Establishment Grandstanding

[essentialsaltes]

Though filed on April 1, it seems this proposed law in North Carolina is no joke.

"The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion."

HuffPo link.

I'm not an expert on the Constitution, but I did get the home game as a lovely parting gift. So my understanding is that the Supreme Court has ruled that the guarantees of the First Amendment have been incorporated to apply to the individual states.

Comments

whack jobs

[shad-0.livejournal.com]

Oh, the sponsors are entirely aware of that. Which is why their proposed resolution also contains the following gems:

Whereas, the Constitution of the United States ... does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional ...

The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

So what they really need to brush up on is not U.S. Supreme Court opinions, but the U.S. Constitution itself. Like, say, Article III, Section 2, which defines the power of the judicial branch:

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution ... .

(And I guess they could also check out Marbury v. Madison (1803) 5 U.S. 137, 177-178, if they gave a cr@p about anything the U.S. Supreme Court had to say, which they clearly do not.)