (and they went out of business last year). Apparently, he’s still around, and now owns a store in Madison that sells electric bikes.
What, exactly, do atheists in Madison (of all places!) need protection from?
SPECIFICS, please. Find me an atheist in Madison who has been evicted from his apartment or fired from his job for his non-belief.
So your position, like Shodan’s, is that we should not pass any laws regarding situations that might happen until after they do, in fact, happen?
The author of the bill has already made it clear that this has not happened.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
It doesn’t stop them. But it slows them down, makes them feel at least a little shame, and any bulwark against the process of legislation from the bench is a good one.
[/QUOTE]
I have seen no indication that it does. If a liberal judge is determined enough nothing will stop him/her. Witness the CA referendum on gay marriage - some judge ruled that the people had no right to amend their own constitution.
Regards,
Shodan
I would hope that the elected representatives of the Madison Town Council would have more serious issues to deal with, than waste time and tax dollars dealing with issues that do not exist. However -
It’s hardly surprising that such a statute would originate in Madison, an island of liberalism in a conservative-leaning state…
As mentioned, Madison is “77 square miles surrounded by reality”. The Madison City Council is just defending its borders.
Regards,
Shodan
There is nothing wrong with proactive legislation. Could save a court case some where down the road, where an atheist would need to sue to uphold her rights under the First Amendment.
At this point, it costs nothing other than a little time and ink. It has the potential to save a lot in the future. Seems like a reasonable trade off.
That’s not precisely what happened.
The people’s right to amend their constitution was upheld by the California Supreme Court.
A federal district judge then ruled that the particular subject matter of the amendment was inimical to the federal constitution. The state accepted that ruling and refused to fight it on appeal. California law permits proponents of an initiative to have standing to defend it, so the people that had been proposing the amendment argued on appeal to the Ninth Circuit that the federal judge was wrong, and from there the matter went to the US Supreme Court.
The US Supreme Court ruled that the initiative proponents did NOT have standing to defend California law, and on that basis vacated the Ninth’s Circuit’s decisions… leaving in placing the decision by the federal trial court.
Uh, yeah. Pretty much. I see no reason to pass a law saying, “No barefoot tap dancing on broken glass” until it’s clear that this is a widespread problem, and not the figment of someone’s imagination.
This city “law”, such as it is, would still have to be defended in a court of law should someone appeal it’s use against them.
I think it is political legislation. Atheists are already clearly protected. We’ve seen case after case where the religious freedom of atheists are upheld. It’s not like the Indiana issue where there was actually something to clear up. You can’t even go for an originalist interpretation and not see that atheists are protected. There were atheists in our Founding Fathers.
Plus the first time it is actually used, there is going to be an attempt to declare it unconstitutional. And I can even see the argument: the law was specifically written to protect atheists. Not that it will matter, since atheists are already protected. So it’s not going to save court costs or anything.
And, as a political point, I just don’t like laws like this any more than I like “no asbestos” signs on products. The implication is that it is legal to discriminate in other jurisdictions.
This is pretty much what I meant. Change “they can’t amend their constitution” to “they can’t defend their own constitutional amendment”. It amounts to almost the same thing.
Regards,
Shodan