Establishment clause versus the free exercise clause

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Constitutional vagueness leads to arbitrary decisions

Time and time again, mankind has argued over the meaning of a few words to determine the fate of millions who will be affected by the interpretation.
Religious texts are one such source of contention. In the U.S., an entire branch of government was created to resolve conflicts over the interpretation of words: the judicial branch.

Courts have been able to define and refine laws for centuries to clarify and extend those that were initially expressly included in the U.S. Constitution.
But one amendment has far outdone the others in the amount of heated discourse it has caused: the First Amendment.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution starts off with some words, which at first seem to imply a clear meaning: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

The writers of our constitution chose the issue of religion to address first, which hints at the seriousness of religion-related issues in their society.
The importance of the role of faith hasn’t diminished more than 200 years later – debate over what is allowed and what is not continues on.
What academics and constitutional scholars know but many others don’t understand, is that often the establishment clause and free exercise clause contend.

This conflict results in arbitrary rulings that often seem contradictory.
Take this scenario recently brought up in England as an example: A nurse wears a necklace with a crucifix to work. She identifies with the Christian faith and claims that she has been wearing the necklace for 30 years.
The hospital trust claims that wearing any kind of necklace is prohibited for the purpose of safety. The nurse claims in return that many on staff have violated the “no-necklace” policy for years without reprimand.

Would the hospital be establishing a religion if it allowed her to wear a crucifix even though it is against dress code? Or would the hospital be infringing upon her freedom to practice Christianity if it decided to fire her on those grounds?

Most cases are analyzed on an individual basis. The courts have to determine which clause to uphold when they are in conflict – the establishment clause or the free exercise clause – by analyzing each situation separately.

Many times, courts will decide differently on cases that might look almost exactly the same, for technical reasons or a slight differentiation. This is why these cases can take years to solve and many times they end up in the Supreme Court.

But the courts’ decisions on many cases seem to be subjective: Many cases have troublingly arbitrary and unpredicted outcomes. The founding fathers have left us in a state of confusion, even though their intent was clear.

This issue is nowhere near universal consent and we must continue to challenge the establishment because for all we know the most facially neutral law could be ruled unconstitutional, or vice-versa.

Last month this issue was again brought to light nationally when some high school football students were baptized at a voluntary school trip to a church service in Kentucky.

A high school football coach “took about 20 players on a school bus late last month to his church, where nearly half of them… were baptized.” Apparently, the school district’s superintendent was there and did not object. The coach claimed that being baptized would bring the team together.

None of the students were given permission forms to have their parents sign and many of them were baptized without the knowledge of their parents, even though the church’s pastor “said that he requires minors to obtain their parents’ consent to be baptized.”

Even though the pastor knew that the kids belonged to a high school football team, in his defense he claimed: “Sometimes 16-year-olds look like 18 years. We did the best we could.”

But how can anyone assume that every high school student is 18 years old? Most students don’t turn 18 until their senior year of high school or later. It’s like assuming anyone in college is at least 22 years old.

Of course, the real issue of concern is not why the pastor baptized these students. The issue is whether or not the school district was establishing a religion by using a school bus and a school event as an opportunity to baptize students.

The necklace case seems harmless enough: if the hospital allowed other staffers to wear necklaces in the past, then the crucifix necklace should be allowed.

But some cases are easier to judge than others: It seems to me that the coach and pastor were both pushing their religion on the students.

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Is our press really free anymore?

Showing bias, many news outlets don’t cover full stories

A couple months ago I reread George Orwell’s 1984. In the book, the main character, Winston Smith, works at The Party’s “Ministry of Truth.” His job simply entails rewriting newspaper articles to make whatever projections or statistics The Party made accurate.

For instance, if The Party said that 100 million boots would be manufactured but only 50 million were actually produced, Smith would “correct” the number, saying that The Party projected 50 million boots would be produced.
This is how I see the mainstream national media — or as Rush Limbaugh has aptly dubbed, the “state-run” media. What you are actually seeing and feeling isn’t accurately represented by the media.

If you have ever have a chance to watch clips from actual state-run news agencies such as those in Iran, Venezuela or North Korea, you’ll laugh at the absurdity of their “reporting.”

But the same goes for our own national media outlets.
Take the ACORN story for instance: You may not even have heard about it if you don’t watch Fox News, as they were one of few who covered the story in detail.

At the Baltimore office of ACORN, two journalists — a male and female — posed as pimp and prostitute. What transpired as a result was truly sickening. ACORN employees were captured on tape giving advice to the “pimp and prostitute” as to how they could avoid paying taxes, hide their money and get a business loan for the brothel in which underage Salvadorian girls would work as prostitutes.

In a matter of days afterward, the U.S. Senate voted to cut off all federal funding to ACORN.

Many of the mainstream media outlets ignored it. Charlie Gibson of ABC News claimed at one point that he didn’t even know about the story.

So here we have undercover videotapes surfacing about more of ACORN’s illicit and illegal activities the U.S. Senate consequently voting overwhelmingly to cut off funding to ACORN, and Charlie Gibson didn’t know about the story?

On Sept. 12, protesters in support of the 9/12 Project gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest the explosion of the power of the federal government, health care “reform,” cap and trade and a list of other grievances.

The protest, started by Fox News’ Glenn Beck, matured into a powerful movement. This alone was probably the largest conservative movement and protest in the history of the U.S. and many media outlets either did an extremely poor job covering it or didn’t cover it at all. The varying attendance figures say it all.

MSNBC, for example, said that there were only a few hundred people protesting. CNN only covered the outrageous and over-the-top signs carried by a few protestors.

Fox News, however, did an excellent job of covering the story. Bill O’Reilly, who has now devolved into a petty and populist journalist, said that there were only 75,000 people there – a gross underestimation.

How did other media sources cover it? Mostly they ignored it or the ones who did cover it mislabeled the protest as simply “anti-tax.” The most extreme of these media outlets went so far as to say the motivation behind it was racial.

This brings me to the manufactured outrage of Representative Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” comment made during President Barack Obama’s speech on health care to a joint session of Congress. The comment itself came after Obama said illegal immigrants wouldn’t be covered under the health care proposals. Wilson vocally disagreed.

The media were quick to pounce on the story. Instead of seeing if Wilson had any credence to his remark by investigating whether illegal immigrants would be covered by the health care reform, the media instead investigated Wilson as a person — trying hard to determine if his comments were motivated by racism.

Following this comment, the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, passed new rules about what can and cannot be said on the floor of the House — essentially taking the freedom of speech clause out of the First Amendment and wiping her derrière with it.

Obama’s green jobs “czar” Van Jones is another example. He resigned after Fox News and others pounded the airwaves daily about who Van Jones really was — a self-avowed communist, Black nationalist and radical revolutionary.

How did the media report it? They merely covered the story about how Van Jones responded to the 9/11 attacks and not about how he is a communist.
Did the media investigate who this guy was? Did the media bother to find out that Van Jones was an ex-convict, a communist and a Black nationalist?
Did they bother to investigate his ties to organizations like the Apollo Alliance, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) and the Tides Foundation — all radical left-wing organizations? What about the anti-police Free Mumia Movement Van Jones founded?

See, news and news reporting is no longer about what is happening, but what happened. Investigative journalism is no longer about digging deeper to find the real story and true motivations, but just taking things at face value.

Our national media are state-run.
I remember the White House correspondents’ dinner when Obama made the comment, “Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me,” after which the press in that audience went wild with cheers and applause.

With that in mind, I ask you this: is what you’re seeing and feeling really happening according to our media?

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