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| Religion Forum Index » Deism Forum » Politics of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 2002... |
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| buckeye... |
 Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:05 am |
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Guest
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Things to note about the following:
"In upholding the Ohio school voucher program, the Supreme Court "refined"
the Lemon test,"
The Lemon Test, that test that the Radical Religious Right had been trying
to do away with for many years. I personally recall a flyer you could get
from Pat Robertson's &00 Club in the early 90s that was calling for the
end of the applyiung the Lemon test in Establishment Clause cases
Refinded meant that they invented a whole new test in this case
See below:
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), was a case decided by the
United States Supreme Court which tested the allowance of school vouchers
in relation to the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelman_v._Simmons-Harris
[emphasis (****) text (****) added by me]
[excerpt]
The Supreme Court ruled that the Ohio program did not violate the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States
Constitution, because (****) it passed a five part test developed by the
Court in this case, titled the Private Choice Test.(****) The decision was
5-4, with moderate justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor and
conservative justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence
Thomas in the majority.
Under the Private Choice Test developed by the court, for a voucher program
to be constitutional it must meet all of the following criteria:
* the program must have a valid secular purpose,
* aid must go to parents and not to the schools,
* a broad class of beneficiaries must be covered,
* the program must be neutral with respect to religion, and
* there must be adequate nonreligious options.
The court ruled that the Ohio program met the five-part test in that 1) the
valid secular purpose of the program was "providing educational assistance
to poor children in a demonstrably failing public school system", 2) the
vouchers were given to the parents, 3) the "broad class" was all students
enrolled in currently failing programs, 4) parents who received vouchers
were not required to enroll in a religious-based school, and 5) there were
other public schools in adjoining districts, as well as non-sectarian
private schools in the Cleveland area, available that would accept
vouchers.
[end excerpt]
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Page 87
Section 7
Rights of conscience; education; the necessity of religion and knowledge.
All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God
according to the dictates of their own conscience. No person shall be
compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or maintain
any form of worship, against his consent; and no preference shall be give,
by law to any religious society; nor shall any interference with the rights
of conscience be permitted. No religious test shall be required, as a
qualification for office, no shall any person be incompetent to be a
witness on account of his religious belief; but noting herein shall be
construed to dispense with oaths and affirmations. Religion, morality, and
knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the
duty of the General Assembly to pass suitable laws, to protect every
religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public
worship, and to encourage schools and the means of instruction.
Adopted in 1851 and never amended, this section is nearly identical
to that of Article VIII, section 3 of the Constitution of 1802. The first
two sentences of this section guaranteeing freedom of worship and
prohibiting the support of religion and interference with the rights of
conscience are similar to Article XI, section 3 of the 1796 Tennessee
Constitution and Article IX, section 3 of the 1790 Pennsylvania
Constitution. The Northwest Ordinance also guaranteed the right to
religious freedom. "No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly
manner, shall every be molested on account of his mode of worship or
religious sentiments, in the said territory." Finally, much of the final
sentence of this section also has its origins in the Northwest Ordinance.
The prohibitions in the second sentence against compelled support
for religion, against religious preferences, and against interference with
the rights of conscience have federal counterparts in the Establishment and
Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.") The language in Ohio's
"establishment" and "free exercise" clauses, however, differs significantly
from the language in the First Amendment, and the Ohio Supreme Court has
held that the religion clauses of the Ohio Constitution are not
"coextensive" with those in the First Amendment (Simmons-Harris v. Goff,
1999). Nonetheless, the court has adopted the federal test in establishment
clause cases.
Goff was a challenge to Cleveland's 1995 school voucher program
under this section and under the federal Establishment Clause, and the Ohio
Supreme Court adopted the U.S. Supreme Court's three-part test from Lemon
v. Kurtzman, 1971. Under Lemon, a law survives constitutional scrutiny only
if (1) it has a secular purpose, (2) its primary effect neither advances
nor inhibits religion, and (3) it does not excessively entangle the
government with religion. The
Page 88
Goff court noted that it was not bound to adopt the Lemon test in
construing the Ohio Constitution, but it did so because the "elements of
the Lemon test are a logical and reasonable method by which to determine
whether a statutory scheme establishes religion" (Goff: 10). Although the
court expressly reserved the right to adopt a different standard in the
future if "the federal constitutional standard changes or for any other
relevant reason," the Lemon test remains the current standard for judging
establishment clause claims under the Ohio Constitution.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the voucher program under Lemon test remains
the current standard for judging establishment clause claims under the Ohio
Constitution.
The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the voucher program under Lemon
except to the extent that the program gave priority to students whose
parents belonged to the religious groups that supported the sectarian
schools. The court, however, held that the law creating the voucher program
violated the Ohio Constitution's "one-subject rule" and struck down the
statute in its entirety (see Article II, section 14(D)). Subsequently, the
U.S. Supreme Court held that the 1999 Cleveland voucher program, which in
substance was the same as the 1995 program, did not violate the federal
Establishment Clause (Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 2002). In upholding the
Ohio school voucher program, the Supreme Court "refined" the Lemon test,
(see Zelman, 2476) (O'Connor, J., concurring)), which continues to be the
general test under both the U.S. and Ohio Constitutions.
SOURCE: The Ohio State Constitution A Reference Guide, By Steven H.
Steinglass, Praeger Publishers (2004) Pp 87- 88
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS ˇ Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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