The Founders gave to the States unilateral authority to regulate religious expression as they saw fit. While I am certainly not advocating for it, this means that, constitutionally, States still today can have established churches if they choose, as ten of them did at the time of the founding. And it also means that States can prohibit the building of mosques if they choose.
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"The Founders gave to the States unilateral authority to regulate religious expression as they saw fit."
The founders put a wall of separation between church and state because they understood the dangers of people like you taking over their new country.
@Mister Spak: The statement that Bryan Fisher is making is, believe it or not, true -- prior to the 14th amendment. Most of the original 13 states had, and maintained, state funded churches for decades after ratifying the constitution.
However, the 14th amendment establishes dual citizenship (you are a citizen of the country /and/ the state in which you reside) and establishes that the federal government is responsible for protecting your rights. This has been interpreted to mean (for a very long time) that the prohibitions established in the US Constitution (more or less the bill of rights) are now binding on the states as well -- and that includes the 1st amendment's prohibition against establishing a religion.
Of course, I suspect that Mr. Fischer would be in favor of repealing the 14th amendment in its entirety, so...
That's generally correct, although whether states are bound by particular amendments under that view of the 14th amendment has been decided amendment by amendment. First amendment has been applicable for a very long time, but it's only been with the last decade that SCOTUS decided the states could not abridge second amendment rights.
@Me
"@Mister Spak: The statement that Bryan Fisher is making is, believe it or not, true -- prior to the 14th amendment."
I've heard the claim from wingnuts that the civil war amendments (13,14,15)are not valid because the southern states (being an occupied defeated enemy) were not allowed to vote on them, and everything that followed from them is ZOG islam gay tyranny.ie every social change in the past 150 years.
So if one of those states declared their state religion was Islam and prohibited the building of churches, you would be in favor of it? No? What about if you lived in a state when your sect was not th eone endorsed by the state, and they declared that your sect were all heretics and had to either abandon their faith, leave the state or go to jail? There's only one way to truly avoid religious persecution, and that is through the separation of church and state. You don't get to kick out the Muslims, but by that same token, nobody gets to kick you out.
The Founders gave to the States unilateral authority to regulate religious expression as they saw fit.
You want Utah to be allowed to require everyone to be a Mormon or Alabama to deny the vote to anyone who isn't a Baptist? The Founders also gave to the States unilateral authority to have slavery. The 14th Amendment retracted that authority: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" (including the part about "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"). If the Confederacy didn't want to ratify it, they should have refused and remained a vote-less territory like Guam.
Frankly, the rest of us would have been better off.
The First, Second, Fourth and Sixth Amendments have been fully incorporated to the States via the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Fifth Amendment is almost fully incorporated; the Third and Eighth Amendments are partially incorporated; the Seventh Amendment is unincorporated; the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are not applicable.
You lose again, Bryan.
While I am certainly not advocating for it
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
@TB Tabby
So if one of those states declared their state religion was Islam and prohibited the building of churches, you would be in favor of it?
That doesn't count because this is a Christian nation. Seriously, that's what he'd say.
Be very aware this is their agenda, they claim states are free to supplant or choose which Constitutional and bill of rights articles they will observe. This isn't true and has and continues to cause repeated lawsuits down South.
Fischer and his internet evangelist ilk have a huge windfall if they can convince another 15% in their states that a Theocracy will usher in a golden age (getting damn close in Kentucky and Alabama recently) even though that has never been the case. They will live like kings for a few years as they totally destroy that state then run back to their mansions in the secular world.
You're gonna have to rely on the 5 th Amendment, if you fundies continue the way you are.
And Muslims - thus the building of Mosques - have existed in the US since the mid-19th Century; you lot weren't concerned by them in your midst up to after 10th September 2001, so unless you resort to doing the very thing that'll require you to cling to said 5th Amendment with a death-grip, the 14th Amendment is here to stay.
...but you keep fapping to "Olympus Has Fallen", Bri, if it'll help you sleep at night. Yet, in another fictional scenario - the Zombie Apocalypse in "World War Z" - there's a scene where the actual US Constitution is being saved , such is the vital importance to the very existence of your country that document represents. Your religion's survival depends on it too, don't forget...!
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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