 his
week the Supreme Court upheld the right of religious groups to participate
in the beautiful mosaic of afterschool activities. No new territory
was broken: The case was almost identical to another case in which
the Supreme Court reversed the exact same court years ago. This was
massive resistance.
Justice Clarence
Thomas remarked on the oddity of having to reverse the same court
twice, noting that while the appellate courts aren't required to
cite all the Supreme Court's precedents, they might want to cite
the last time they were reversed on the same facts.
At least the
6-3 decision gives us an accurate count of the atheists on the court,
probably as accurate as my dream of giving them all polygraph tests
someday. ("Do you believe in a Higher Being ... no, seriously.")
Concerned someone might be reading Leviticus during school hours,
Justice David Souter dissented in a hair-splitting exegesis about
the precise time classes let out (2:56 p.m.), vs. the time the organizers
would enter school property (2:30 p.m.).
The New
York Times's obligatory hysterical denunciation of the decision
revealingly complained: "(C)hildren that young are unlikely to discern
that the religious message of authority figures who come to the
school each day to teach does not carry the school's endorsement."
It is simply
taken for granted that it's desirable for children to revere "authority
figures" at government schools. Normally those authority figures
are teaching the youngsters to put condoms on zucchini or training
them in the catechism of recycling. Sending a mixed message about
government "authority figures" might interfere with the state's
ability to turn small children into Good Germans inculcated in the
liberal religion.
It's well
past time for liberalism to be declared a religion and banned from
public schools. Allowing Christians to be one of many afterschool
groups induces hysteria not just because liberals hate religion.
It's because the public school is their temple. Children must be
taught to love Big Brother, welcoming him to take over our schools,
our bank accounts, our property, even our toilet bowls.
We're told
the First Amendment requires a separation of church and state, which,
just as an incidental matter, is completely false. The whole point
of the Constitution is to separate the federal government from the
individual.
In keeping
with the general theme, the First Amendment provides that Congress
cannot establish a religion -- but nor can it stop the states from
establishing religions. That's why it says: "Congress shall make
no law respecting an establishment of religion." Dear Congress:
You may be eligible for a free country. You do nothing.
The only thing
that tempers my annoyance with the canard about states not being
allowed to establish religions is imagining the kind of established
religion we'd have in New York. We'd be doing daily devotionals
to Saint Hillary.
Still, it
is a fact that when the First Amendment was ratified, several states
had established religions. Fortunately for the burgeoning minority
religions in those states, the established religions were things
like "Episcopalianism" and "Congregationalism" rather than "Liberalism."
It's hard
to imagine now, but before the official government religion was
liberalism -- devoted to class warfare, ethnic hatred and intolerance
-- Americans were kind to one another. They managed to get along
even without ACLU lawsuits. Thus, when there were enough practitioners
of other faiths in a state to be bothered by the established religion,
the majority just disestablished themselves.
Back to the
New Country: Two malcontents at the Virginia Military Institute
recently sued to ban VMI's tradition of saying a non-denominational
prayer at mealtime. The cadets are not required to recite the prayer
or even bow their heads. Merely having to stand while listening
to an invocation of God is apparently very upsetting for them. (I'd
hate to see these guys under fire.)
A typical
rendition of the VMI dinner prayer goes like this: "Almighty God,
we give our thanks for VMI, for its reputation, spirit and ideals.
Let your favor continue toward our school and your grace be abundantly
supplied to the Corps. Now, O God, we receive this food and share
this meal together with thanksgiving."
It doesn't
get any more sectarian than that. How about: "Designer of the Universe
(if you're out there) ..."
Religious
people keep cheerfully going back and trying to formulate some prayer
that won't make liberals angry. But the problem won't go away. No
prayer that assumes a belief in a Higher Being will ever be acceptable.
God has no part in the religion of sex education, environmentalism,
feminism, Marxism and loving Big Brother.
In a totally
unsurprising development, liberals finally suspended their opposition
to the death penalty in the case of Timothy McVeigh. He was the
sworn enemy of the established religion of Big Brother. Too bad
he never stumbled into one of those afterschool Christian meetings.
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