***Just a quick heads up, the following post is incomplete. In the past I wouldn't post an incomplete writing, and it would sit unpublished forever. So this will be sloppy and unpolished and flawed. ***
I just don't have time to finish or the energy to clean it up. I also am bummed out about Town of Greece and the future out look of the Lemon Test.
***
Recently while speaking at the Pastor for Life Luncheon, Chief Justice for the Supreme Court of Alabama, Roy Moore raised some red flags about his opinions of law.
The video of his speech is supposed to be here, but I can't get it to work due to blogspot hating the world... or it does work, Yay!!!!!
Moore's Comments in three parts.
1. The 1st Amendment applies only to Christians:
Nope. The 1st Amendment states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Notice how it doesn't say Christians. Me too. Now, I might not be some backwater, inbred, shirtless fuck Supreme Court Justice of Alabama, but the phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" seems pretty clear on what type of laws we can make prohibiting the exercise of religion.
Even if the 1st actually stated that only Christians had the benefit of freedom of religion and speech, the 14th amendment would take care of that issue.
Here is the Lemon test as spelled out by the US Supreme Court (the Burger Court no less) in
Windmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 272 (1981).
A policy will not offend the Establishment Clause if it can pass the following three-pronged test: (1) It has a secular legislative purpose; (2) its principal or primary effect would be neither to advance nor to inhibit religion; and (3) it does not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion."
2. Without God There Wouldn't be Freedom of Religion, so no Freedom of Religion for Those Who Worship False Gods
Ugggggggh the stuuuuuuuuppppppppidddd make it stop make it stop. If you take away people's freedom of religion, there's no freedom of religion... stupid stupid stupid. So yes, if there is a god, it's thanks to that particular
god that there is freedom of religion and no thanks to Moore.
Ok before I jump to conclusions here is what Moore said:
Buddha didn't create us, Mohammed
didn't create us. It’s the God of the Holy Scriptures.
They didn't bring the Koran over on
the pilgrim ship, Mayflower. Let’s get real, let’s go back and learn our
history. Let’s stop playing games.
No One, No One claims that Buddha or Mohammed created the universe. If you're going to be an asshat at least get your facts straight.
Secondly as discussed by countless legal scholars, religions benefit from the establishment clause. In
Weiss v. District Board, 76 Wis. 177 (1890) Catholics sued the state of Wisconsin, because they were being discriminated against when their children were forced to read out of the wrong Bible. Or a Unitarian in
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) who was upset that their school time was being wasted.
When it comes to religion in the law, there is always an asshole who will push for further religious purity. The principles enshrined in the 1st Amendment and regulated by the Lemon Test help shield religious people from bigoted assholes who want to force their interpretations of religion on others.
3. Life Begins at Conception.
Finally Moore stated:
That's in Blackstone's commentaries. As soon as the infant stirs in its mother's womb, they didn't have the technology we have to day. But they knew that when it kick it was alive. Today our courts say it's not alive until the head comes out. If technology’s supposed to increase our knowledge, how did we become so stupid?
He goes on to state life begins at conception.
Where to begin...since he called people stupid, I think I'll start there.
Open a fucking text book; life does not "begyen" at conception. Life begins prior to conception with the production of millions of haploid gametes. Men produce living cells know sperm cells containing one half of a man's genomic sequence, which takes about 130 days to form. Women produce eggs or ovum before she is even born. Then one night when they are teenagers, and they've had too many wine-cooler, the man's penis becomes engulfed with blood, and they knock boots until the male is forced to apologies and say "well, that's never happened to me before, I'll call you tomorrow." And then he doesn't... Asshole.
It's kind of fucking embarrassing that a gay has to explain this to fully grown man. But the important thing to take away is that if you want to play the science game, make sure you understand the science involved.
Perhaps this video can shed some light on this issue.
Furthermore, courts don't claim that life begins at birth. If anything they are ruling on rights. In this country a human being does not have a full set of right until they reach adulthood. And for good reason. We don't want children to be treated as adults.
It's also funny that he would mention Blackstone and life in one breath. Blackstone's ratio states:
All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.
How will he rule in an upcoming Death Penalty case. A new stet of statistics came out over the weekend from Gross at the University of Michigan, which shows that at least 4 percent of people that have been sentence to death have been vindicated.
We do not know how many people have been falsely executed.
But Blackstone didn't say executed, he said suffer.
Liam '14
