“The fourteenth amendment has not extended the rights and privileges of citizenship one iota. They are right where they always were.”
Justice Thomas pointed out what many should already know from his lone dissent from the court’s denial of certiorari in Utah Highway Patrol Association v. American Atheists Inc. on Monday: Federal Establishment clause jurisprudence is “in Shambles.” The court’s refusal to hear the case brings to an end a lawsuit that has been contested since [...]
I wish to briefly address the assertion the folks occupying Wall Street – and elsewhere – are merely exercising their First Amendment right to peaceful assembly. The constitutional provision to peaceably assemble extends no further than to peacefully assemble for a lawful purpose such as circulating a petition to present to government. It is not [...]
Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School (“Hosanna-Tabor”) is a religious school in Redford, Michigan who terminated employment of a teacher and commissioned minister named Cheryl Perich after a disability-related leave of absence for narcolepsy. Perich taught a full secular curriculum along with religion and lead students in prayer. Perich filed a complaint with the Equal [...]
Not intending to revisit what has already been written following the Coons/O’Donnell Senate debate over church and state under the First Amendment, I do though want correct an erroneous assertion that Jefferson’s use of the phrase “wall of separation between Church & State” is somehow improper or erroneous. The fact is there is nothing wrong [...]
The Supreme Court recently held in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission that corporations had a First Amendment right to spend money to support or oppose political candidates. The Court struck down federal laws regulating independent political advertising by for-profit and non-profit corporations before an election even as they reaffirmed rules about disclosure and disclosures [...]
Summary: Freedom of Speech or of the Press can be defined as freedom from government treating written or spoken words critical of government affairs a punishable crime because it is considered injurious to government. Under common law, people had to be careful of any criticism they wrote or said against government or its officials out [...]
I was reading today about a federal case (Morse v. Frederick, aka “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case) winding its way through the courts, and was thinking how bizarre current federal jurisprudence has really become. On March 19, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over the limits of freedom of speech in public [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union again is suing under the twisted rational the Fourteenth Amendment somehow disables local government from displaying anything remotely religious in nature. The latest victim targeted by the ACLU is the rural Florida county of Dixie, which has a Ten Commandments monument at the steps of its courthouse. The lawsuit says [...]