HR 1070 IH & S. 520

Wow, this is a scary bill. "The Constitution Restoration Act of 2005". Sounds like a good thing, right? But what it does in fact is seriously hamstring the Judiciary of this country, the important third pillar of government. Our government was set up very carefully, with the powers assigned to each specifically done to help perform checks and balances on each other.

The same argument was used to strike down line item veto (it changed the carefully crafted balance of power between the Congress and the Executive branch).

What the bill does, in essence, is removes the power from judges to make any ruling relating to relief sought in regards to a Federal, State or Local government official based on his or her belief in God or use of God and Christian laws in performing their duties. Perhaps this doesn't sound like such a bad thing, but it breaks the FUNDAMENTAL separation of Church and State that our country is based upon. It takes quite a step in the direction of setting up an official state religion.

This bill additionally says, effectively, that in reviewing cases, the courts may not refer to anything except the original Constitution as of the time of adoption of that Constitution. I'm not sure whether this means that all ammendments suddenly are off limits, but certainly it says that anything not expressly mentioned in the Constitution is off limits for the judiciary. No more interpreting the applicability of the Constitution to a given situation.

This bill provides for the impeachment of any judge or justice which oversteps their new very limited authority based on this bill, and removes as judicial precedent any ruling made at any time, past present or future which is outside of the new scope of the Judiciary's powers.

This is a blatent power grab by the Congress, and a dangerous step towards the establishing of an official state religion.

Personally, I don't have a problem with people having strong religious faiths, of any denomination. I do not, however, believe that has any place in the government of our country. I know that in some Muslim countries, the penalty for theft is loss of a hand. If we assume that this is Muslim law, I would not want to find that there was no recourse for someone who's hand was chopped off by an over-zealous Muslim governmental official, since it related to that official's use of his religion in the course of his job.

And as to the Christian religion, it's WAY too arbitrary to be counted on. Extreme Christians point to certain passages and insist that they are the literal word of God and should be followed exactly, and then elide over certain other passages. The list of offenses for which the Bible prescribes death by stoning, for example. Or the fact that a man should not approach a woman during her period. Does this law suddenly mean that if a local politician somewhere decides to stone someone to death for looking askance at a neighbor's wife, that the family of the stoned person should have no judicial recourse, because that stoning was "concerning that entity's, officer's, or agent's acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."?

Scary stuff. Freedom of Religion and Separation of Church and State are a two-edged sword, as are most of our rights. They have to be, or they are meaningless. My freedom of speech is as important as yours, even if you don't like what I have to say. It's vital that it be so, or you might next find YOUR speech infringed upon when someone else decides it's "bad speech".

Copyright (c) May 23, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net