Original Message: ----------------- From: Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 01:04:21 +1000 To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Re: Gay Unions in NJ
On 28/10/2006, at 12:25 AM, Dan Minette wrote: >>> >>> Rather constitutional rights are drafted in a democratic process, >>> by the >>> majority, to be a future, binding restriction on the majority. >> >> So the views of the Founding Fathers which prevailed were those of >> the majority, especially those on separations of religious >> establishment and government? No they weren't. Minority view at the >> time... > > Let's look at that. The Bill of Rights are amendments to the > Constitution. > Article V of the US Constitution gives two means of amending the > Constitution. One of these, the constitutional convention, has yet > to be > used (we were close to it about 20 years ago). The other has been > used > numerous times. It requires approval of 2/3rds vote of each House of > Congress and 3/4ths of the state assemblies. > > Unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I think we > should see > such a strong vote as indicating popular approval. >You can if you like. It doesn't reflect the history. The population >at the time was overwhelmingly Christian, but many of the founders >were lapsed, or deists. Many were. But, then again, many Americans at the time were what we'd consider lapsed. About 10% of the Americans attended church regularly. It wasn't until the 2nd and 3rd great revivals in the 19th century that church attendance rose to be very significant. in>Their views on a secular federal government were very much a minority view at the >time. But, I don't think they viewed secular as we did. The idea of a federal government was a fairly hard sell. The Bill of Rights was part of the persuasion. If you look at earlier state constitutions, and the documentation of the ratification of the Constituion by the various states, you can get a better feel for the political climate at the time. >That they signed the >Constitution and then convinced the Congress to approve the Bill of >Rights was testament to their vision and skills of persuasion. But, as I pointed out...they didn't "sign the Constitution" and it wasn't just Congress that approved the Bill of Rights. 9 of 13 states were required to approve the Constitution and 3/4ths of the states (10) were needed to approve the Bill of Rights. I couldn't find the size of the state legislatures that approved the Bill of Rights online....but I could find the size of the legislatures/assemblies in seven of the origional states 13 states that voted for the Constitution. The average legislature size was ~ 175. Using this size, roughly 1 in 200 white males over 20 was in a legislature/assembly that the Constituion needed to be approved by. I've been in town hall meetings that are about 3 times as big as this...and have been a Democratic delegate to the state convention in '72...so I have some feel for the dynamics of politics at this size. 200 people electing someone is a very low ratio. The people would well know the issues at stake when electing representatives...and it's unliekly that they would all select folks radically at odds with their own views. One helpful statisitic would be the religeous affiliations of the first Congress. Of the 44 members of Congress with known affilations, there are 11 different affilations listed. http://www.adherents.com/gov/congress_001.html This gives a feel for the religous diversity in the early US. You can see why all the non-Anglicans would be very suspicious of an official state religion...since a significant fraction of the early national leaders were (at least nominally) Anglicans. They wanted to limit the Federal Government's power in this area. Thus, the first Ammendment. Other Ammendments are broader than this, but the First ammendment is specifically limited to Congress. It's not reasonable to view that as an accident. Dan M. >And it >was a pretty fine job they did (oddly placed comma in the second >amendment notwithstanding... ;-) ). There's no mention of any >religion at all in the Constitution, apart from to say that no >religious test may be required as a qualification to hold office. >This was almost unthinkable in the late 1700s. Charlie _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
