The actual text that offends him:

PROHIBITED USES OF FUNDS. - No funds awarded under this section may be used for - (C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities - (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.

I've always heard that Churches and Entertainments always do well in a recession?? Good lord... does God need a bailout?

It seems some people are ok with mingling government with religion.....strike that...make that their religion.

Church-going increases at any time of a national/local disaster (see post-9/11) but that doesn't mean the funds increase. People start to eye that 10% tithe as something they can keep and use for themselves, and churches often suffer when their parishioners suffer financially.

My dad voted for Huckabee in the primary.

/forehead smack

Huckabee's quotes in this story are the kinds of things which keep this country divided among party lines. One of the steps to help the US get back on track is to stop using this labeling BS of red and blue or liberal and conservative. We're Americans first and foremost.

THANK YOU

Perhaps that's because he knows there isn't one. Although Huckabee would do America a favor by going back to playing with snakes in church, he isn't always wrong (although it's nuts for churches to want to do anything that could come with federal strings attached).

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution starts with a clause protecting the free exercise of religion, and prohibiting the establishment by Congress of a state religion at the national level. "Congress shall pass no law..." means CONGRESS shall pass no law. Until the past few decades, the Bill of Rights restricted the federal government, not state governments and certainly not private individuals. States were limited by the declarations of rights in their own state constitutions. At the time the U.S. Constitution was drafted, there were state churches--at the state level. The U.S. Constitution didn't do anything to prohibit that, because no one believed it was illegal. It's painfully obvious to anyone who has actually read the document that the U.S. Constitution doesn't have a separation of church and state clause. That's a doctrine of secularists who believe it so strongly they assume their political belief must have the force of constitutional law (or at least try to con themselves and others into believing it's there, and figure if they keep saying it then it'll make it true). What is truly bizarre is how they take offense at seeing any evidence of religion in public, thus completely transmuting provisions that were designed to protect and further religion, into provisions supposedly pushing it into a closet where it can have no effect at all on society.

Before anyone responds with some pap about Jefferson's opinion, let's keep in mind that he didn't write the U.S. Constitution. He was in France at the time, fornicating away, and his anti-Federalists didn't exactly get their way at the constitutional convention, or usually thereafter.

The link misspelled 'Constitution.'

You make fornication sound like a bad thing.

These two links lead to information on how the Bill of rights applies to the individual states.

Oh...you read the constitution too? I was wondering what clause he was talking about? I wonder if they notice that it is freedom of religion not freedom from religion. Big difference there, which means I can worship how I see fit, and encourage others to do so. Not be shut down everytime I open my mouth so I don't impose religion on other.

It doesn't matter what the constitution says, it merely matters how it is interpreted. Hence the problem with the disagreement on the right-to-bear-arms thing and a slew of other debates.

You can say whatever you want - and remember your argument above has been tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and in the end it only matters what the supreme court rules the meaning behind the words were.

In other words, it isn't "secularists who believe it so strongly they assume their political belief must have the force of constitutional law" it is those pesky supreme court justices whose belief does have the power of law.

You can change that - just get enough people who feel your way and get them nominated and accepted as supreme court judges.

but until then don't insult people's intelligence by saying they can't or haven't read the constitution.

You were absolutely, 100%, emphatically correct...until the 14th Amendment came about and forced the states (against the 10th Amendment) to follow anything the Federal Government rules.

However, that still leaves the establishment cause, to which Madison (the author) says, “Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.”

Thus this "Separation of Church and State" that people claim that the government must remain entirely secular and free from any religious influence remains decisively incorrect.

Yep, that's the bottom line.

Sorry about that.

Thanks for posting the links that back up what I said, though. Indeed, not until this century were the amendments applied to the States, and then only selectively, a little at a time, with most of the changes coming in recent decades. Good we agree on something.

Oh, and to 2manyusernames: saying that it is obvious if one reads the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that there is no separation clause there, is a statement of fact. If you're taking offense from that, you need to relax.

I didn't say I was offended, I said you shouldn't insult people's intelligence just because they disagree with you.

By the way, your opinion is just that, an opinion. It is not, no matter how much you may wish it to be, "a statement of fact". You have your opinion, not sure what you do for a living but people such as Chief Justices Fred M. Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger and dozens of other judges over the decades have had a different opinion. I would think that as Supreme court justices they would know what they are talking about but I guess they haven't read the constitution either - well except for the part that makes them the final authority on the interpretation of the federal Constitution and all statutes and regulations created pursuant to it.

Another way to illustrate this:

the first amendment reads:
There has been many cases before the supreme court over the years that expanded and interpreted just what that means.

Do we take it as its literal meaning? Is only "speech" protected? Do we extend equal protection to other forms of communication? In your way of thinking, if you read the constitution it only says "speech". You could read that regular US citizens can speak all they want and that the press can write all they want if you wanted to interpret it in a more literal meaning.

Obviously this is not how it is (or even should be). Case after case, judge after judge has expanded our freedom of speech laws to include just about any imagined form of communication.

vs.

Which is it? Just a few decades ago (circa 1960s-1970s) or in the latter 19th and earlier 20th century?

the beginning of the current interpretation regarding the separation of church and state started in the mid/late 1940's

Thank you. :)



Let us just go ahead and allow religion to directly influence our government and codes of law. My question is; which religion? Are they all equally able to influence our laws? What if Muslims declared their right to have sharia law implemented across the land? I can imgaine Fred Phelps having his say (and I shudder at the thought). As I posted elsewhere, I get the feeling most people who see no problem with mingling government and religion are assuming it will be their religion.