Thread: Parent's Rights, where do you stand?

I think the lack of terminology of something like "respecting any 1 religion greater than others" or something similar to mean ANY religion.

No law respecting an establishment of religion. Religion in general, not plural as in specific religions.

Originally Posted by MrTroy

I think the lack of terminology of something like "respecting any 1 religion greater than others" or something similar to mean ANY religion.

No law respecting an establishment of religion. Religion in general, not plural as in specific religions.

It actually says the "establishment of religion." What does "establishment" mean here, anyway? Does it merely mean establishing preference for any particular religion, or does it mean facilitating any religion's practice.

The Framers were purposefully vague about certain things. And that's the end of that.

In practice, the prohibition on laws "respecting an establishment of religion" certainly does seem to mean laws that would favor one religion over another, rather than laws that provide benefit to religion in general, because (for instance) religious organizations are tax-exempt. Obviously that's a law "respecting an establishment of religion" if "establishment of religion" is taken to mean religion in general.

Originally Posted by Mr. E

@sycld: Well, I would wager there are significantly less abortions than there are children born, so the populations are definitely not the same.

Where does the line get drawn, though? In your view, how many people does a law have to potentially affect in order to be properly handled at the federal level rather than the state level? This seems fairly arbitrary as well; why do you think that federal government should handle laws that affect lots of people while the states should handle laws that affect fewer people? What's the rationale here? Why shouldn't federal laws be passed that would affect a comparatively small number of people scattered across the entire country?

For the record, there are ~1.3 million abortions each year in the US and ~4 million children born each year in the US.