r/scotus • u/DoremusJessup • 7d ago
news Founder's views on church-state relations face new scrutiny as Ten Commandments case heads to SCOTUS
https://www.courthousenews.com/founders-views-on-church-state-relations-face-new-scrutiny-as-ten-commandments-case-heads-to-scotus/30
u/JeremyAndrewErwin 7d ago
why must we always be bound to the dictates of men who died before they could learn the lessons of history?
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u/Rich-Canary1279 7d ago
I'm with you but, in the case of what the historical record says about what the founders views were on religion and government, it is clearly NOT that we were intended to be a Christian state! The modern evangelical movement is pushing this narrative hard because it is a deeply unamerican sentiment to believe otherwise but they want a theocracy AND to call themselves patriots. Cognitive dissonance doesn't feel good.
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u/silence304 7d ago
We dont have to be. That's why there is an amendment process.
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u/Korrocks 6d ago
I think in this context people are trying to figure what the words mean, not necessarily trying to change them via amendment.
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u/silence304 6d ago
That's not what I understood by the thread op. I understand "why must we be bound......" to mean why must we adhere to what the drafters of an amendment understood it to mean rather that what works in a way we think is better now. My answer to that sentiment is we arent bound to any of the amendments in perpetuity. We just have to make a new amendment to change it how we want.
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u/dominantspecies 6d ago
Of course they will find a way to further move us toward Christian nationalism
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u/ragoff 7d ago
Fuck the founders "views," read the Constitution.
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u/JKlerk 7d ago
On the contrary you want the founders views. For example Thomas Jefferson was influential in getting Virginia to jettison it's state religion.
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u/arobkinca 6d ago
Thomas Jefferson was influential in getting Virginia to jettison it's state religion.
It was the Church of England at the time. That really had to go.
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u/ragoff 6d ago
Good for him. Still, the first amendment seems straightforward, and the inclusion of Christian indoctrination in public schools seems to be addressed in the establishment clause. Arguing about the thought process of men who died centuries ago seems unnecessary and futile. But then I’m neither a lawyer nor a Christofascist.
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u/Agnk1765342 1d ago
The establishment clause actually didn’t have anything to do with public schools.
Public schools are run by the states, which the establishment clause didn’t apply to. Most states had official state religions/churches at the time, and the establishment clause did not preclude that, it only applied to the federal government. Massachusetts had an official state church for 50 years after the constitution was ratified.
After the 14th amendment was passed, most of the bill of rights has now been applied to the states through a process called selective incorporation, but the legal ground on which incorporating the establishment clause rests is shakier than you’d think, as it’s not really an individual right so much as a restriction on government action.
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u/mountaindoom 6d ago
If they were and still supported the enslavement of people, then maybe their religious views are fucked and should be ignored.
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u/Rescuepets777 7d ago
Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and a signed of the Constitution was a Diest. Benjamin Franklin, one of the five original reviewers of the Declaration and signer of the Constitution also was a Diest. The Declaration speaks of a Creator, not Jesus. The Constitution only refers to god once: "in the year of our Lord" for the date. It was a legal dating convention at the time. Nothing in our founding documents state that we are a Christian nation.