Tag: Constitution

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Tennessee Faith Leaders Voice Support For Proposed Constitutional Amendment 3

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Faith leaders from the state of Tennessee voiced support for Tennessee’s proposed Constitutional Amendment 3 during a Yes On 3 news conference Tuesday.

On the November 8th state and federal general election ballot, Tennessee voters will see four proposed amendments. These will be presented as yes or no questions, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Constitutional Amendment 3 would ​​change the part of the Tennessee Constitution, which says that “slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a person who has been duly convicted of crime, are forever prohibited in this State.” The amendment would delete this current language and replace it with: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”

Many were shocked that this language still existed in the Tennessee Constitution. Rev. Kenneth Saunders of St. James Episcopal Church in Greeneville, Tennessee said he was not “knowledgeable of the language of the Constitution, and that it contained such an exception clause,” and that he was “struck” that this language even existed.

According to the Yes On 3 campaign, this amendment passed as a Senate joint resolution in 2019 and 2021. In 2019, SJR0159 was sponsored by state Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), approved by the state Senate on March 25, 2019, and approved by the state House on April 22nd, 2019. The companion resolution, SJR0080, was approved by the state Senate on March 15th, 2021, and by the state House on May 4, 2021.

The Tennessee-Western Kentucky annual conference of the United Methodist Church also passed a resolution on Amendment 3 on June 16th, 2022, by a vote of 712-70.

The Yes On 3 campaign describes slavery as a “deep, moral wrong, and a violation of our best values, and a stain on our state and its history.” The campaign also states that “no person should ever be enslaved or treated as a slave for any reason.”

Rev. Jeannie Alexander of Earthfire Abbey in Old Hickory, Tennessee said that the Constitution serves as not only a legal document, but a moral document and that as clergy, the only moral response to slavery is the “abolition of slavery.”

“We’re not just going to make history on November 8th,” Alexander said. “We’re going to change lives.”

According to Alexander, this language still allows for slavery to be a “punishment for the commission of a crime.”

“While someone may be socially segregated, someone may be a prisoner, by God no one should be a slave,” said Alexander.

Rev. Daryll Henry Coleman of Lane Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church serves as a professor at Lane College, where he teaches a class on the history of the Black church. Coleman states he deals with issues in the Constitution, and slavery still being included represents a “dehumanization, a devaluation of personage and people.”

Coleman also represents the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee which stands to be the “historical, prophetic voice of the African American church.”

While there is much debate about mixing politics and religion together, Saunders said that this is not a political issue, but rather a “moral issue.”

“We don’t check our Christian ethics at the door when we go to the polls,” said Saunders. “We take who we are as baptized persons, embodying a people of faith to the voting ballot. It’s a call to do right by saying that slavery no longer exists. People don’t have the right to own each other, and it’s a value statement on how we are as people of God.”

Bishop Brian Cole from the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee (Knoxville) said that this will give Tennessee the ability to “right a historical wrong.” By doing this, Cole said this will give Tennessee the opportunity to acknowledge its history of racism, while actively working towards efforts around racism and to “be more of who God has called us to be.”

“Whenever we baptize, we invite folks to see Christ in all persons, and to also respect the dignity of every living person and every human,” Cole said. “For us, this is an easy, but really important way to do so. We say it’s easy, but these documents matter.”

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Opinion Viewpoint

It’s Secular

The office of the president is a secular office in a secular government. There is not a word in the Constitution that authorizes the president or anyone else in the federal government to make a religious decision.

Why then are both voters and candidates wasting their time talking about religion? The personal religious beliefs of the candidates should be considered irrelevant. Furthermore, people should not forget that there are a lot more professors of religion than practitioners. What a person claims to believe and how that person leads his or her life are often quite different.

Laws are, in the final analysis, words on paper. They cannot and do not control human behavior. If they could, there would be no crimes. Americans, especially politicians, have developed the bad habit of thinking that there ought to be a law to cover every conceivable human action. Consequently, there are so many laws today that no human being can possibly know what they all are. This defeats one of the useful purposes of laws, which is to educate the public.

As for religion, people should recognize that all the world’s religions have failed to eliminate sin, and therefore no one should expect the government to do that. Christianity in particular is based on the twin concepts of sin and forgiveness. Governments are better at finding sin than at forgiving.

Religion has a legitimate role in our society. George Washington said religion is the best way known to instill virtue in masses of people. That is job enough for religion, and religion should stay out of politics as an organization. Religious individuals, of course, have the same rights and duties as any other citizen.

Religion itself has enough problems to solve. Christian Zionists, for example, are a heretical cult without any biblical foundation and with a political agenda. Other Christians have perverted the religion into a weekly course on how to be rich and happy. Christianity, in fact, teaches that it is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Militant Christianity is a contradiction in terms.

If you are trying to find someone actually practicing Christianity, whom would you choose — a preacher with a six-figure salary, a limousine, and a private jet or, say, an actor like Brad Pitt, who has committed $5 million of his own money to build homes for people in New Orleans’ 9th Ward?

In judging human affairs, always look for actions, not words. What a person says tells you nothing reliable; what a person does gives you a better clue as to what kind of a person he or she is. At the same time, don’t forget the dual nature of human beings.

One can find faults with all religions. One should not forget, however, that the same can be said of all secular philosophies, ideologies, and institutions. Nothing human is or ever will be perfect.

As for the presidential candidates, people should be asking not what these people claim to believe about God, but what have they actually done? How do their lives measure up to their speeches? Do they demonstrate a belief in and a concern for the Constitution? Do they have a wide knowledge of the world as it truly is? Are they catering to special interests? Are they independent thinkers or followers?

The presidential race is, after all, a search for a secular leader, not for a pope or ayatollah. The United States is in deep trouble politically, financially, and economically. It will take a smart, sane, and courageous person to get us out. Opportunists and people who sell their souls for campaign contributions may well preside over our national collapse.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Preacher in Chief?

As we all know, the president of the United States is elected by and swears to serve all citizens of this nation by protecting and defending the Constitution, not the Bible or any other religious text. America — founded by men who in some instances proclaimed Jesus as their God — was created to assure the freedoms of religion and conscience without regard to an individual’s personal beliefs, creed, or worship practices.

The Republican Party appears to have abandoned any commitment to this tenet of the Constitution and is positioned to nominate a preacher in chief, whose first loyalty will be to the dogmas of Christian fundamentalism.

And they have a constituency. Across the country, sprawling corporate religious “lifestyle centers,” serving more as Christian country clubs than as houses of worship, have produced congregations who foster a blend of ostentatious piety, self-righteous intolerance, and unyielding arrogance. For these churchgoers, voting Republican is de rigueur.

Unprecedented amounts of wealth have been amassed in many of these churches, not in small part as a result of the wealth-redistribution policy of the Republican administrations’ faith-based government programs. The threat of losing this power and money may in fact be looming large in the selection of the party’s nominee and in the desperately pious tone, manner, and attitude of the Republican presidential acolytes.

Not to be outdone, the media, particularly cable television punditry and radio talk-show hosts, are reliably helping to advance the idea of establishing a religious “test” for candidates. Although the most recent Republican debate fielded questions created by viewers of YouTube, those questions were vetted and selected by officials at CNN. Thus, all Republican presidential candidates were asked by Wolf Blitzer if they believed in the inerrancy of the Bible. (Any guesses as to how the pack of them answered?)

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a proud member of God’s Own Party and an ordained Baptist minister, may be the most flagrant offender against the Constitution. Huckabee recently told a group of students at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University that his astonishing rise in the Iowa polls is an “act of God.” He has also received letters of endorsement from Tim LaHaye, author of the “Left Behind” series of novels which extol the Rapture as an imminent end-of-the-world phenomenon.

Huckabee has stated on the record that he does not believe in evolution and lists among the most urgent issues facing the country the perils of abortion and gay marriage, as well as threats to the unlimited rights of gun-owners. His frequent statements of religiosity are delivered with a jocular smile and a sense of humor — designed, apparently, to seem non-threatening to anyone who is not a believer.

And, as if this country hasn’t suffered enough division, enough religious hypocrisy, and enough self-righteous intolerance in the last seven years, now we have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, an ex-moderate of sorts, hastening to join the ranks of Christian soldiers in the Republican Party and seeking like the rest to impose a religious obligation on political service. His immediate motivation, amplified by concern about rival Huckabee, is to gain the White House at any cost, but the ultimate result of his apostasy from reason is to further erode the wall separating church and state in this country — something most Christian fundamentalists believe is a myth concocted by God-hating secular liberals.

Prompted by Huckabee’s surge, Mormon Romney has ramped up his attempt to sway the fundamentalist crowds and seems determined to try to one-up Preacher Huckabee. He may indeed have trumped Huckabee with this mind-bending assertion: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. … Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” Can Romney really not know of the suppression, torture, and murder of heretics and infidels by Christians (and members of virtually every other religion) throughout history?

When candidates such as Romney and Huckabee ratchet up their efforts to destroy the separation of church and state established by this country’s founders, it requires those of us in the electorate to ratchet right back. After all, it is an election that will be held in America next November, not an altar call.

Cheri DelBrocco writes the “Mad As Hell” column for MemphisFlyer.com.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: Keeping the Faith in God’s Own Party

As we all know, the president of the United States is
elected and swears to serve all citizens of this nation by protecting and
defending the Constitution rather than the Bible or any other religious text.
America, founded by men who in some instances proclaimed Jesus as their God,
was created to assure the freedoms of religion and conscience without regard
to an individual’s personal beliefs, creed, or worship practices.

The Republican Party appears to have abandoned any
commitment to this tenet of the Constitution and is positioned to elect a
preacher- in-chief whose first loyalty will be to the dogmas of Christian
Fundamentalism.

And they have a constituency. Across the country
sprawling corporate religious “lifestyle centers” serving more as Christian
country clubs than as houses of worship have produced congregations who foster
a blend of ostentatious piety, self-righteous intolerance, and unyielding
arrogance. For these parishioners, voting Republican is de rigueur.

Unprecedented amounts of wealth have been amassed in many
of these churches, not in small part as a result of the wealth-redistribution
policy of the Bush and Republican faith-based government programs established
in this century. The threat of losing this power and money may in fact be
looming large in the selection of the party’s nominee and in the desperately
pious tone, manner, and attitude of the Republican presidential acolytes.

Not to be outdone, the media, particularly cable
television punditry and radio talk show hosts, are reliably helping to advance
the idea of establishing a religious test. Although the last Republican
debate fielded questions created by viewers of You Tube, those questions were
vetted and selected by officials at CNN. Thus, all Republican presidential
candidates were asked by Wolf Blitzer if they believed in the inerrancy of the
Bible. (Any guesses as to how the pack of them answered?)

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a proud member of
God’s Own Party and an ordained Baptist minister, may be the most flagrant
offender against the Constitution. Mr. Huckabee recently told a group of
students at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University that his astonishing rise in
the Iowa polls is an act of God. He has also received letters of endorsement
from Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series which extols the
Rapture as an imminent end-of-the-world phenomenon. Huckabee has stated on the
record that he does not believe in evolution and lists among the most urgent
issues facing the country the perils of abortion and gay marriage, as well as
threats to the unlimited rights of gun-owners. His frequent statements of
religiosity are delivered with a jocular smile and a sense of humor —
designed apparently to seem non-threatening to anyone who is not a believer.

As if this country hasn’t suffered enough division, enough
religious hypocrisy, and enough self-righteous intolerance in the last seven
years, now we have former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, an ex-moderate of
sorts, hastening to join the ranks of Christian soldiers in the Republican Party
and seeking like the rest to impose a religious obligation on political service.
His immediate motivation, amplified by concern about rival Huckabee, is to gain
the White House at any cost, but the ultimate result of his apostasy from reason
is to further decimate the wall of separation between Church and state in this
country–something most Christian fundamentalists disbelieve anyhow as a myth
concocted by them God-hating secular liberals.

Scarified by Huckabee’s surge, Mormon Romney has ramped up
his attempt to sway the fundamentalist crowds and seems determined to try to
one-up Preacher Huckabee. He may indeed have trumped Huckabee with this
mind-bending assertion: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires
freedom—-Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” Can Romney
really not know of the suppression, torture, and murder of heretics and infidels
by Christians (and members of virtually every other religion) throughout
history?

When candidates like Romney, Huckabee and others ratchet up
their effort to destroy the wall of separation built by the founders, it
requires somebody to ratchet right back. After all, it is an election that will
be held in America next November, not an altar call.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

GADFLY: Let’s Hear It for Barristers on the Barricades!

I sat, dumbfounded, as I watched a demonstration, en masse,
in Pakistan against the oppressive rule by that country’s strongman (and our
“ally”), Pervez Musharraf, by a group of outraged citizens. Who were they? Not
members of the typically rebellious masses (i.e., college students, factory
workers, union members, political dissidents, etc.), but a group of LAWYERS!

How could this be, I wondered. Lawyers (a status I proudly
claim) are usually part of the cosseted elite, beneficiaries of the status quo,
recipients of the government’s favors, and cogs in the wheels of justice,
government and societal processes in general. More often than not they go along
to get along as part of the power structure. They are usually well-paid,
respected (stereotype-driven prejudice to the contrary notwithstanding) and
comfortable members of the elite. Yet here they were, raucously demonstrating,
throwing rocks at (and

being beaten by) the police, and vociferously protesting the policies of
their government. Right on, brothers! Lawyers just don’t do this, I thought.
It’s contrary to their delicate constitutions, and their self-interest.

As it turns out, the Pakistani lawyers were righteously
indignant about Musharraf’s “emergency” measures, dictatorially imposed on the
country, including the suspension of the country’s constitution, cancellation of
elections, the arrest and detention of the country’s chief justice, the closure
of privately-owned broadcast media and the replacement of many of the country’s
high court’s judges with ones more to the dictator’s liking. Wow, I thought;
this sounds vaguely reminiscent of what’s happening right here, in the good ole
US of A. Bush has all but suspended the constitution (i.e., eliminating habeas
corpus, warrantlessly eavesdropping on American citizens, engaging in torture
and stacking the Supreme Court, and the inferior courts, with his ideological
kinsmen). But he doesn’t see the parallels. Indeed, in

a moment of supreme irony, Bush’s press secretary said (in reference to
Musharraf’s actions) that it was not reasonable to restrict constitutional
freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.

Bush has relied on compliant (if not complicit) lawyers in
the justice department (headed, until recently, by the ultimate kiss ass,
Alberto Gonzales), to tell him what he wants to hear when it comes to bending or
breaking various laws and the constitution. And now it appears we will be
treated to another Bush lawyer/sycophant at the helm of that department, Michael
Mukasey, who

refused to say that a favored torture tactic, water boarding, is
unconstitutional. Nonetheless, can you imagine lawyers in this country
taking to the streets to protest our strongman’s infringements of
constitutional and human rights? I know I can’t. And yet, no one is in a better
position to protest our dictator’s policies, or has more at stake, than this
country’s legal establishment.

Musharaf has obviously taken a page from Shakespeare in
dealing with Pakistan’s lawyers. It is a favorite Shakespearean verse, often
quoted by people who hold lawyers in less than high regard, that, paraphrasing,
“the first thing we should do is kill all the lawyers.” I’ve heard this line
many times, once even from a now-deceased federal judge who uttered it,
astonishingly enough, in the courthouse elevator as several lawyers got on to
ride to the courtroom floor. I reminded him, as politely as I could, that in
addition to being a judge, he was also a lawyer and would probably go with the
rest of us (indeed, probably before us) if his prescription were to be followed.
But, the quote from Shakespeare is never cited in the context the Bard wrote it.
In fact, Dick the Butcher, a character in Henry VI, utters the remark as
part of a plot by another character in the play, Jack Cade, a rabble-rouser and
pretender to the throne of England, to take down the government. Eliminating
lawyers, according to Dick, was a necessary part of a successful revolt. Dick
and Perez obviously share the same philosophy.

In this country, far from protesting the abuses of law and
the constitution practiced by the current administration, lawyers have
shamelessly capitulated to, if not facilitated, the excesses of the Bush
administration. Whether it was John Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer (who
John Ashcroft referred to as “Dr. Yes” for his willingness to tell the White
House what it wanted to hear), who opined that whatever the president wanted to
do in a time of war (including torture) was permissible, whether or not it was
prohibited by statute or the constitution, or Scooter Libby (remember him?) who
outed a covert CIA agent in the service of his own “Dick the Butcher,” or now
Mr. Mukasey, who appears ready to immunize from prosecution for war crimes the
agents of our government who may have engaged in torture, and their superiors
(up to and including Bush) who authorized it, American lawyers (with some

notable exceptions) have been stunningly, deafeningly silent in the face of
the Bush administration’s abuses . And lawyers like Arlen Specter, Chuck Schumer
and Lindsay Graham (who also happen to be U.S. senators), have, by approving
Mukasey’s nomination, even as they professed outrage at his unwillingness to
declare water boarding torture, have ignominiously shamed their profession by
carrying the administration’s water on that nomination.

American lawyers have stood by and watched Bush nominate
candidates for the Supreme Court who swore, under oath, that they would honor
the principle of “stare decisis” (precedent), and then proceeded, in several
cases,

to violate that oath and decimate long-standing precedents. They stood by in
2000 when the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bush vs. Gore,

one of the most political decisions in its 200 plus year existence (with the
possible exception of its DredScott pro-slavery opinion), which

robbed the winner of that election of his rightful victory. Sadly, American
lawyers have frequently been more a part of the problem in the decimation of the
rule of law in this country than part of the solution.

So I stand with my Pakistani brothers in law, in spirit if
not in body, and say, “I support your cause, because it is just.” But call me a
hypocrite, because I just don’t think I’ll be throwing any rocks (at least not
literally), manning any barricades, or suffering any police beatings over here
protesting Pervez Bush’s violations of the constitution or the rule of law over
here, anytime soon. When all is said and done, I’m afraid I’m just another
proud, and chicken, member of the establishment.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

If anyone doubts that the

republic created by the U.S. Constitution

is dead, he or she only has to watch the Republican

presidential debates. Save for Ron Paul, all of the candidates believe a

president can take the country to war on his own, though most concede it might be a good idea to “consult” attorneys and even Congress.

The Constitution, written by men more intelligent and better educated than today’s crop of political duds, is quite clear. The president has no authority to take the country to war. The sole authority for declaring war rests 100 percent with Congress.

Naturally, if a shipload of pirates sailed up the Potomac and began shooting at the tourists, you wouldn’t need a declaration to authorize returning fire. American troops defending themselves while they are under attack is not the issue. The issue is that if a president wants to take the country to war against another country, he must, as Franklin Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor, ask Congress to make that decision.

The founding fathers, having suffered under a monarch, deliberately created a weak president. His powers, as specified by the Constitution, are limited mainly to administering the laws passed by Congress, making appointments, negotiating treaties and being the official greeter when dealing with foreign powers. His role as commander in chief is limited to just what it says — the military. The president is not our commander in chief, as the current president seems to think.

Lest anyone be beguiled by the current politicians’ determination to create an emperor and an empire, even the president’s appointments and treaties have to be confirmed by the Senate. Congress has sole authority over taxation and spending. Appropriations for the military are limited by the Constitution to two years. Furthermore, Congress is elected independently of the president and is a separate branch of government. It is under no obligation whatsoever to do anything the president asks it to do, and the president has no authority whatsoever to do anything not authorized by Congress and the Constitution.

The Constitution, which apparently not many Americans have ever bothered to read, is the supreme law of the land. It does not make suggestions. It commands. It was written in clear English. It has provisions to amend it, but it should never be amended by interpretation. That is always a usurpation of power and should be grounds for impeachment.

There is only one way for the U.S. to be a real nation of laws. That way is for the people to demand that every single public official obey the laws as they are written and obey them to the letter. The current president seems to think he can alter laws with “signing statements” and legislate with executive orders. He should have been impeached a long time ago.

The kernel of the nut is this: In our constitutional republic, sovereignty rests in the people. If the people are too stupid or ignorant, too lazy or indifferent, to hold their public officials accountable for violating the laws and the Constitution, then of course they will deserve the tyranny they will surely get.

Self-government is tremendously more difficult and demanding than living under a dictatorship. In a dictatorship, all you have to do is obey. I fear that concept appeals to some Americans today. It’s understandable. Responsibility can be a heavy load to carry. It’s much easier to relegate all of that to the Great Leader and just do what we are told.

Anybody who’s ever been in the military or jail knows what I’m talking about. When you are deprived of the ability to make choices, you are simultaneously relieved of the responsibility for making them. Responsibility is the other side of the coin of freedom.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 50 years.