PrintOctober 19, 2010
Media misrepresenting Christine O'Donnell. Again.
Naturally, the liberal media are misrepresenting the Coons-O'Donnell debate at Widener Law School earlier today. Christine O'Donnell asked Chris Coons, "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"
The liberal media are apparently both too dumb and too biased to understand that was not a reference request, but a challenge to a presumption.
USAToday's headline reads: "Delaware candidate Christine O'Donnell questions church and state separation."
Salon reports: "Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware is questioning whether the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from establishing religion."
Slate says O'Donnell was "schooled on the concept of separation of church and state."
Yada, yada, yada.
Of course, Ms. O'Donnell is right: that language is not in the Constitution.
After reading what the liberal media wrote, watch the eight-minute video here, and you can decide the context in which she addressed the issue.
Pretty different from the way it's been reported, no?
When the Founders added the First Amendment dictate, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," it did not apply to the states. The 14th Amendment, regarded by the courts as making the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, reads in relevant part, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States . . . or deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There is no enumurated power in Article I of the Constitution expressly authorizing the creation of a federal department of education to dictate what must and must not be taught in public schools.
Constitutional scholars more intelligently familiar with the First Amendment and the rest of the Constitution than liberal reporters (or, for that matter, the Widener Law School audience, which laughed at Ms. O'Donnell's challenge to Coons) have concluded the courts have overstepped their application of the First Amendment Establishment Clause in a way that actually deprives individuals of the First Amendment freedom of religion.
Christine O'Donnell's articulation of these issues could have been much better, but she is more willing to address them than most other Republican candidates who are in a general sense more articulate, but either are unversed in sound constitutional history or are wimps.
Chris Coons, on the other hand, comes across as a self-righeous dolt who, while doing his best to disguise them, obviously hasn't quite shed his Marxist inclinations.
Chris Coons said that intelligent design is religious doctrine, and must not ever be taught in public schools. Evolution, on the other hand, is widely accepted, well-defended scientific fact. Thus, if we are to believe Coons, it is without doubt man evolved from mud.
Sounds unsettled to me, but Coons wants no opiate for the masses in our classrooms.
As Pat Buchanan once said to Sam Donaldson on the same topic (and I'm paraphrasing), "Sam, I can understand how you may believe you evolved from apes, but I believe God created man."
