I’ve just heard from the FFRF that the City Attorney for Charleston, Illinois, to whom the FFRF wrote to about the unconstitutionality of their city-sponsored trip to the Ark Park and Creation Museum, has sent the following email. The city has bailed.
Thank you for your email below and letter attached dated December 3, 2018. The purpose of this email is to inform you that The Ark Encounter & Creation Museum trip has been cancelled. The trip has been removed from the City of Charleston’s website and online registration portal.
The attorney knew that the city was on the losing side of the issue, and I’m sure Charleston didn’t want to go to court about this. It’s a small town and couldn’t afford it.
Anyway, even though they had to be threatened, they did the right thing. The battle to keep religion out of government is never ending, but the FFRF has to keep it up, because this truly is a slippery slope. Each victory for the entanglement of religion and politics makes it easier to entangle them further.
That’s good news! I wonder if events like this happen because some religious government staffer thinks that the event is just such an obvious big win from their point of view that they don’t even think about its legality. It would be interesting to hear the inside story though I suspect we won’t.
Every effort by FFRF and others is important and they do not always win as some like to point out here. But unless you want the Hobby Lobby’s and Mike Pence’s of the world to partially inject their religion into your daily life, you cannot stop.
I think that I’m going to put the FFRF in my will, and I would suggest others do the same.
!!!
I’m glad I financially support them and their important work.
Excellent.
“The attorney knew that the city was on the losing side of the issue, and I’m sure Charleston didn’t want to go to court about this. It’s a small town and couldn’t afford it.“
This is key – the main argument against this kind of thing is that they did not fight it because they couldn’t afford it, when in fact a lawyer will have a good idea if they’ll win or not…. with.., a jury in that state…
Actually the big argument is that it is illegal. Government agency, in this case a city government is not suppose to be promoting religion. It is pretty simple.
I said “argument” but really I was hinting at the news – of a certain kind… that persuades the audience how the defendants couldn’t afford to fight the case.
I don’t think this sort of thing goes before juries.
It’s not; as Chief Justice John Marshall put it back in 1803, “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is,” especially in matters of constitutional interpretation.
That quote comes from Marbury v. Madison, almost without exception the first case law students reads in Constitutional Law casebooks, the case that establishes the principle of “judicial review.” It is a case that our new meatball of an acting Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker, says he disagrees with.
“All the best people,” is what we were promised.
By the way, what was it that Whitaker did not agree with – was it that Marbury did not get the job or the court had no right to hear it? I suppose it is the later because the executive is infallible, kind of like a Pope.
My understanding is that Whitaker opposes the very concept of “judicial review” — that the judiciary has the authority to rule acts of the legislative and executive branches of government unconstitutional.
That’s as fundamental a departure from mainstream legal thought as you get, putting Whitaker way out on the fringe.
“All the best people.” tRUMPspeak for, “Promises made, Promises klept.”💩
Bravo! to you, PCC(E), and the FFRF!!!!!
Good work!
Good reminder to all of us to donate to FFRF
annually, if not in your will.
Citizen Coyne strikes again!
Good work, and A Happy Prelude to Coynezaa. May the Yule Cat not purrsue you but meow the Chicago snow somewhere else!
Poor Ken Ham. He is going to feel “bullied” again.
Yes! It’s time to renew my FFRF membership in January!
That’s good news. A couple of years ago the case of the Grand Haven, Michigan giant cross was making news. Since it was near where I grew up, and a friend of mine was an activist involved, I watched with interest. After a fight, the city backed down and decided to convert the cross into a giant anchor. But some missed seeing the symbol of jesus’s torture and sued before the Supremes who refused to consider the case. In this case Americans United for Separation of Church and State was involved. There are many wins like this every year and few losses.
I missed this because it was a small post sandwiched between the others. Great news! No way government funds should be spent on this kind of religious crap. Good win for reason.