Liberty Counsel: Repeal The Lemon Test

The Liberty Counsel yesterday filed an amicus brief with the Tenth Circuit Court in which they argue for the overturn of the so-called Lemon Test, an expression that arose from Lemon v Kurzman, the 1971 Supreme Court ruling which grants private citizens standing to complain when the government endorses a specific religion. From the Liberty Counsel's press release:

“Since 1971, the Lemon test has allowed mere offended observers to overturn years of religious tradition,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. In the case currently before the court, two Wiccans were offended over a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Bloomfield, New Mexico, municipal building.

“The Lemon test has meant that the Establishment Clause, designed to prevent federal establishments of religion, has morphed into a weapon aimed at eliminating all vestiges of public religious expression,” added Staver. “It is past time to abandon that judge-made rule and return to the actual words and intent of the First Amendment,” concluded Staver.

Federal lawsuits require that the complainant have standing, which means they must demonstrate that they have been injured by an act of government. Over the years, the Supreme Court has loosened the standing requirement for Establishment Clause claims, allowing people to file suit merely because they are offended. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Court ruled that religious activity must be diluted with secular influences.

The Liberty Counsel argues that recent Supreme Court decisions indicate that a repeal of the Lemon Test is possible. And then the Ten Commandments can be everywhere.

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore Has The Same-Sex Marriage Sadz

"As Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, I will continue to recognize the Alabama Constitution and the will of the people overwhelmingly expressed in the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment. I ask you to continue to uphold and support the Alabama Constitution with respect to marriage, both for the welfare of this state and for our posterity. Be advised that I stand with you to stop judicial tyranny and any unlawful opinions issued without constitutional authority." - Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, in a letter to Gov. Robert Benchley.

Moore's letter goes on to call on the Alabama legislature to issue a formal resolution which would demand that Congress convene a constitutional convention for the purpose of approving an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage nationwide. Moore's proposed amendment goes further than the one just introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, which would limit marriage decisions to state legislatures.

Here's the text of Moore's amendment: "Nothing in the Constitution or in the constitution or laws of any state shall define or shall be construed to define marriage except as the union of one man and one woman and no other union shall be recognized with the legal incidents thereof in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." (Tipped by JMG reader Jeremy)

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG:  Moore was booted from office in 2003 for refusing to remove a copy of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom. He ran unsuccessfully for Alabama governor in 2006 and 2010 and was reelected as Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice in 2012. Upon his reelection, Moore handed over the leadership of the anti-gay group he founded to his wife, Kayla Moore. That group, the Foundation For Moral Law, filed a September 2014 SCOTUS brief in support of an Alabama woman who wants to prevent her late son's widower from inheriting his estate. That same month the Foundation For Moral Law called on SCOTUS justices Kagan and Ginsberg to recuse themselves from all same-sex marriage cases. In May 2014 Roy Moore declared that the First Amendment only applies to Christians.

Bryan Fischer Is Mixing Up His Lies

"The openly lesbian mayor of Houston, Annise Parker, has issued subpoenas for 17 different forms of communication, both public and private, from pastors who oppose her 'bathroom bill,' the ordinance that guarantees the right of men to walk in on your daughter while she’s in the shower at the local Y. In the process, she has violated every single right enshrined in the First Amendment. She has violated the right of these pastors to the free exercise of religion, because they are motivated by their sincerely held beliefs about gender differences that come from the Creator God who made us male and female. She has violated their rights to free speech, since she wants to shut them up. She wants to penalize them for speech they have already uttered. In fact, she wants to throw them in jail, because that’s what happens to people who defy subpoenas." - Bryan Fischer, writing for the American Family Association.

OOPSIE: Fischer has apparently forgotten his regular claim that the First Amendment only applies to Congress. From his September 17th column for OneNewsNow:

First, the amendment applies only to Congress. "Congress shall make no law..." No other entity is restrained by the First Amendment. Since the amendment applies only to Congress, it is legally, historically and constitutionally impossible for a state, a county commission, a city council, a school board, a school principal, a school teacher or a student to violate the First Amendment. This is for one simple reason: none of them is Congress. Violating the First Amendment is something only Congress can do.

OOPSIE II: Fischer has also claimed that the First Amendment only applies to Christians. Congress, obviously, includes many non-Christians.

I have contended for years that the First Amendment, as given by the Founders, provides religious liberty protections for Christianity only. Most attorney types, befuddled by years of untethered Supreme Court activism, think it covers any and all religions you can name. The results of this expansive but badly misguided understanding of the First Amendment have not been too costly to this point.

American Family Association: The First Amendment Only Applies To Christians

"I have contended for years that the First Amendment, as given by the Founders, provides religious liberty protections for Christianity only. Most attorney types, befuddled by years of untethered Supreme Court activism, think it covers any and all religions you can name. The results of this expansive but badly misguided understanding of the First Amendment have not been too costly to this point. But with Islam growing in America like a noxious weed, some of the more troublesome aspects of this distorted view of religious liberty are becoming evident, when it comes to things like school curricula, halal food, and Christian evangelism at Muslim street fairs. These problems have been brought into stark relief now by Satanists, who are pressing for exactly the same kind of religious liberty protections the Supreme Court just recognized for Hobby Lobby." - American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer, writing for the AFA's website.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore: First Amendment Only Applies To Christians

"Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn’t create us, it was 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." - Alabama Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court Roy Moore, telling a local anti-abortion group that the First Amendment only applies to Christians. Moore was booted from office in 2003 for refusing to remove a copy of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom. He ran unsuccessfully for Alabama governor in 2006 and 2010. He was reelected as Chief Justice in 2012.

Homocon Kevin DuJan Is Very Upset That "Perverts" Might View Porn At The Library

We haven't heard much from Chicago homocon Kevin DuJan lately as he appears to have abandoned his Sarah Palin fan site. He hasn't posted there in six months and his co-blogger Megan Fox hasn't posted since September. (Of course, Tea Party sites such as World Net Daily continue to repeat DuJan's infamous claim that President Obama goes to bathhouses.) The current obsession for Fox and DuJan is that a Chicago area library is letting "perverts" view porn on its computers. Via the Chicago Tribune:

Fox wrote a letter to Orland Park library officials and followed up at a library board meeting last month, confronting officials about their policy and posting a video online of the meeting that has been viewed nearly 10,000 times. The Orland Park Public Library cites the First Amendment in explaining why it allows patrons to look up anything — including pornography — on its adult-only computers so long as the material isn't illegal or obscene. "Let's see how long their so-called First Amendment rights to porn can stand up against angry parents," said Fox, who lives in a nearby suburb but said she uses the Orland Park library often. "Who do they think they are?" "We do not filter access to our adult computer area," library spokeswoman Bridget Bittman said. "We believe people have a right to access that legal information."

Here's the clip mentioned above by the Tribune. That's DuJan with the camera. I made a comment yesterday over at YouTube and it was instantly deleted, of course.

SCOTUS To Hear Public Prayer Case

In 2008, Americans United for Separation of Church and State first sued the town of Greece, New York on behalf of two residents who claimed that allowing public prayer at city meetings was a violation of the Establishment Clause. Last year the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the town. Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear an appeal brought by the anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom.

Some legal experts say while the high court has allowed public prayers in general, it has not set boundaries on when they might become too sectarian in nature. "The case involves a test between two different kinds of legal rules," said Thomas Goldstein, SCOTUSblog.com publisher and a leading Washington attorney. "The Supreme Court has broadly approved legislative prayer without asking too many questions. But in other cases where the government is involved with religion, it has looked at lots of different circumstances. So we just don't know whether this court will be completely approving of legislative prayers in this instance." The justices are now being asked to offer more firm guidelines over when and if such public prayers are constitutionally acceptable.

More about the ADF:

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a "legal ministry" based in Scottsdale, Arizona, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Greece Town Board, saying the Supreme Court has upheld the practice of government bodies "to acknowledge America's religious heritage and invoke divine guidance and blessings upon their work." "A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn't like," said Brett Harvey, an attorney for the group. "Because the authors of the Constitution invoked God's blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn't suddenly be deemed unconstitutional."

RELATED: The ADF is also behind many lawsuits that seek to thwart the civil rights of LGBT Americans

Rep. Peter King Calls For Prosecuting Journalist Glenn Greenwald Over NSA Leak

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) today called for the prosecution of openly gay journalist Glenn Greenwald for publishing the story about NSA leaker Edward Snowden. King appeared this afternoon on Fox News to make his threat.

“Not only did [Greenwald] disclose this information, he said he has names of CIA agents and assets around the world and threatening to disclose that,” King said when asked by host Megyn Kelly why he wants to prosecute the reporter. “I think [prosecuting reporters] should be very targeted and very selective and a rare exception. In this case, when you have someone who discloses secrets like this and threatens to release more, yes, there has to be legal action taken against him.” He then asserted: “This is a very unusual case with life-and-death implications for Americans.”

Video via Think Progress. Greenwald fires back via Twitter below.

From Reporters Without Borders

Source.

Texas Cheerleaders Win Court Battle

A Texas court has ruled that public high school cheerleaders may display banners which claim that God wants their team to win.

District Judge Steve Thomas Wednesday ruled that the Kountze Independent School District cannot prevent the displays. The controversy began when the cheerleading squad at Kountze High School was ordered by the superintendent to stop displaying the banners. The order came after the district received a letter on September 17, 2012 sent by the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. The letter said the group was acting on behalf of someone who wished to remain anonymous. Some of the cheerleaders, with help from the Plano, Texas-based Liberty Institute, filed a lawsuit against the school district after the ban went into place, saying since they make the banners on their free time and pay for the supplies, they are merely exercising their freedom of speech.

NEW JERSEY: Cops Investigated For Rap Video Featuring Homophobic Slurs

Maurice Gattison, president of the Irvington, New Jersey police union, and three other officers are facing discipline for performing in a gangsta rap video that includes anti-gay slurs such as the word "faggot."

In the video, posted on YouTube, three other men flank Gat as the broad-shouldered emcee with the booming voice spits out various homophobic slurs and promise violence against his rivals. One man swings a medieval mace, and a handgun can be seen on "Gat’s" hip. In another video, Gat is decked out in a gaudy fur coat and raps from the driver’s seat of an expensive car. He calls himself a "felon for life" and warns other rappers they may have to "meet (his) Smith & Wesson," while pretending to fire a gun at the camera. All four are now the subject of an internal investigation because of the video, which has reignited a debate about what police officers can and can’t say. Does the right of free speech trump department rules and regulations when the cops are off-duty? "The Irvington Police Department has standards of conduct that apply to on-duty and off-duty behavior," Police Director Joseph Santiago said.

In a follow-up story published today, Gattison said, "The lyrics I used, in no way did I intend for them to be perceived as homophobic. It’s basically me adapting to the rap culture... just basically slang use." The video has been pulled from YouTube, but the Star-Ledger has posted a snippet. In a poll posted on the paper's website, most readers are supporting the officers' right to make these kinds of videos.
(Tipped by JMG reader Jim) UNRELATED: While I often jokingly refer to Newark as my "ancestral motherland," my parents are actually from the adjacent town of Irvington.

Upcoming Meme Alert

After it happened to him, Georgia state Rep. Earnest Smith decided to try and make it illegal to harass somebody by photoshopping their face into porn scenes.  

Earnest Smith has a problem: he doesn't take too kindly to images with his head Photoshopped onto the bodies of male porn stars, and he's introduced a bill to ban the practice. "Everyone has a right to privacy," he told Fox News. "No one has a right to make fun of anyone. It's not a First Amendment right." Rep. Smith's bill would impose up to a $1,000 fine, one year in prison, or both on anyone that "intentionally causes an unknowing person wrongfully to be identified as the person in an obscene depiction." This specifically includes "the electronic imposing of the facial image of a person onto an obscene depiction."

Smith says he doesn't care if his bill does violate the First Amendment.

“They (parody creators) live for something like this,” Smith said. “They are vulgar. This is about being vulgar. We’re becoming a nation of vulgar people.” Not everyone shares Smith’s sentiments. “He’s the conductor of his own crazy train,” one lawmaker told FoxNews.com. Georgia Politics Unfiltered blogger Andre Walker said he’s behind the photoshopped pictures of Smith. “I did exactly what Rep. Smith wants to make illegal,” Walker, who has referred to Smith’s bill as “asinine,” wrote on his blog.

“I pasted a picture of Smith’s head onto the body of a male porn star.” “The first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects all forms of speech, not just spoken word,” Walker said. “It attempts to regulate speech and I doubt it would stand up in a court of law.” The blogger added, “I cannot believe Rep. Earnest Smith thinks I’m insulting him by putting his head on the body of a well-built porn star.”

We can all guess what the next meme will be.

No Freedom Of Speech At Work

The firing of biotech executive Adam Smith after his Chick-Fil-A protest left many on the left (and the right, in some places) screaming that his freedom of speech had been infringed. But as I've noted here before, freedom of speech can only be considered to have been repressed by the actions of a government, not a civilian employer. Business Week weighs in:

In America you can say pretty much whatever you want, wherever you want to say it. Unless, that is, you’re at work. Simply put, there is no First Amendment right to “free speech” in the workplace—potentially perilous for many employees in a polarized political year with a tight presidential race. [snip] Bosses and those who work under them are not equal when it comes to free-speech legal claims. Employers have the right to take action against any employee who engages in political speech that company leaders find offensive. With a few narrow exceptions the Constitution and the federal laws derived from it only protect a person’s right to expression from government interference, not from the restrictions a private employer may impose, lawyers say. Employers are not similarly restricted in expressing their political views or encouraging support for a particular candidate or cause.

(Tipped by JMG reader Kevin)

Santorum: The Idea Of A Separation Of Church And State Makes Me Want To Vomit

"I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country. To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up." - Rick Santorum, speaking today on ABC's This Week.

Bryan Fischer: The First Amendment Does Not Apply To Mormons

As I noted several posts down, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is scheduled to share the stage with Bryan Fischer at the FRC's Values Voter Summit in two weeks. People for the American Way have asked Romney and the other GOP presidential candidates to denounce Fischer before they appear at the conference. This clip may speed a response from Romney, at least.

TEXAS: Prayer Rally Suit Dismissed

The atheist group suing to stop Texas Gov. Rick Perry's prayer rally have lost their case.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that sought to stop Gov. Rick Perry from sponsoring a national day of Christian prayer and fasting, ruling Thursday that the group of atheists and agnostics did not have legal standing to sue. U.S. District Judge Gray Miller said the Freedom From Religion Foundation argued against Perry's involvement based merely on feelings of exclusion but did not show sufficient harm to merit the injunction it sought. The governor has done nothing more than invite others who are willing to do so to pray," Miller said. Rich Bolton, who argued for the group, said he is considering an appeal. "I wonder if we had a Muslim governor what would happen if the whole state was called to a Muslim prayer," said Kay Staley, one of five Texas residents named as plaintiffs in the suit. "I think the governor needs to keep his religion out of his official duties."

Perry says that the event's hate group sponsor, the American Family Association, have not yet given him his "marching orders" as to his role during the rally.

American Family Association: The First Amendment Only Applies To Christians

"The First Amendment was written neither to guarantee freedom of religion to Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus nor to prohibit their free exercise of religion. It wasn’t written about them one way or another. It was written for one specific purpose: to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion. We must be clear: the First Amendment does not prohibit the free exercise of alternative religions, but neither does it guarantee it. It simply does not address the issue at all." - American Family Association spokesman and national radio host Bryan Fischer.

Quote Of The Day - Sen. Rand Paul

"I’m not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they’ve been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they’ve been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn’t be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison." - Supposedly libertarian Sen. Rand Paul, who presumably includes revolution-minded teabaggers among those who should be imprisoned.

Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber: Dan Savage Is The Gay Version Of Fred Phelps

Father Of Slain Soldier Predicts Gunfire At Future Westboro Baptist Pickets

Bereaved father Albert Snyder, who lost his Supreme Court battle with Westboro Baptist Church earlier this week, says that somebody is inevitably going to open fire on the Phelps family.

"Something is going to happen," Albert Snyder told CNN Thursday. "Somebody is going to get hurt." "You have too many soldiers and Marines coming back with post-traumatic stress syndrome, and they (the Westboro protesters) are going to go to the wrong funeral and the guns are going to go off." "And when it does," Snyder said. "I just hope it doesn't hit the mother that's burying her child or the little girl that's burying her father or mother. It's inevitable." Albert Snyder again slammed the high court justices for not having "the common sense that God gave a goat." "I just can't believe that there was no common sense used in this decision," Snyder said.

Snyder must now pay $116K in court costs to the Phelps.