Monday, April 9, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Another article: present case related to DOMA
In Tennessee, there has been a dispute regarding a new piece of legislation headed by Representative Matthew Hill. The bill authorized local governments to display the Ten Commandments with other historical documents within the local courthouses. The bill is not supported by everyone. Some believe that it is unconstitutional to display the Ten Commandments on public property. It is feared that this bill would violate the Establishment Clause.
In Rutherford County, Tennessee some officials put the Ten Commandments on display and were instructed to take it down after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the county. Hill’s new bill would allow courthouses to display the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the United States and state constitutions, which are integral to the development of American law and symbolize American freedom and the nation’s history.
The likelihood of the bill being signed is overwhelming. The Tennessee House approved the bill 93-0 and the Senate voted 30-0. Matthew Hill brought the bill forward after reading about groups like the American Civil Liberties Union suing governments over the issue of displaying the Ten Commandments on public property.
The context in which these items are on display is extremely important. If the Ten Commandments were the only thing on display, there might be a constitutionality problem according to the Supreme Court’s historical jurisprudence. If the Ten Commandments are displayed equally with other historical documents, then the display may pass constitutional muster. Tennessee is not the only state that is trying to get this type of legislation passed. Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia have tried to pass similar legislation. This year in Georgia, the House approved a similar bill 161-0, the state Senate approved the legislation 41-9 on March 30th, 2012.
I think that this bill will have no problem with being signed and I think it is completely constitutional. This situation reminds me of the Supreme Court case of Van Orden v Perry. Van Orden challenged the display of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the state Capitol building because he believed that the display violated the Establishment Clause. In a plurality opinion, the Supreme Court held that the monument did not violate the Establishment Clause because the monument was in a park surrounded by other historic monuments. The decided that the display was a part of national tradition and it was commemorating historical documents that celebrate the United States. The Supreme Court stated, “simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause”.
I agree with the Supreme Court, I see nothing wrong with putting the Ten Commandments up in courthouses, if it’s primary purpose is to commemorate the history of the United States. If it was standing by itself, or if it had an overbearing religious tone then I believe it is unconstitutional. This is very similar to the Lynch v Donnelly case. In Lynch, the Supreme Court held that a nativity scene placed on public property did not violate the Establishment Clause because it was surrounded by other non-religious symbols of the holiday season. The Supreme Court has consistently held the displays that include religious material are not automatically unconstitutional. As long as the intent of the display is not meant to promote religion, but for some other legitimate purpose, it may be constitutional.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
The Catholic group on campus, Vanderbilt Catholic, begs to differ. Their current president claims that anyone running for an officer position should share the same beliefs as the group. However, this slowly sinks into quicksand with the university’s anti-discrimination policy. Vanderbilt is not the only university facing the same issues.
Vanderbilt is using the defense of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. In this 2010 Supreme Court case, the courts “required the groups to accept all students regardless of their status or beliefs in order to obtain recognition.” Vanderbilt is obviously not the first university to tackle this problem. Colleges in North Carolina, California and New York also have experienced identical or similar concerns.
Ayesha Khan, Legal Director, American United for Separation of Church and State, weighs in on this contested debate and more specifically the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case.
Professionally, I want to work in diversity public relations. I do not understand why discrimination, especially faith-based discrimination is still relevant. Why can we not look past insignificant details and realize the bigger picture of interconnectedness? This is not just a “Catholic issue”; this applies to all religious groups, regardless of faith or doctrine. Someone’s religious background should not be a determinate in their abilities to perform certain tasks, or any tasks for that matter.
As I mentioned before, this is not just a Catholic issue. This problem is broad reaching and has larger implications for religious groups, not just Catholic, and not just college affiliated. We need to steer away from religious persecution of minorities. To be completely honest, I’m sick of this being something we discuss. We need to make more strides toward a hyper-inclusive American culture.
Christiana Torere
April 2, 2012
According to a t NY time’s article, students using the computers at Camdenton High School in central Missouri have internet access to the web sites for Exodus International, as well as People Can Change, antigay organizations that counsel men and women on how to become heterosexual. Students are upset with the fact that they are able to access discrimination websites against gays but have been denied access to the Web sites of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation, or the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.
The students at Camdenton High School have been able to read Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy. But they have been blocked from reading Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court ruling that held that laws criminalizing sodomy were unconstitutional.
The decisions to block websites protecting gay rights are not left up to the school superintendent, board members, or the district Web master, instead the district's Web filter determine which sites would be open to students and which would be blocked. Since the passage of the Children's Internet Protection Act in 2000, public schools have been required to use Internet filters that protect students from pornography and obscenity. However, the actual person who created the filter that blocks these pro-gay websites remains unknown. The identity of the person is protected behind URLBlacklist, a company that sells filter software to schools.
Pat Scales of the American Library Association said "These filters are a new version of book-banning or pulling books off the shelf, the difference is this is much more subtle and harder to identify."
Anthony Rothert, a Civil Liberties lawyer based in St. Louis said, “Over the last year, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked officials from hundreds of school districts around the country to make changes in their Internet screening systems to eliminate bias” All agreed to the procedure except for Camdenton High School, which the A.C.L.U. sued last summer.
The lawsuit happens to be the first of its kind. It does not claim that the rural district of 4,200 students purchased the software with the intent of discriminating. Rather, it says, once there were complaints about the filter last year, school officials refused to replace it. An investigator for the A.C.L.U. has been able to figure out how the filter works, but not who developed it.
Camdenton High School has arranged for students wishing to access any pro-gay websites that is blocked by the URLBlacklist filter can file an appeal to the district's Web master.
In a hearing in federal court in October, Thomas Mickes, the lawyer for the Camdenton school district told the judge, "Just because the A.C.L.U. or some other liberal group says, 'Hey, you know, I don't like what you're doing, you've got to change that,' and if we don't change it, then somehow we're showing discrimination, that's not the law. That would be crazy."
After reading this article, I thought about the court cases we read in class over the past weeks, and if the intent was not to promote discrimination then there isn’t a case, but by them allowing websites to be accessed that were against gay rights puts them at risk for discrimination, which is why I believe there is proper cause for a case. The intent was to save students from being gay not just to shelter them from pornography. This is similar to how schools would find a way to go around the laws in the cases we discussed last week. If the intent was to only practice the Internet Protection Act in 2000 as stated, then why was antigay organizations websites provided?