An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Note To Massachusetts Voters
Should you vote for a woman who, if elected, swears to uphold a document she obviously hasn’t read, or has no understanding?
After discussing her “Mission Accomplished” remark regarding Afghanistan, I moved to the healthcare issue. I chose this based on her vitriolic campaign attack on Scott Brown’s participation in a bill allowing medical people with religious principles to find another emergency room care provider to administer a pill or service to end the life of an unborn in the womb. I figured her guarded answer to date would be interesting but she outdid herself….
Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.
Martha Coakley: No we have a seperation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.
Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.
Martha Coakley: (……uh, eh…um..) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.
Perhaps Mzzzzzz Coakley should actually try reading the 1st Amendment a time or two. I doubt it will help, but you never can tell. So, maybe someone should explain to her that NO WHERE in that document do the words “separation of church and state” appear. NO WHERE! Evidently, this woman, who has a rather shady past, to say the least, is telling people with strong conviction of faith, where they can, and cannot work? I’d say that anyone who has such limited knowledge of the founding of this nation, should NOT be allowed to hold office. That would take care of a great deal of Washington, D.C.
Whatcha think? Send the whole bunch home, start from scratch, and leave the political machines on the cutting floor. And for the love of all that’s holy, do NOT elect more of the same!!!!!!
AMEN!! How can anyone…ANYONE…choose to vote for such an uninformed ignorant person to represent them?? Sheesh!!!
Unfortunately we are talking about MA, not exactly known as a center of common sense…I mean they kept Teddy “The Olympic Swimmer” Kennedy in office until he finally croaked. I am praying…but I fear that those folks aren’t too smart.
Kate I have evolved over the past couple years…I am in favor of throwing all the bums out!
Let’s face it….the big time Ivy League type schools are in this area, so that tells me, right off the bat, there are a great many uninformed/indoctrinated folks in the area. We can only pray that common sense will prevail!
Ya know, TM, I first thought there were some who were salvageable, but I’m finding that even those are too entrenched in the D.C. mindset.
The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the underlying principle of the First Amendment and the no-religious-test clause of the Constitution. The absence of the phrase in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression the words appeared there and later learned of their mistake. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to describe one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. That letter, though, played but a small part in the Court’s decision. Indeed, the Court mentioned it only in passing after stating its conclusion based on a lengthy and detailed discussion (encompassing many pages and many footnotes) of the historical context in which the First Amendment was developed. The metaphor “separation of church and state” was but a handy catch phrase to describe the upshot of its conclusion. The Court’s reading of the First Amendment in this regard was unanimous; all nine Justices agreed on that much, but split 5-4 on whether the Amendment precludes states from paying for transportation of students to religious schools.
Perhaps even more than Thomas Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that old habits die hard and that tendencies of citizens and politicians could and sometimes did lead them to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to transform our secular government into some form of religion-government partnership should be resisted by every patriot.