Don’t theocons show up in the most inappropriate places? Now they show up in Chesterfield County, Virginia, where a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals judge ruled that the county Board of Supervisors (i.e. the people who run the county) “did not show impermissible motive” in refusing to permit a pantheistic invocation by a Wiccan. Why, you ask? Because the BoS has an approved list of clergy that “covers a wide spectrum of Judeo-Christian denominations.”
“The Judeo-Christian tradition is, after all, not a single faith but an umbrella covering many faiths,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in the opinion.
Hmmm. Kinda brings the whole idea of constitutionality into question, doesn’t it? Isn’t the judge supposed to defend the First Amendment in this case?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
If the judge wanted to rule in this manner, he should’ve struck down all invocations at governmental meetings, as any form of invocation is a de facto endorsement, if not a true establishment, of religion. And by allowing the BoS to deny a Wiccan – who is practicing an established and recognized form of legitimate worship – the right to deliver the invocation slaps of denying this woman her right to the free exercise of religion.
The woman is further appealing the ruling, but it’s most disheartening to think that it’s these kinds of judges that Frist wants to defend.
forepac
6 May 2005 — 09:36
When did it become okay for judges to, I dunno, ignore certain parts of the Constitution? Jeebus. I’ll bet, tho, that this judge *won’t* be called an “activist judge” by the right.