Re:Ron Paul Launches Snowden Clemency Petition
by tzs on Thursday February 13, 2014 @04:11PM
(#7234377)
A couple of the things he considers to be the federal government trampling states rights are actually the federal government stopping the states from trampling individual rights.
For instance, according to the Supreme Court, the states are bound by the part of the First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion or restricting the free exercise of religion.
Paul thinks that establishment of religion or restricting the free exercise of religion should be a state issue. He tried two or three times to introduce federal legislation that would have stripped the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) from hearing cases in this area, which would de facto make that part of the First Amendment no longer apply to state and local government.
He has a similar belief in regard to the privacy rights that the Supreme Court has found implicit in the Constitution. His bills that tried to gut the First also strip federal jurisdiction over any case involving a right of privacy.
If his bill had passed, it would have actually made it legal for states to establish or restrict religions, and it would have brought back into force sodomy laws, bans on birth control, and other such laws that were found Unconstitutional due to violating privacy rights.
Most states, I believe, have prohibitions against establishment of religions, or restrictions on the free exercise of religion, so the damage would be limited in that regard. The first state everyone thinks of is Utah, thinking it would establish Mormanism as the state religion, but Utah is one of the states whose Constitution has a clause similar to the First Amendment. Texas could be a problem. It has a provision in its Constitution that holders of political office must acknowledge the existence of a God, and so in theory an atheist would not be able to legally hold office in Texas if Paul had his way.
For instance, according to the Supreme Court, the states are bound by the part of the First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion or restricting the free exercise of religion.
Paul thinks that establishment of religion or restricting the free exercise of religion should be a state issue. He tried two or three times to introduce federal legislation that would have stripped the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) from hearing cases in this area, which would de facto make that part of the First Amendment no longer apply to state and local government.
He has a similar belief in regard to the privacy rights that the Supreme Court has found implicit in the Constitution. His bills that tried to gut the First also strip federal jurisdiction over any case involving a right of privacy.
If his bill had passed, it would have actually made it legal for states to establish or restrict religions, and it would have brought back into force sodomy laws, bans on birth control, and other such laws that were found Unconstitutional due to violating privacy rights.
Most states, I believe, have prohibitions against establishment of religions, or restrictions on the free exercise of religion, so the damage would be limited in that regard. The first state everyone thinks of is Utah, thinking it would establish Mormanism as the state religion, but Utah is one of the states whose Constitution has a clause similar to the First Amendment. Texas could be a problem. It has a provision in its Constitution that holders of political office must acknowledge the existence of a God, and so in theory an atheist would not be able to legally hold office in Texas if Paul had his way.
Edit: here was one of his bills on this: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.958.IH:
Note that HN's URL recognition misses the last character, so you'll need to add it manual, or copy/paste, rather than just clicking.