Keeping my hair on . . .
I'm not letting ADD completely get in the way of things around here. I'm trying to keep my hair on and vindicate my one overarching New Year's Resolution: Routine and Regularity Replace Risk.
Except tonight, of course.
And yes, I backslid a little today, but not totally because of my own fault. The power went off last night and messed up all my alarms. Literally. My clocks were all several hours behind when finally woke up and figured out what had happened. I am going to sleep pretty late, but I'll give myself a reasonable amount of hours, get up, and get better reoriented over the next couple of nights.
I wanted to share with you a point on religious liberty from one of my favorite law professors, Douglas Laycock of the University of Texas. He writes major briefs in virtually every Supreme Court case on religious liberties, and he recently came clean and admitted to agnosticism, because he wanted people to understand he doesn't have a dog in the fight. I've not known him to be a historian, but this comes from one of several articles in that area I've seen:
"My view of the central lesson to be drawn from teh Reformation should not be a surprise; it is consistent with our basic constitutional theory. The Constitution was written on the assumption that the concentration ofpowers necessary to an effective government is a threat to human liberty, and that those powers must be divided and constrained. The Bill of Rights protects the people from government, not the other way around. The state-action distinction is drawn with special sharpness in the Religion Clauses: Religious blief and practice by private persons is specially protected; the same religious belief or practice by government is specifically prohibited. The puzzle is why the oppposite assumption -- that the Religion Clauses protect the government from religious citizens -- has become so widespread.
In part, it is because those who hold that view have misread history. They have blamed too much on the Church and too little on the State. In part it is because they have thought that their prerred secular ideologieswere inherently different from religion, and that religion is uniquely susceptible to the temptation to intolerance and absolutism. I think that they are wrong on each of these points.
The First Amendment constrains Congress, not churches, and this is no accident. The amendment was aimed squarely at the problem the Founders sought to solve. During the Reformation and today, it was and is governments that punish people for religious beliefs and practices. The most common motives have changed, the alignment of factions has changed, but the central evil has remained the same."
Amen.
Except tonight, of course.
And yes, I backslid a little today, but not totally because of my own fault. The power went off last night and messed up all my alarms. Literally. My clocks were all several hours behind when finally woke up and figured out what had happened. I am going to sleep pretty late, but I'll give myself a reasonable amount of hours, get up, and get better reoriented over the next couple of nights.
I wanted to share with you a point on religious liberty from one of my favorite law professors, Douglas Laycock of the University of Texas. He writes major briefs in virtually every Supreme Court case on religious liberties, and he recently came clean and admitted to agnosticism, because he wanted people to understand he doesn't have a dog in the fight. I've not known him to be a historian, but this comes from one of several articles in that area I've seen:
"My view of the central lesson to be drawn from teh Reformation should not be a surprise; it is consistent with our basic constitutional theory. The Constitution was written on the assumption that the concentration ofpowers necessary to an effective government is a threat to human liberty, and that those powers must be divided and constrained. The Bill of Rights protects the people from government, not the other way around. The state-action distinction is drawn with special sharpness in the Religion Clauses: Religious blief and practice by private persons is specially protected; the same religious belief or practice by government is specifically prohibited. The puzzle is why the oppposite assumption -- that the Religion Clauses protect the government from religious citizens -- has become so widespread.
In part, it is because those who hold that view have misread history. They have blamed too much on the Church and too little on the State. In part it is because they have thought that their prerred secular ideologieswere inherently different from religion, and that religion is uniquely susceptible to the temptation to intolerance and absolutism. I think that they are wrong on each of these points.
The First Amendment constrains Congress, not churches, and this is no accident. The amendment was aimed squarely at the problem the Founders sought to solve. During the Reformation and today, it was and is governments that punish people for religious beliefs and practices. The most common motives have changed, the alignment of factions has changed, but the central evil has remained the same."
Amen.