Protecting religious values

Well look at this.

House Republicans, carrying out their election-year values agenda, on Tuesday pushed through legislation cutting off financial awards for lawsuits successfully filed against expressions of religion such as Christmas displays on government grounds.

Now read that sentence again. For one thing, note the little spin the Guaradian put on the reporting that the House Republicans have a “values agenda.” And as nuanced as it is, use of words like “cutting off” connotes something negative, while the word “successfully” certainly represents a positive. These are small cues for the reader to think a certain way.

The bill, passed 244-173, denies the awarding of attorney’s fees or monetary damages to a party that wins a court case based on the establishment clause in the Constitution that is used to argue a separation of church and state.

“Denies” is a bad thing, right? Especially to the party that “wins.” But what they win in this case is usually a case argued on a distortion of the establishment clause.

Anyway, here’s some reaction the U.K. Guardian picked up after the vote.

“We cannot continue to allow frivolous and, frankly, unwarranted lawsuits to stifle the beliefs and self-determination of our great communities,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga.

But,

Democratic opponents saw the bill as a serious infringement of constitutional rights.

“This bill would make it more difficult for ordinary Americans to defend their religious freedom against intrusion by government,” said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas. “There’s nothing benign about this bill.”

Actually, those ordinary Americans are the ones in court trying to defend their religious freedom that the establishment clause allows in its second half, and put up their nativity scenes at Christmas, for instance. And it’s the activist judicial system they’re trying to defend against. So the “ordinary Americans” Rep. Edwards seems to be referring to would be those who don’t want any religious symbols that offend them (which are always Christian) within sight.

But there’s more reaction.

“Singling out one class of cases for the denial of attorney’s fees when every other one gets them does seem to me an odd way to run a constitution,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Seems like coming up with a way to stretch a ‘right to privacy’ into Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton is a terribly odd way to run a constitution.

Backers of the legislation cited cases contesting the use of religious symbols, such as crosses in veterans’ cemeteries, the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings or using public land to host the Boy Scouts, who require participants to declare belief in God.

Actually, the Boy Scouts is an organization one voluntary joins, taking the pledge for the very reason that it represents their personal convictions. So to say they “require” a declared belief is misleading. And by the way, isn’t public land used to host parades and rallies and demonstrations of a whole range of groups with strong beliefs? Like, say, the ‘gay pride’ parade that includes costumed characters mocking the Catholic Church?

Representatives who passed this legislation thought it was overdue.

They said local and state governments, unable to match the financial resources of civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and unwilling to pay costly attorney’s fees in losing cases, often accede to demands to remove religious symbols.

“This is an issue of allowing the cases to go to court and not to have the threat or intimidation by the ACLU and their minions to hang over all of these heads,” said Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., sponsor of the bill.

The Senate has not taken up the issue yet, and is not expected to before the end of this Session.