The First Amendment of the US Constitution is Very Controversial.
What does the First Amendment actually say?
“Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
What is the proper interpretation of the First Amendment?
Our founding fathers were very literate and knew the use of
semicolons to separate major meanings and flows of a sentence. Because
of this lets break this down a sentence segment at a time.
Lets start with the first segment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”
This segment tells me – Congress (the House of Representatives and
Senate) are prohibited from making a law that establishes a national
religion. Congress is also also forbidden from enacting any law which
prohibits US Citizens from privately or publicly exercising any aspect of their religion. This is pretty
cut and dry and does not say a child cannot pray out loud in school, nor
that a cross cannot be on government ground, nor that the Ten
Commandments must be removed from a government building. I am not sure
where our government feels they have the right to mandate these kind of
restrictions. Just look the amendment over again. This segment of the First Amendment prohibits the restrictions being imposed on the any faith, including Christianity, in this country.
Now lets look at the second segment of the First Amendment “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …“
Notice I kept the “Congress Shall Make no Law” portion of the
first segment at the beginning of the second segment, because congress
is the entity being restricted by the entire sentence. Again the
House of Representatives and Senate are prohibited from making laws
preventing the freedom of speech of US Citizens or freedom of
journalists to investigate, gather and report honest, newsworthy information.
This segment in no way says people can say anything they want without
repercussion. This segment says citizens and journalists must not be restricted from
honest, moral and responsible speech, but are not exempted from
prosecution for immoral, untrue and/or irresponsible speech. Many people in this country interpret the wording above to say people
and journalist are able to say anything they want without
repercussions. I just don’t see how to derive that interpretation by
what is in the wording of this segment of the First Amendment.
Now lets look at the last segment of the First Amendment “Congress shall make no law … abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.“
Again notice I kept the “Congress Shall Make no Law” portion of
the first segment at the beginning of the second segment, because
congress is the entity being restricted by the entire sentence. This
segment of the First Amendment states simply the House of Representatives and Senate are prohibited from enacting any law
restricting US Citizen’s the right to gather together peacefully or to
petition the government to address grievance they have. I don’t see
where it authorizes people to assemble in a way that blocks of roadways, people from
their homes, or to camp out in city parks and other areas where they
defecate and urinate in public and make these public areas uninhabitable by the public for whom they were built. The
second amendment definitely does not allow people who gather to assault,
sexually assault and rape other citizens. Judges legislating from the bench may have read too much
into the First Amendment and made a lot of stuff up as we went along.
Getting back to the basics our forefathers intended may be advantageous in the long run.
Should we put my interpretations of the First Amendment segments altogether?
Congress is prohibited
from making any law that establishes a national religion. Congress must not prohibit any US
Citizen from publicly or privately pursuing their religious beliefs. The government must not prevent the freedom of speech
of US Citizens or the freedom of journalists to investigate, gather and
report newsworthy information. They also must not restrict any US Citizen’s right to gather
together peacefully or to petition the government to address grievances
they have.
Above is my three interpretations all strung together in one
paragraph prohibiting congress from doing a lot of things they actually
are doing today. The personal interpretations of this amendment over
the years as changed what people believe it really says. Does anyone
see the term “separation of church and state” in this amendment. NO!!!
Well, where does that term come from? Someone twisted it all around making it
sound like the First Amendment was written to protect the government
from the church instead of protecting the churches of our nation from the government.
Some say they found the “Separation of Church and State” in the Federalist Papers. That actually isn’t true. What actually occurred is a letter by Thomas Jefferson was found where he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 where a portion read, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, 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 and State.” They must have only read the last phrase of the paragraph to interpret this as needing to keep the church from influencing the state, The reading of the entire paragraph makes it clear Thomas Jefferson was trying to explain that citizens should be careful to prevent the government from taking advantage of religion. But they took a couple select words and put it together into “Separation of Church and State” What Thomas Jefferson was warning the Danbury Baptist Association about was government trying to control religion as it is trying to do now.
Even when letters like these come up or even the Federalist Papers themselves say something, we have to remember that these papers were communications between the people collaborating on the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. These give good insight on what the founding fathers were thinking prior to writing the final approved Constitution, but remember that they did put specific things in the final document that is signed (making them directive on our nation) and left other things out for a reason. We need to keep in mind the Constitution is directive in nature and mandates what is correct, When the Constitution conflicts with the Federalist Papers and other letters, the Constitution wins.
Some say they found the “Separation of Church and State” in the Federalist Papers. That actually isn’t true. What actually occurred is a letter by Thomas Jefferson was found where he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 where a portion read, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, 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 and State.” They must have only read the last phrase of the paragraph to interpret this as needing to keep the church from influencing the state, The reading of the entire paragraph makes it clear Thomas Jefferson was trying to explain that citizens should be careful to prevent the government from taking advantage of religion. But they took a couple select words and put it together into “Separation of Church and State” What Thomas Jefferson was warning the Danbury Baptist Association about was government trying to control religion as it is trying to do now.
Even when letters like these come up or even the Federalist Papers themselves say something, we have to remember that these papers were communications between the people collaborating on the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. These give good insight on what the founding fathers were thinking prior to writing the final approved Constitution, but remember that they did put specific things in the final document that is signed (making them directive on our nation) and left other things out for a reason. We need to keep in mind the Constitution is directive in nature and mandates what is correct, When the Constitution conflicts with the Federalist Papers and other letters, the Constitution wins.
What does our nation do now?
This is really up to honest lawmakers, if there are any left. I
personally believe there should be a fairly large legal staff appointed
by Congress to shakedown all of our newer amendments, executive orders,
laws, court decisions and find the ones in direct
conflict with the Bill of Rights and other Amendments. Once
conflicting documents are found, they need to be rescinded or rewritten
by Congress to be in compliance with our constitution and other
directive documents from our founding as a country. Every effort should
be made to keep needed potions of the documents, but remove or change
only those things that directly conflict any directive document our
founding fathers signed. The earlier the signed document the more
precedence it should have in the evaluation process. Once fixed at the federal level, these changes
must be sent to the states and require their actions to make the same review and make all necessary changes to come in
compliance with the US constitution.
If you liked this blog, please take a look at my second amendment blog.
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