Can Federal Judges Run Public Schools?

by / on August 26, 2015 at 6:27 am /
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Fisher_Ames_Bible_schoolJudicial tyranny, specifically in our American court system, has usurped legislative jurisdiction, and I am so bold as to add Divine jurisdiction, in our Constitutional Republic.

We saw its egregious head again this past weekend after a Mississippi school district canceled Brandon High School’s marching band playing of the Christian hymn “How Great Thou Art” during halftime at Friday night’s football season opener.

The reason?

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It was decided that singing a hymn was too similar to a recent ban by U.S. District Judge, Carlton Reeves, given to Rankin County School District on July 10, saying it promoted Christianity during school hours after it agreed to stop. So Reeves fined the district $7,500 and again ordered it to stop sponsoring prayers at graduations, assemblies, athletic competitions and other school events, WLBT-TV reported.

“That means administrators, teachers and staff of the Rankin County School District may not participate in any religious activity, or solicit or encourage religious activities at school or while performing duties as a RCSD employee,” Reeves added.

However, this didn’t stop dozens of parents and students and fans from performing “How Great Thou Art” on their own:

Parent Kimberly Moore expressed, “It bothers me because you look at the schools and all of the school shootings and all the bad things that are happening, and wonder why. It’s because we’re allowing evil to step in.”

Lamentably, America has encouraged this evil for decades.  Examples like Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), the U.S. Supreme Court established what is now the current prohibition on state-sponsored prayer in schools.

Evil is succinctly summed up by what the Ten Commandments prohibit and to display this warning sign to potential violators in public was never questioned until the Supreme Court ruling in 1980 of Stone v. Graham that students could not even be permitted, voluntarily or otherwise, to see a display of the Ten Commandments.  The majority view stated, “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.”

So, the legal question I present to you is whether this clause has been violated.  In other words, does singing a hymn equate to Congress making a law, the effect of which is to establish an official United States religion?

Well, the answer seems to clearly be “NO” for at least two very simple reasons:

  1. Brandon High School is NOT the “Congress”; and,
  2. A hymn being sung is not a “law.”  It is simply a song.

In order to find that a hymn sung in Mississippi (or anywhere else) is a violation of the Establishment Clause, the first thing you have to conclude is that the Brandon High School is, in legal contemplation, the Congress of the United States.

Crazy, you say?

I agree.  But this is exactly the conclusion the Judge maintains through a “legal fiction” the courts call the “Incorporation Doctrine”.

This unconstitutional usurpation of Federal authority over America’s schools is the source of our issue and something I will expand on more in the weeks to come.  You will find out that this overt attack on our students’ faith is part of a bigger plan.

I leave you with the words of founding father Fisher Ames who provided the wording for the 1st Amendment that every judge I have referenced used as a legal basis to eliminate Biblical references.  “The Bible”, said Ames, “is the source of sound morality and behavior in America and that we must never let it be separated from the classroom.”

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Jake MacAulay serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the Institute on the Constitution (IOTC), an educational outreach that presents the founders’ “American View” of law and government. The former co-host of the syndicated talk show, The Sons of Liberty, he is an ordained minister and has spoken to audiences nation-wide, and has established the American Club, a constitutional study group in public and private schools.
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  • DCM7

    What does it tell you when certain people in power want practically everything else to be allowed, if not encouraged, but want any trace of Christianity to be discouraged?

    For me, it just confirms a lot of what Jesus told us we could expect.

    • Thisoldspouse

      I always bring up the fact that, for the leftist and particularly the homosexual activist, “consent” is the highest standard by which behavior should be allowed. But their hypocrisy is stunning when they will deny consent to those who, with their OWN property and labor, don’t consent to lending it to what they find objectionable.

      • DCM7

        The use of “consent” as the only criteria for limiting sexual behavior is chosen not because it makes any sense, but because it’s the only common denominator by which there can be the appearance of limits without any real or meaningful (and therefore unwanted) limits actually being involved.

        • franklinb23

          It’s a useful guideline, though. Keep in mind that consent was not required in the Old Testament for a marriage to be deemed valid. Debt 22:28 required some women to marry the men who forcibly took their virginity (whether they agreed to it or not). Some might argue that it was necessary in that age for one reason or another, but I’m doubting anyone would argue this is a useful mandate for today.

          • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

            There’s some truth to what you said, especially in today’s culture.

            But in the Old Testament culture and circumstance during which the cited passage was written, there were other considerations.

            First, there was guidance on weeding out genuine rape situations versus “crying rape” (which, as a former law enforcement official, I’ve seen happen for various reasons).

            There was also the “check” of the decision falling to the woman’s father, as her guardian, and there probably aren’t too many fathers who would force their daughter to marry a real animal versus circumstances where there was some ambiguity as to what had really happened.

            There is also the consideration that a woman who was no longer a virgin for whatever reason would likely have great difficulty finding a marriage partner. People (even now, and especially back then) properly valued moral and sexual purity, and so a man would naturally prefer a marriage partner where there was no ambiguity in that area. She might still find a husband even if she wasn’t a virgin (e.g. Boaz and Ruth), but the odds were against her. And a woman without someone to provide for her in the hard and harsh conditions common to almost all the world in those days was going to have a tough row to hoe. Her parents could look after her until they died, but then what? So a woman who couldn’t find a husband couldn’t just go down to Wal-Mart and get a job and provide for herself like today; she’d likely either end up in abject poverty, or prostitution to support herself. So if the guy who raped her (whether genuine rape or she just cried rape) wasn’t a complete violent dirtbag, it might be the lesser of two evils.

            What most people today often fail to appreciate is how incredibly barbaric and harsh conditions were back then (the world hadn’t had over 3,000 years of exposure to God’s written moral standards to civilize it to the point we know today). We often fail to appreciate that, like you don’t expect a child to instantly understand everything and instantly square away their behavior (it takes somewhere on the order of 18+ years for that to happen, even with hard work on the part of both the parents and the child), God had to bring along the human race step by step out of the complete rebellion and barbarism we had fallen into. How good do you think the results might have been if God had expected the moral and behavioral maturity of them back then that is appropriate from our civilization today? How good do you think the results would be if a parent expected a 3 year old to behave with the moral and behavioral maturity of a 20 year old? Not very well for either one. And you have to structure things appropriate to the maturity level, even as you continue to point to the higher standard.

            It took the human race until approx. 1776 to understand that rulers don’t have a divine right to tell you what to do (Leftists still haven’t figured that out), that government should be by the consent of the governed, that human moral depravity requires separation of powers in government, etc., even though God laid out these principles in writing thousands of years earlier. It took the human race until the early 1800s to start making solid moves to outlaw slavery, even though the Apostle Paul pointed out the value of all human beings and the hypocrisy of slavery 2,000 years earlier (and the basic principles were there in God’s word even earlier than that).

            It’s easy for us to stand on 3,000+ years of civilizing influence from God’s moral code and say, “What were they thinking back then?!”…forgetting that we wouldn’t be where we are today if it hadn’t started with baby steps back then.

            • DCM7

              Good assessment of a point that many people get tripped up on, usually without putting any real thought (much less research) into it.

              PS: Had to smile at “Debt 22:28”. Sounds like a verse that Dave Ramsey might cite!

          • DCM7

            “It’s a useful guideline, though.”
            Certainly, consent is a necessary limiting factor in sexuality. But I’m speaking of how people try to make it the *only* limiting factor.

            PS: I had to smile at “Debt 22:28”. Sounds like a verse that Dave Ramsey might cite!

        • Thisoldspouse

          Unbelievably, the left will deem this the ONLY criterion for determining the “rightness” of a behavior. Ask them why sex with children is wrong, and they’ll readily, reflexively state that “children can’t consent” - that is all.

          I always bring up the fact that legal consent, as a product of age, is as changeable as the law, which is as changeable and the next legislature. What happens when some legislature or autocratic judge declares the “age of consent” at 13, 11, 9 years old? What then is their definition of “right?”

          • DCM7

            “What happens when some legislature or autocratic judge declares the ‘age of consent’ at 13, 11, 9 years old?”
            For one thing, there will be deafening silence from many (if not most) of the people who wanted sexuality to be limited only by “consent.”

  • DCM7

    There is an article on the (generally liberal) “urban legends” website Snopes indicating that some aspects of the “How Great Thou Art” story referenced above aren’t quite true. Even assuming the Snopes article is accurate, though, it really doesn’t affect the main point: that there is a lot of utterly unjustified opposition to Christianity — and, generally, *only* Christianity — in the public square.

    • http://www.americanclarion.com/ Bob Ellis

      That could be right…but even Snopes has been caught in some Leftist revisionism in the past, so like always, we’ll probably have to research as close to the source as possible to be sure. If you find out for sure one way or the other, let us know.

    • Thisoldspouse

      I wouldn’t say that Snopes is “generally liberal” - they are radically liberal, but are expert at couching their leftism in unbiased-sounding, soft-peddling speech. After all, they pretty much “debunked” every single REAL election irregularity of 2008 and 2012, such as not a single Republican vote in some Philadelphia districts, and unlikely high turnouts (> 100% of registered voters) at many polling places.

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