Subject: Re: Tripoli and other Secularist Myths
Date: 6/16/2001 11:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: KEVIN4VFT
Message-id: <20010617023854.02918.00002102@ng-cf1.aol.com>


I wrote:

>You're mistaken. The U.S. Supreme Court long ago established
>that this was a Christian nation and non-Christian religions
>have freedom only to the extent that they do not cross
>Christian boundaries.

In message-id: <20010616085125.24056.00001033@ng-cd1.aol.com> dated: 6/16/2001 5:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Ghstwrtrx2v0 writes:

This is not even remotely accurate.

It is at least "remotely" accurate. Already your credibility is tarnished.

The USSC declared no such thing...EVER.

I will have to assume that you are referring to the USSC case of Holy Trinity Church v. United States.

You are correct. Read the decision here:

http://members.aol.com/TestOath/HolyTrinity.htm

In the Supreme Court's 1892 Holy Trinity Church v. United States decision Justice David Brewer wrote that "this is a Christian nation."

Brewer's statement occurred in dicta, a legal term meaning writing that reflects a judge's personal opinion, not an official court pronouncement that sets legally binding precedent.

This is inaccurate. I have proven that the claim that America
was a Christian nation was the foundation of the court's decision,
and not mere "dicta."

http://members.aol.com/EndTheWall/EversonDicta.htm

In PUBLIC CITIZEN v. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 491 U.S. 440 (1989), JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE O'CONNOR join, concurring in the judgment, wrote:

The Church of the Holy Trinity entered into a contract with an alien residing in England to come to the United States to serve as the director and pastor of the church. Notwithstanding the fact that this agreement fell within the plain language of the statute, which was conceded to be the case, see ibid., the Court overrode the plain language, drawing instead on the background and purposes of the statute to conclude that Congress did not intend its
broad prohibition to cover the importation of Christian ministers. The central support for the Court's ultimate conclusion that Congress did not intend the law to cover Christian ministers is its lengthy review of the "mass of organic utterances" establishing that "this is a Christian nation," and which were taken to prove that it could not "be believed that a Congress of the United States intended to make it a misdemeanor for a church of this country to contract for the services of a Christian minister residing in another nation." Id., at 471.
[491 U.S. 440, 474-75]

When three Supreme Court Justices say that a claim was
"the central support for the Court's ultimate conclusion," it is
safe to say that such a claim is not mere "dicta."

Historians debate what Brewer meant by the statement, some claiming that he only intended to acknowledge that Christianity has always been a dominant force in American life.

No serious historian has any doubt about what the unanimous Court
was saying. In a previous post I quoted Justice Brewer saying he
spoke of "official action and recognition," not mere "individual acceptance."

Research shows that five years after the Trinity ruling, Brewer himself seemed to step away from it in a case dealing with legalized prostitution in New Orleans.

"Seemed?" Only to someone who doesn't understand constitutional law.
The Court in that case rightly concluded that it had no jurisdiction over
the police power of the states and localities.

The New Orleans dispute arose when a Methodist church sought an injunction to bar implementation of a city ordinance allowing prostitution in one zone in the city. The Methodists argued the measure would "destroy the morals, peace and good order of the neighborhood."

Citing the Trinity decision, church officials insisted that the ordinance encouraged prostitution, an activity inconsistent with Christianity "which the Supreme Court of the United States says is the foundation of our government and the civilization which it has produced...."

Writing for an unanimous court, Brewer completely ignored the church's religious argument and upheld the New Orleans law. Brewer's bypass suggests that he did not mean to assert in the Trinity case that the United States should enforce Christianity through its laws.


This is completely unreliable analysis. The writer of this web page
just doesn't understand the concept of federalism. If the City of New
Orleans made MURDER legal in a certain district of the city, the
US Supreme Court would have no jurisdiction to overrule the local
legislature. There is nothing in the case which would indicate that
the L'Hote Court denied the holding in Holy Trinity (that the US is
a Christian nation). The holding of the L'Hote case is found on 597:

  It is no part of the judicial function to determine the wisdom or folly of
  a regulation by the legislative body in respect to matters of a police nature.

I fear that Humanists (like the author of the web page being quoted)
wish that the feds *did* have such omnipotent powers,
but refused to exercise such powers because they were titillated at
the prospect of spreading a little immorality throughout Louisiana.
The writer seems to be trying to get readers of this Board to think that
Justice Brewer came to his senses, threw out all that Ten Commandments
stuff in Holy Trinity and joined Ben Franklin in encouraging vice and immorality.
As a matter of fact, Justice Brewer, speaking for the Court, said that

  the ordinance does not attempt to give [women of lewd character]
  license to carry on their business any way they see fit, or, indeed,
  to carry it on at all, or to conduct themselves in such a manner as
  to disturb the public peace within the prescribed limits. Clauses 3
  and 4 of the first section of the ordinance are clearly designed to
  restrain any public manifestation of the vocation which these persons
  pursue, and to keep so far as possible unseen from public gaze the
  character of their lives . . . .

The Court did not place its imprimatur on prostitution.
The Court did not repudiate Holy Trinity.
The Court did not repudiate federalism.



In any case, the Trinity decision is a legal anomaly that has been cited by the court *only once since then. And obviously the opinion of one obscure Supreme Court justice does not amount to an official decree that the United States is a Christian nation.

No such decree is either needed nor possible. It was a simple
recognition of an undeniable fact. The decree was in effect made
by the unanimous declarations of all the state constitutions and
other "organic utterances" cited by the Holy Trinity Court.

If a Christian republic had been the goal of the framers, that sentiment would have been included in the Constitution.

This is plain wrong. The States did not delegate any power to the  
federal government to make any pronouncements on the subject.
They reserved that power to the states and exercised that power
in their state constitutions and laws. Any such statement in the
federal constitution would have jeopardized the ratification of
the Constitution, because the clergy of the various denominations
did not want the federal government to give even the appearance
of favoritism toward other denominations. This is unfortunate,
from a Christian perspective; denominationalism is a sickness.
But it was a powerful reality in those days.

But it is not. In fact separation of church and state is clearly
defined in not only the religious clauses of the First Amendment, but more importantly, it is even more clearly enumerated in Article, VI, Section 3 of the United States Constitution.

Nobody denies the separation of churches and State.
The real question is the separation of God and State.
Not a single person who signed the Constitution believed
that God should be kept out of the State. They all believed
that America was a nation "under God" not separate from God.

BTW, if you think that our laws and form of government are based on the Bible then you have never read either the Bible or the founding documents of our nation.

Justice Brewer said, "[O]ur laws and customs are based upon the
laws of Moses and the teachings of Christ." Learn more:

http://members.aol.com/TenC%204%20USA/UShistory/index.htm

You will find no analogue whatsoever to our secular society anywhere in the Bible.

You will find no analogue whatsoever to our secular society anywhere in the writings of the Founding Fathers.

Legal analogy requires some skill. Those who have it have logically
derived our laws from the Bible.




Kevin C.
http://members.aol.com/endthewall/index.htm
---------------------------------------------

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and sit under their Vine & Fig Tree.
Micah 4:1-7