• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

The Stimulus’s Defenseless, Unconstitutional Religious Bigot

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
We all know that there are plenty of policy problems with the stimulus bill, but there is a pretty serious constitutional problem as well. Buried deep in a bill mostly involving itself with spending billions of dollars, Congress takes a moment to explain how $3.5 billion it allocates for renovation of public or private university facilities can’t be spent:

(2) PROHIBITED USES OF FUNDS.—No funds awarded under this section may be used for—

(C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities—

(i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or

(ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission; or construction of new facilities.

A moment of fiscal restraint! There’s just one problem: This provision violates the Constitution by singling out groups with religious viewpoints, and denying them access to facilities on the same grounds as other groups. To understand how, it is necessary to focus on the word “used.” If a facility ordinarily open to use by students groups—be it a dorm common area or a classroom—were to be renovated with stimulus funds, the statute on its face would prohibit the religious group from using the space, if the use were for anything that might be construed as sectarian instruction or worship. This is hardly an open question of constitutional law. The Supreme Court has time, and time, and time, and time, and time again not only found that the Constitution’s Establishment Clause does not require such exclusion of religious speech, but that the First Amendment prohibits it on Free Speech and Free Exercise grounds.

http://bench.nationalreview.com/
 
Top