{"id":4077,"date":"2005-04-27T13:35:47","date_gmt":"2005-04-27T17:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4077.html"},"modified":"2005-04-27T13:35:47","modified_gmt":"2005-04-27T17:35:47","slug":"the-43-year-old-precedent-the-far-right-wants-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-43-year-old-precedent-the-far-right-wants-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The 43-year-old precedent the far right wants to change"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Dobson did a lot of his usual shtick at “Justice Sunday,” railing against the judiciary, lambasting the culture that’s made him wealthy, demanding better results from the Republican Party, etc. But there was one comment<\/a> from the weekend stood out for me.<\/p>\n

“Five black-robed justices on the Supreme Court can tell us how it’s gonna be,” Dobson said. “They’re not gods. They don’t do everything right…. For 43 years, the court has been on a campaign to limit religious liberty.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This sounds like a pretty generic rant for Dobson, but notice the specificity. He didn’t say, “For decades” the court has been a problem; he said “for 43 years.” And what, exactly, happened 43 years ago? I’m glad you asked.<\/p>\n

In 1962, as Dobson is no doubt aware, the Supreme Court heard a case called Engel v. Vitale, which dealt with the constitutionality of a prayer written by a New York education board and recited daily in public schools. Local families — some Christian, some Jewish — argued that mandatory state-sponsored devotions conflicted with their rights as parents to teach their children religion as they see fit.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court agreed. The justices didn’t ban prayer — students could still worship whenever they wanted, as long as it was voluntary — but said public schools couldn’t write and dictate official prayers for everyone. The majority wrote:<\/p>\n

“It is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by the government.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s be clear: Dobson and his ilk believe Engel was decided incorrectly<\/i>. Indeed, the ruling, as Dobson sees it, is an assault on religious freedom. <\/p>\n

This is significant because it speaks volumes about the far-right agenda. Focus on the Family and their followers in Congress aren’t just defending religion in the public square; they want the government to literally be responsible for writing and dictating prayers for all public school children. They want the biggest of all possible governments: the state as religious instructor. To do otherwise is “to limit religious liberty.”<\/p>\n

Note to Dobson: Focus on your own damn family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Dobson did a lot of his usual shtick at “Justice Sunday,” railing against the judiciary, lambasting the culture that’s made him wealthy, demanding better results from the Republican Party, etc. But there was one comment from the weekend stood out for me. “Five black-robed justices on the Supreme Court can tell us how it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}