ACLU Versus Ohio Motto

M

Matt VDW

New member
In a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the motto of the state of Ohio, "With God all things are possible", has been ruled unconstitutional. The court's reasoning (as I, a humble layman understand it) is that since the motto is a quote from the Christian New Testament, it amounts to an establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

I realize that this isn't firearm-related, but I think it does highlight the sort of twisted interpretation of the Bill of Rights that's been used to attack RKBA. Obsessive, hair-splitting defenses of the First Amendment divert attention from obvious violations of the Second Amendment.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that any believer in a monotheistic deity would be offended by "With God all things are possible". (If you're a Jew, Muslim, or deist who feels otherwise, please let me know what I'm missing.) In fact, even an atheist shouldn't be offended since the motto only affirms one possibility; it's not logically equivalent to the statement that "Only with God are all things possible".

The motto could even be interpreted as a defense of rational atheism, since it can be argued that the existence of order in the universe makes some things impossible, thus a belief in an omnipotent being (God) who makes all things possible is inherently illogical.

If Ohio does have to select a new state motto, I suggest "With enough lawyers, any darn thing can happen". :rolleyes:
 
I heard about this yesterday. IIRC, the guy who brought the original suit against the state is a minister, and the ACLU is backing him up. Too bad they can't use some of that legal fund to repeal Ohio's unconstitutional concealed carry law.

This is what I think the new motto should be:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The motto of the state of Ohio is no longer "With God all things are possible."[/quote]

Take that ACLU! :mad:

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RKBA!
"The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security"
Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 4 Concealed Carry is illegal in Ohio.
Ohioans for Concealed Carry Website
 
following the reasoning(?) of the ACLU... then ALL money in the U.S. has to be changed to NOT have "In God We Trust" on it.....nor any other such thing....

[This message has been edited by CHEMNCO917 (edited April 26, 2000).]
 
Why now? That's been the Ohio State motto for years and years. Sounds like the ACLU is scraping the barrel for something to do...read something easy with no damage to them.

And like Chem said....what about "In God we trust"?

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
If you read Thomas Jefferson's Danbury Baptist exchange you would see that Jefferson's objection was not to religion being intertwined with government, but with government, in this case the state of Connecticut, taxing its citizens to support the state church (which was not Baptist, as you might have guessed). There were state churches in America up to about 1840.

A far leap to how the doctrine of "Separation of Church and State" is held today.

Rick
Agnostic, but I can read.
 
Here's the letter to the editor I wrote WND (one of the few voices of reason in that tangled mass of drooling idiocy that we call our National Press):

I really do not understand this.

While a glassy-eyed America follows the useless and over-hyped Elian fiasco, as if all our collective lives depended on it, the ACLU is busy removing, with surgical precision and calculated thoroughness, every cultural streak that does not resonate with its radical socialist agenda.
And they succeed, as they have now in Ohio.
And there is no public outrage.
And no one questions why such a radical group is allowed so much clout in the courts and so much control over our lives.

With typical leftist hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty, a group that claims to stand in favor of liberties enumerated in the Constitution, has in fact reduced that sacred document into one which could as well read:

"The right of left-leaning organized minorities (racial and otherwise) to be offended about justabout anything shall not be infringed; the object of their displeasure shall be thereby promptly and permanently removed.
The rest of this highly obsolete document shall be used not per se, but only to justify cultural cleansing in the name of fairness and compassion".

I hope I live to see the day when this intrusive, in-your-face bunch of zealot thought-nazis is rendered impotent and obsolete by a more enlightened America. An America where "respect" means "respect for all", not only for those who scream the loudest and whine the most petulantly.

Keep up the good work. People like you are our best hope.

========

I really hope they publish it so that more and more Americans can say "that's the way I feel too!!"

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Private gun ownership is the capital sin in the left's godless religion. Crime is merely a venial mistake.

Check out these gals: www.sas-aim.org
 
Good grief. What a phoney issue. The ACLU lawyers must have a *lot* of time on their hands to cook this one up. Or maybe they're just lawsuit junkies and can't quit.
 
I can think of no good reason why they would attack an innoculous state motto that has no legal bearing. Maybe they are looking for free media PR? Who knows.....

This type of thing is an outrage; nevertheless, it does not surprise me. The ACLU was founded by communists. Part of communist doctrine is the religion of atheism. They attempt to make the eventual "utopian" communist gt into everyones god. They want everyone to rely upon the "state" for all of their needs in exchange for the bondage of slavery. This in turn gives the top brass in the communist party ultimate power over everyone and everything. We see it in our own gt policies and in the thinking of many gun owners in recent history. The right to keep and bear arms is a God given right detailed in the Bible, both Jewish and Christian. It is a right acknowledged by our second article of the Constitution. Today, if you ask many gun owners, "Do you think that we should enforce current gun laws?" They will say "YES!"

Why do many say, yes?
A: Because they have rejected the fact that RKBA is a right and a responsibility granted by God and given to mankind. They have been slowly deceived into believing a lie that RKBA is a priviledge granted to us by gt. They therefore accept unjust laws piece by nasty little piece until we have a society of gun owners agreeing with the ACLU and HCI communists. When will people accept the fact that there is No such thing as a "reasonable" gun law? When they accept the fact that they were given the responsibility to provide for the welfare of their own families. This is a foregn notion to a secularized society like our own.

BTW, we can thank God, the God of the Bible for the great liberties that we enjoyed for so many generations....and I know......many of us do.

robert

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"But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip; and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." -Jesus Christ (Luke 22:36, see John 3:15-18)
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"Reasonable gun law?............There's No such critter!" --EQ

[This message has been edited by EQUALIZER (edited April 26, 2000).]
 
ACLU, obviously, wants freedom from religion (excepting their religion). Think of all the Scriptural quotes that permeate our literature. They would have to go. Think of all the Scriptures chisled on our public buildings. They would have to be removed. Moses is knealing at the burning bush on Kansas University campus. Our ancectors knew the Constitution better than us.
 
I'm a firm separation of church and state fan
and feel too many folks want to shove their particular faith into the schools but this is
silly.

Just as dumb as when some challenged naming a ship the Corpus Christe.

My high school had a hell of a Christmas concert and 80% of the school wasn't christian. It was music and history.

However, if you try to force worship, that's why we have the 2nd Amend.
 
I may not remember this correctly, but wasn't "In God We Trust" added to our coins pretty recently, around 1955? About then, "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, too.

These both occurred during a time of anti-communist fervor (panic?) in the U.S., I believe. Lots of foolishness occurred then.
Separation of church and state is a principle that should be strictly maintained. I hope the ACLU launches a successful effort to restore both our coins and the pledge to their original forms, minus the sanctimonius slogans. Government needs to steer clear of religion, period (I wish they'd stay out of a lot of other things, too). The Founding Fathers saw the dangers inherent in any other policy, and they were, yet again, right.

Byron
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Byron:
I may not remember this correctly, but wasn't "In God We Trust" added to our coins pretty recently, around 1955? About then, "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, too.

Good question. Was that the same time that "Liberty" started appearing on coins?

Government needs to steer clear of religion, period (I wish they'd stay out of a lot of other things, too). The Founding Fathers saw the dangers inherent in any other policy, and they were, yet again, right.

Byron[/quote]

I agree with you in spirit, but there's plenty of evidence that the Founding Fathers didn't intend to banish all things religious from their creation. Consider, for example, the Declaration of Independence (which mentions "God", a "Creator", and "Divine Providence") and the Constitution (which mentions the "year of our Lord").

In my opinion, crusading against all and any hints of an "establishment of religion" in the Christian sense is a lower priority than acting on the larger principle that it's wrong to force people to support others' systems of belief.
 
Matt: What you say is true about the Founders; there was a range of opinion. But, like the 2nd Amendment, the separation clause rests in a strategic judgment about how to deal with future contingencies. In the case of the 2nd Amendment that future contingency was the rise of a tyrannical government. In the case of the separation clause, it was about how you allow freedom of religion and also avoid having competing squads of True Believers tearing the society apart over their doctrinal disagreements. Sad experience world wide has continually demonstrated the wisdom of their judgment that the only way to accomplish those twin goals is to carefully avoid giving state sanction to any particular religion.

I think the ACLU position on this particular issue is precisely the correct one, fully in keeping with the Founders' concerns. Let's keep the religious nose, including the kind of annoying, empty, sanctimonius sloganeering at issue here, out of the governmental tent -- and vice versa. Mixing religion and government debases both and always leads to nothing but trouble.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Byron:
But, like the 2nd Amendment, the separation clause rests in a strategic judgment about how to deal with future contingencies. In the case of the 2nd Amendment that future contingency was the rise of a tyrannical government. In the case of the separation clause, it was about how you allow freedom of religion and also avoid having competing squads of True Believers tearing the society apart over their doctrinal disagreements. Sad experience world wide has continually demonstrated the wisdom of their judgment that the only way to accomplish those twin goals is to carefully avoid giving state sanction to any particular religion.
[/quote]

True, but look at what's happening in this case: the ACLU is taking something (the state motto) which 90% of Ohioans probably didn't even know about and 90% of the remainder didn't even find offensive, and they've created an issue which is, to a small degree, tearing society apart -- exactly the outcome the Founding Fathers wished to avoid. I'm afraid that in their zeal to enforce public secularism, the leaders of the ACLU have themselves become "True Believers" who are causing trouble.

Looking back at the history of religious persecution prior to the American Revolution, it appears to me that much of it was motivated by a fear on the part of kings, who supposedly ruled by the will of God, that rival interpretations of divine will would undermine their authority. Today, it almost seems as though those who would rule by virtue of some secular "-ism" have similar fears.

Oh, well... it's going to be entertaining to see all the politicians here suddenly finding religion as they try to get on the right side of the polls on this issue. :)
 
The ACLU claims not to initiate cases on its own, that someone has to come to them and ask them to get involved, and they then decide to wade in or not, depending on whether they see it as a Constitutional issue. (But I'd be very surprised if they don't actively facilitate things sometimes. That doesn't bother me, as long as the case really does involve something constitutionally important. Remember, the ACLU does not decide cases, it just argues them in court; judges decide.)

I agree with some posters here that the organization has a liberal bias, and that's too bad. In fact, I was once a member and quit in disgust when they took the wrong side in the Bakke medical school admissions case: The ACLU, incredibly, came down on the side of affirmative action based on racial-ethnic group membership, rather than individual equality before the law. My view is that the ACLU should act (and it usually does) as a conservative organization, in the sense that it seeks to maintain constitutional protections. Sometimes it goes off the rails, as in its unfortunate take on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. That and Bakke are the sort of instances where liberal bias gets in the way of principle. But in seeking to maintain strict separation between church and state, I think the ACLU is taking a properly conservative role with respect to the Bill of Rights.

It is precisely in those cases in which 90% of people are on one side and don't see anything offensive that you need Constitutional protections. Otherwise, you end up with the Tyranny of the Majority. (You don't need a 1st Amendment to protect popular speech that everybody agrees with, or to protect people against the incursion of religious beliefs they already hold.) Cases in which 90% are on one side are also the ones in which you need something like the ACLU, because no politician and few elected judges will have the guts or principles to go against that kind of overwhelming public opinion. Fighting for unpopular positions instantly guarantees, of course, that the ACLU will be hated by the majority in every case it takes on, and it is.

But we all know that if majorities could have their way unrestrained by Constitutional principles, the whole Bill of Rights would have been voted out of existence bit by bit a long time ago. I think this is especially true when it come to matters involving religion, making it all the more important to be vigilant in maintaining the wall of separation at issue here.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RickD:
If you read Thomas Jefferson's Danbury Baptist exchange you would see that Jefferson's objection was not to religion being intertwined with government, but with government, in this case the state of Connecticut, taxing its citizens to support the state church (which was not Baptist, as you might have guessed). There were state churches in America up to about 1840.

A far leap to how the doctrine of "Separation of Church and State" is held today.

Rick
Agnostic, but I can read.[/quote]


Its been quite a few years since I've read this, but it sounds accurate from memory. I'll try to check it out this weekend. I believe Rick is right. The aetheists and those who have used this one phrase to further their agenda have wrestled it out of its context. I as a Christian, too believe that religion should never be forced upon anyone. That doesn't mean that Christian and Jewish beliefs should not ever be a part of public display....If THAT's the case, then maybe we should start with the 2nd Article to the Constitution. It was based upon the premise that God has given man the right of self preservation. He did not establish gts to deprive the innocent of their well being and liberty. Rights begin with God...the God of the Bible. Parts of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and State Constitutions are rooted in foundational Biblical principles. To those who don't like that, there is always a place called China.
That's exactly where many of our elected officials should move to. The foundational principles of Chinese gt seem to most closely reflect those of many leaders. Oh,....that's right. Some of our leaders WORK for China. No wonder they want Biblical liberty removed and outlawed.

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"But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip; and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." -Jesus Christ (Luke 22:36, see John 3:15-18)
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"Reasonable gun law?............There's No such critter!" --EQ

[This message has been edited by EQUALIZER (edited April 27, 2000).]
 
This whole case is absurd. Further the state of Ohio should tell the judges where to go.

First, the first amendment puts NO constraints on any state establishing whatever religion it wants to. The state could have a motto such as "all hail satan," and it still wouldn't be Congress establishing a religion! Instead the Court claims authority under some absurd interpretation of the 14th amendment.

Furthermore there's nothing that the court can do about the motto. I don't believe that the motto can be changed without an act of the Ohio state legislature. It's time for some states to get some balls and simply ignore federal judges when they go off the deep end.

It's time that these jackass federal judges start calling the federal government on its blatant violations of the constitution before they go on some preposterous attack on the states.

Well that's my rant for today.
 
Whoa there guys and/or gals! You are making a simple problem difficult to solve.

Just drop the current motto and get a new one which should please everybody such as:

"F**k you ACLU"

Obscene enough for the ACLU, no mention of God and probably would represent the feelings of the majority of folks in Ohio. It would look great carved in stone at the capitol and on bumper stickers ( trademarked and sold nationwide it might eliminate the need for any state taxes). Problem solved and everyone should be happy.

RKBA!
 
Okay, I'm going to ball up my fists, stand tall -- my full 5'2 -- take a deep breath and be the lone dissenter here.

I'm GLAD the motto has been challenged. I AGREE with the ACLU. The motto was taken directly from the New Testament, ostensibly a direct quote from Jesus Christ. News flash -- NOT ALL AMERICANS ARE CHRISTIANS. I *do* take offense to my government foisting Christianity on me, assuming it's okay. It's not okay.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Personally, I find it hard to believe that any believer in a monotheistic deity would be offended by "With God all things are possible". (If you're a Jew, Muslim, or deist who feels otherwise, please let me know what I'm missing.) In fact, even an atheist shouldn't be offended since the motto only affirms one possibility; it's not logically equivalent to the statement that "Only with God are all things possible".[/quote]

So I suppose it would be fine with you if your state chose the motto "With gun control, peace is possible?" See what I mean? And what about polytheists? It doesn't say "with gods all things are possible."

Look, I'm not an atheist, or a satanist, or even a polytheist. But I'm not a Christian either, and I'd like my government to consider that.


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*quack*

[This message has been edited by duck hunt (edited April 28, 2000).]
 
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