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Part of the 14th Amendment says:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This means that if you have a right under the Constitution, it also applies to the states. So while the First Amendment says Congress, the 14th makes that mean No Legislature.

The part I cannot understand is the theory of incorporation. This is a SCOTUS policy that basically says that until SCOTUS recognizes it as a right under the Constitution, it does not apply tot he states. This is why the order of Heller and MacDonald was so important. Heller was in DC, so it was just getting the federal right recognized as an individual right. MacDonald was in Chicago so it made the right apply to the states also.

EP45 wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 9:20 pm

srothstein wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 7:59 pm

EP45 wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 6:01 pm "I can't believe anyone would support having the government tell us what religion we should be posting. This a clear violation of the 1st Amendment."

This one stumped me. I am in the process of looking up the the author's intent for SB1515 (Senator Phil King maybe). Why exactly is SB 1515 "wrong"?

As was pointed out, there are different versions of the Ten Commandments for different religions. In addition, there are a lot of religions that do not believe in the Ten Commandment. Whichever version you post in a government building (like a school) is establishing a specific religion as the state religion. This is a violation of the exact wording of the First Amendment.

About the only way I could see it being legal is if you posted it with things like Hammurabi's Code, the Magna Carta, and the Constitution, making it a display on the history of law.

Which specific religion?

Depends on which translation and grouping they use. It could be Judaism or it could be Christianity.

Reading the link to the Wikipedia article you listed, and following its links to the Van Order v. Perry case, makes it even more confusing. Some of the reasons they (well, Breyer mostly) gave for finding it to be secular were who paid for it and how they went about it. They examined who paid for it (the Elks and Cecil B. DeMille) and how long it had been there with no problems (40 years). An interesting point is that the Elks met with representatives of several faiths to find a secular wording of it. I wonder how many of the faiths in those meetings were some variety of Christianity and how many were Muslim or Buddhist.

But the big difference is that the monument was paid for by a private group and donated to the state. This bill requires the poster, specifies it can be paid for with public funds or by private donation, and does not give any explanation for why it should be there. Based on the case McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union, which was decided the same day as the Van Order case, it would look to me like the bill under discussion would be found unconstitutional. In that case, they even took my other suggestion of adding other documents to make it more of a basis of law display and still lost.

All told, SCOTUS has made this a very confusing area to look into.

EP45 wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 6:01 pm "I can't believe anyone would support having the government tell us what religion we should be posting. This a clear violation of the 1st Amendment."

This one stumped me. I am in the process of looking up the the author's intent for SB1515 (Senator Phil King maybe). Why exactly is SB 1515 "wrong"?

As was pointed out, there are different versions of the Ten Commandments for different religions. In addition, there are a lot of religions that do not believe in the Ten Commandment. Whichever version you post in a government building (like a school) is establishing a specific religion as the state religion. This is a violation of the exact wording of the First Amendment.

About the only way I could see it being legal is if you posted it with things like Hammurabi's Code, the Magna Carta, and the Constitution, making it a display on the history of law.

RoyGBiv wrote: ↑Thu Apr 27, 2023 12:17 pm I'm Jewish. Was "My Guy" that brought the tablets down the mountain.

This kind of stuff is exactly the fodder Democrats use against Republicans. Bad law, worse tactically.

https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/b ... 01515I.htm

I agree. My biggest question was which Ten Commandments do you post, the Jewish of the Christian? They are different.

But I also pointed out that the way they are listed and how I read them, the Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds has eleven commandments. Posting that in a classroom for younger students, maybe third grade or around that, would drive the teachers crazy with kids asking them how they count it as ten.