Scalia: "Unlike FRANCE, the US was not founded as a secular state!"

[Bluebear]

What is the sudden bee in the bonnet of conservatives with regards to France, already?

[Lindacooks]

1. No kidding.

And what's with Supreme Court Justices being so totally ignorant of history. The U.S. was NOT founded as a Christian nation, you ignoramous Scalia.

[Cassandra]

2. Besides, we WERE founded as a secular state.

And is France all that secular, anyway?

[KC21304]

28. I'm sure Scalia is refering to the USA of Christianity

founded ... was it Dec 12, 2000 ? I'm not sure of the exact date. Scalia should know. He was one of the founding Supremes.


On edit I was right with the date.

http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/766/

[im10ashus]

30. One of the founding Supremes! LMAO!

Does that make him Diana Ross?

[bribri16]

39. "Freedom of religion" and "freedom to practice the religion of your choice

does not make us a "religious" or "Christian" nation! Does anyone out there have a brain?

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. The Constitution is pretty clear about the separation of church & state...

andf the Treaty of Tripoli (signed by John Adams) says explicitly "The UNited States is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion"...so I think Tony needs to take a few remedial history courses.

[formerrepuke]

4. Not sure of the historical details, but I'm sure that France was indeed a

religious state.. and the exact date of "founding" is, what.. tenth, eleventh century, AD?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. Earlier than that

Establishment of France as a sovereign nation goes back to Charlemagne. In fact it's probably THE oldest European country there IS!

Edit: I forgot Greece. Make that second oldest.

[SteppingRazor]

20. To be fair, I'm sure Scalia is refering to

The modern incarnation of the country of France, which was established after World War II, mostly by Charles De Gaulle. And it was certainly not established with any sense of national religion. So, in that sense, Scalia is right.
What he's not right about, of course, is this idea that our country was founded in the Christian religion. He tries to justify it in his opinion by saying the founders took an oath ending with "so help me God." Of course, he fails to mention that Washington added this ending to the presidential oath of office on a personal note, and later presidents followed suit out of a sense of propriety and, later, tradition.

[MGKrebs]

15. Yes, but then there was that little revolutiuon in the 1700's.

I've been searching for a way to bring back the symbolism of the guillotine as a way to point out what sometimes happens to tyrants and those leaders who choose to ignore the will of the people. Haven't found the right way to present it yet.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. The kingdom of France, yes...

the Republic, no. (Although considering that they went through an empire, a restoration of the monarchy, another republic, a second empire, and then a third republic, it's probably a little fuzzy).

[TreasonousBastard]

19. Way back, and every French king had to...

visit Rome for the Pope to crown him.

Even the king Ben Franklin and John Adams went to beg for help from .

The French Revolution and Napoleon kinda put the brakes on that, but their histroy of being a Catholic nation, and persecuting non-Catholics, is quite a bit older than our entire history.

And it was partly that history which inspired our founders to create a secular state.

Scalia is an ass.

[Mass]

29. Not exactly, but close

Kings were crowned in France by the French archbishop As for Napolean, he was crowned emperor by the pope.

But Scalia is wrong historically: France was called the Oldest Daughter of the Church before the Revolution. I guess he was referring to the last 130 years where France was definitively a secular country.

[LibertyLover]

32. Napoleon

If I am remembering my history correctly, while the pope was at Napoleon's coronation and crowned the empress, Napoleon took the imperial crown from the pope's hands and crowned himself. There is a huge painting in the Louvre by I think David that shows the occassion.

[Mass]

33. Yes

It is how David describes the coronation. Not sure whether it is accurate or not.

[Devlzown]

5. And unlike Iran,

it wasn't founded as a fundie theocratic state, either.

[mondo joe]

6. I'd like to see him prove that. n/t

[UCLA Dem]

7. How can someone who is supposed to be so educated be so stupid?

[K-W]

14. Indoctrination. Education's evil step brother.

And unfortunately its very difficult to become educated without also becoming indoctrinated.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Neither Was Imperial Japan

That was a religiously leveraged military dictatorship.

How'd that work out for them, Tony?
The Professor

[fob]

10. fob: "Hey scalia, without FRANCE there would be no USA. Asshole."

[merh]

11. France wants to indict Cheney and Haliburton people for

various crimes and thefts. :shrug:

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Tell him to find the word "God" in the U.S. Constitution.

Go on, Nino, keep looking.

Prick.

[Kolesar]

13. Where was this quote?

In one of his decisions?

[aden_nak]

16. I can't look at your sig pic without moving my head in small circles.

I don't know why. . . I just can't.

[sui generis]

18. Scalia is a complete idiot

just because you're a supreme court justice doesn't make you an authority on history, or on religion.

Europe knows what religious wars are about. Europe knows what happens to the religions not in power when the government is catholic, or protestant, or even Anglican.

France does not stand out as further ahead in this lesson scheme but it could easily be said that America stands out as further behind than all of "old Europe".

The U.S. was founded at constitution time. The colonies were founded by a bunch of nutjobs who were so radically fundie and out of the mainstream that England kicked them out and gave them a boat to go on.

That's not the "United" States. That was England hoping those ships would disappear in a storm.

[cookiebird]

34. JFK dealt with this issue

during his 1960 campaign in the speech to the Houston Ministerial Association. I have assigned my students to read it for tonight's class-in case anyone is interested, it can be read and heard on a terrific site, americanrhetoric.com I sure wish some of these political/public creatures would listen to JFK on religious freedom and how he interpreted that responsibility for himself.

[Gemini Cat]

21. Did he fail history in school?

That's a very stupid thing to say. To paraphrase the chimp "is our SCOTUS learning."

[Vickers]

26. "is our SCOTUS learning."

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[SoCalDem]

22. The RELIGIOUS people who came here to colonize

America, USED secularism as their argument to COME here. They were TIRED of having a religious government tell them how to worship. They accepted the premise of secularism from the beginning.

Individual communities may have adopted a religious "flavor", due to the fact that people from the same religion tended to 'cluster', but the NATION was founded on a "do your own thing" promise from our government. It's about our FREEDOMS....NOT our responsibilities to a deity:eyes:

[Me.]

23. Without France We May Have Not Been Anything

as they are the country who financed our revolution and bankrupted their own in the process.

[understandinglife]

24. This evil man committed one of the greatest crimes against ...

.... our Nation on December 9, 2000. And, as he has so often done when he makes statements, he demonstrates a vast lack of knowledge regarding the insights and actions of the framers of our Constitution, as well as the document, itself.

Members of Congress, from left to right, Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) head down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, June 16, to deliver petitions demanding President Bush tell the truth on Downing Street Memo evidence that he lied to sell the Iraq war to the American people.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7266/1/275

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us - Any candidate worthy of our vote in the 2006 Congressional elections should have filed charges against Bu$h and the neoconsters before March 19 2006.

[Jack_DeLeon]

25. The Constitution is pretty clear on this...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

27. Correct me if I'm wrong...

But I've always understood that there was purposely a separation of church and state by the founders...so as one would not subjugate the other.

[Amonester]

31. the Fr-ogs-ench are the neo-conservatives' new subhumans

along with the terralists

:hide:

[patcox2]

35. Please give a cite for this, I hope not in a decision; he's nuts.

He's really going bonkers if he's throwing gratuitous undiplomatic insults into decisions.

[Bluebear]

40. From today's dissent!

Today's ruling prompted a strongly worded dissent from Justice Antonin Scalia, who accused his colleagues of ignoring religion's role in the nation's founding.

Unlike France, the United States was not founded as a secular state, Scalia said, but instead was founded by men who proclaimed their faith in "Almighty God" and took an oath with the phrase "so help me God."

He said officials should be permitted to "acknowledge God" and show their belief in a "single Creator." About 98% of America's believers — Christians, Jews and Muslims — believe in one God, Scalia observed. Since the "overwhelming majority" of Americans believed in a single God, public officials should be permitted to acknowledge this belief through public statements or displays such as the Ten Commandments, he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-062605scotus_lat,0,1480120.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[jokerman93]

36. Yea REALLY!!!

Somebody please explain what all this France bashing is about. It seems like some kind of anachronistic jingospeak from another era resurrected for the gap-tooth supporters of the holy BushWar .
Gives me the same kind of disorienting headspin I get every time I hear some too-young-or-dumb-to-even-remember freeper calls someone a "commie" - as if the derogative meant ANYTHING at all anymore.

What's it all about???

[ladjf]

37. Scalia is wrong. The U.S. was founded as a secular state.

[kskiska]

38. Maybe it's time to send that statue back

If they feel so strongly that France is a baaaaad place, why keep it? I wonder if the Louisiana Purchase could be returned, too.

[Bluebear]

41. They would never send it back.

Some entooopenoooor would melt it down and make souvenir Bush dollars out of it or something.

[Neshanic]

42. Scalia's favorite song...

Throw out your hands
Stick out your tush
Hands on your hips
Give 'em a push
You'll be surprised
You're doing the French Mistake!
Voila!

[Sandpiper]

43. The Constitution recognizes no higher Sovereign than "We The People"

Surely a "strict constructionist" like Scalia should know this. :sarcasm:

[ComerPerro]

44. Uh, yeah it was

[gollygee]

45. ROFL he should re-read his history

about the secular state of the US *and* about Catholic France.

[Bluebear]

46. And he's touted as the next chief justice?

Caramba.