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Initech

(100,112 posts)
Thu Jan 24, 2019, 08:07 PM Jan 2019

Bryan Fischer's Understanding of the First Amendment Grows Ever More Incoherent

We have noted several times before that American Family Radio’s Bryan Fischer holds an utterly incoherent view of the First Amendment that is so impossible to follow that even he doesn’t seem to understand it.

Fischer repeatedly insists that the First Amendment, in addition to not applying to non-Christians, only restrains Congress and the federal government, while also complaining endlessly about entities which are not Congress or the federal government supposedly violating the First Amendment.

Fischer’s incoherence has been on full display for years in response to the case of Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach from Washington state who was fired in 2015 after he refused to stop publicly praying with players and students on the field after games. Kennedy appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court, but the court declined to hear it earlier this week. Fischer is now outraged, declaring that by refusing to overturn the firing, the federal government is violating Kennedy’s First Amendment rights (emphasis in original):

The rest of the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise (of religion)…” Here’s the kicker. Congress – and by extension, the entire federal government including the judiciary – has absolutely no permission to interfere in any way with the free exercise of religion. What did the 9th Circuit do to Coach Kennedy? Well, when it prohibited him from praying silently on the field after the game was over, it was inarguably prohibiting his free exercise of religion. So it was the 9th Circuit that violated the First Amendment, not Coach Kennedy.

<snip>

But apparently that is not the case, as Fischer is now arguing that the federal government has an obligation to interfere with a state’s regulation of religious expression despite having previously insisted that “states under the Founders’ Constitution are free to regulate religious expression in any way they would like without any interference from the federal government.”
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/bryan-fischers-understanding-of-the-first-amendment-grows-ever-more-incoherent/


As if we needed any further proof that today's right wing fundies lack basic reading comprehension.
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Bryan Fischer's Understanding of the First Amendment Grows Ever More Incoherent (Original Post) Initech Jan 2019 OP
I heard this 8-10 years ago from a born again type underpants Jan 2019 #1
trash GeorgeGist Jan 2019 #2

underpants

(182,957 posts)
1. I heard this 8-10 years ago from a born again type
Thu Jan 24, 2019, 08:35 PM
Jan 2019

It's not an uncommon thing for them to be told that the First Amendment doesn't mean anything about separation of church and state, the founders intent was to protect religion FROM the government.

The rather wiley older guy who was standing there literally dropped his jaw. He tried to explain that that was completely backwards. I told him I'd heard of it, that it was a new thing is some elements of the religious right.

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