On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:37:15 -0600, "Fiddleaway"
wrote:

Wolfgang wrote
Fiddleaway had already made it pretty clear (twice) that
his little proposition was a joke...

Thanks for clarifying ... I had hoped to just let the thing die, but it got
a life of it's own.

Actually, my original quip was a weak attempt to comment on the "clarity"
of The Clause claimed by rw.

My experience in hearing people talk about the Constitution is that one
man's clarity is another's fuzzy logic.

For me, going from "the Congress shall make no law" to "a public school
teacher shall not lead student volunteers in prayer during classtime" is a
big step;

How so?

not a simple application of clarity

Why do you feel it is not? What purpose other than religious can there
be in a public (in the US sense - IOW, a government institution) school
teacher leading students in prayer during classtime, whether they
"volunteer" or not? And note that private (again, in the US sense)
schools can ask the kids, the teachers, the parents, and the guy who
delivers the food to the cafeteria to pray every 17 seconds if they
wish. Once the SC decided that it applied to States, the legislatures
were bound by the same rule as "Congress." Before that, States had
"official religions" and all sorts of other religious matter. But it
ain't the "symbol" itself that gets things popped, it's the intent -
Muhammad, Confucius, and Moses are "lawgivers," and the Ten Commandments
are laws, and as such, they can be Constitutionally OK. But when a law
attempts to put them into a religious context, then it becomes a
problem. If you're interested, Google up "Supreme Court Lemon test" and
go from there, including cases that tend to get away from it.

TC,
R