Religious Right Joins White House in Milestone Supreme Court Church-State Separation Case

[Ian David]

From the New York Times’ editorial page:

The Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case that could have a broad impact on whether the courthouse door remains open to ordinary Americans who believe that the government is undermining the separation of church and state.

The question before the court is whether a group seeking to preserve the separation of church and state can mount a First Amendment challenge to the Bush administration’s “faith based” initiatives. The arguments turn on a technical question of whether taxpayers have standing, or the right to initiate this kind of suit, but the real-world implications are serious. If the court rules that the group does not have standing, it will be much harder to stop government from giving unconstitutional aid to religion.


In short, when the Freedom from Religion Foundation sought to combat the constitutionality of the President’s broad expansion of faith based funding initiatives the White House argued that they could not even challenge the program. Today’s case will rule on whether the White House is correct, or whether we as citizens do have the right to challenge the government’s infringement on our first amendment rights, either through faith based funding or other examples of our government’s use of taxpayer dollars to promote religion.

The religious right recognizes the massive opportunity to erode church/state separation. In fact, Jay Sekulow’s American Center for Law & Justice, Roy Moore’s Foundation For Moral Law, and the Alliance Defense Fund have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the White House’s position.

We’re keeping an eye on this and will let you know if there is anything you can do to ensure that the separation between church and state is maintained.

More:
http://defconblog.org/2007/02/religious-right-joins-white-house-in-milestone-supreme-court-church-state-separation-case/



See also:

Rally at the US Supreme Court Wed. Feb 28th against Faith-Based Initiatives Click here to hide this thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x30271