Dear Editor:
There are serious distortions presented in the May 20 AP Locke v. Davey Supreme Court story by Gina Holland, to which story your reporter Jon Savelle contributed. The following are two of its paragraphs:
"Justices will decide next year whether those bans are trumped by a person's freedom to practice religion, which is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
"The case, involving a Washington state theology student, puts the court back into the highly charged debate over the constitutional principle of separation of church and state."
The distortions in the above paragraphs are obvious.
The obvious distortion in the first AP paragraph is the implied assertion of a person's guaranteed freedom to practice religion as if that freedom were unlimited. The Constitution provides no such guarantee. The Free Exercise Clause is not a license for anarchy. Please, read the following essays: http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/anarchy.html and http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/exercise.html .
The obvious distortion in the second paragraph is the implied assumption the constitutional principle of separation is a matter of church and state. The word "church" is not in the Constitution. The constitutional principle is a matter of "separation between Religion and Government" (James Madison, William and Mary Quarterly, 3:555). The constitutional word is "religion," not church. It is a "religious" test which shall not be required (Article 6). It is "religion" which shall not be established by law or Congress or government at any level, not a church. Please, read the following essay: http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/clause.html .
The overall distortion of the AP story suggests that the issue of tax money for religion institutions has not already been ruled upon by the Supreme Court. In the case which the constitutional revisionist Justices (Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas) would like most to over turn is the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education decision in which its nine Justices unanimously agreed to the following:
"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid, all religions, or prefer one religion over another. ... No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion" (330 U.S. 1 at 15).
Unfortunately, some news service reporters are not geared to recognizing the distortions, like some of the Justices on the United States Supreme Court who would not recognize a violation of the Establishment Clause even if James Madison were to rise from the grave to explain such to them. Is your newspaper going to expose those obvious distortions?
Gene Garman