Quote:

What ever happened to the separation of church and state?




Actually, there's no such thing as a Separation of Church and State under the Constitution, and no real defense against the Christian Fuckers taking over the Government.

The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing a national religion (like the Church of England) or from prohibiting the free exercise of religion by the people (as England did during the colonial era.) The Constitution does not prohibit a majority of Congress (or your State Legislature or City Council) from imposing it's narrow, uptight, puritanical version of morality on the rest of us.

The Christian Bastards depend on this fact. They held control of Congress for more than a decade and passed all sorts of "Morality" based laws. They do it at the State level, too. Probably most dangerous for us Pervs is their activities at the local level, since "Community Standards" is one third of the Miller Test. This is what happened recently outside Detroit. From Dobson's Propaganda Machine:

Quote:



Michigan City Restricts Sexually Oriented Businesses


Sexually explicit businesses, including strip clubs, book stores and video stores, now face strict licensing requirements, thanks to a vote by the Troy City Council. Troy is a suburb of Detroit.


According to the city's Web site, owners of these businesses must pass a criminal background check, provide a list of their employees, refrain from serving alcohol and install tip boxes.


The restrictions are meant as a deterrent, since Troy does not have any sexually oriented adult establishments.


Daniel Weiss, senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action, said Troy is right in taking preemptive action.


"Even if no sexually oriented business exists in a town, it is crucial to set up these ordinances as soon as possible," he said. "We've seen these sex businesses intentionally locate in communities with no regulations in place. Once they're there, it's very hard to get rid of them. It's much better to proactively protect your community."


TAKE ACTION


Scott Bergthold, one of the nation's foremost experts in obscenity laws, can help your town draft an ordinance to regulate sexually oriented businesses.





I've been following Bergthold for a while, and was going to put him on The Shit List when I got some more dirt on him. He's a hired gun for the Religious Right. A Puritan Palladin, he goes from town to town drafting anti-smut legislation. He lists more than two dozen cities and towns as clients on his website. He's far more dangerous to Porn makers and Porn fans than, say, Shelley Lubben. He's a serious dude and gets taken seriously.

As for the phrase "Separation of Church and State," it comes from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association, dated January 1, 1802: "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." This was later quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court, first in 1878,in a decision against Mormon polygamy. It was next used in a series of decisions beginning in 1947 and continuing into the Burger Court in the 1970s, when it was quietly dropped for fear of offending the religious.

Some people, myself included, feel that the phrase gives the false impression that Government and Religion must have nothing to do with each other under the law. Others feel that the First Amendment grants too much freedom from religion. The Rehnquist court was notable for it's hostility to the Constitution in general and the Establishment clause in particular. Rehnquist, dissenting in a school prayer case, wrote that the establishment clause was intended to protect local establishments of religion from federal interference-- a position that undermined nearly half a century of strong separation decisions by the Court. Justice Scalia has criticized the seperation metaphor as "a bulldozer removing religion from American public life."

Bottom line folks: Preserve your Liberty; Torch a Church, Mosque or Synagogue near you today.