For those that don’t know, the above statement is one of the cornerstones of the “great experiment” that is the United States. It is the first amendment to the Constitution and I believe many people haven’t really taken the time to really understand what it is saying.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Of all the clauses in the first amendment, this one is probably the most divisive. One argument where this is usually pointed to is to the aspect of prayer in school. What most people don’t seem to understand is that when the government ended the practice of prayer in school, it was not saying you couldn’t pray, they were saying the school couldn’t force you to pray. Back when prayer in school was common place, there would be a certain time of day where the children would literally be made to sit quietly and read the bible. Here is the issue with that practice. Most schools in this country are public schools and funded by the government. If the government is paying for things and they allow the schools to make kids read the bible, they are in a sense; they are putting one religion above others. I went to a public high school and there were plenty of prayer groups that met before school and plenty of kids that brought a bible with them to read in their down time and I have no problem with that at all.
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press
The freedom of speech and of the press goes hand in hand. The only difference is that one is spoken and the other is written. This particular clause is the reason I decided to write this little article. In case you hadn’t heard, Hank Williams Jr., while on Fox News on Monday compared President Obama and House Speaker Boehner playing gold together to Hitler playing golf with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Obviously this was a bone headed statement and Hank did apologize for it earlier today but the hoopla occurred when ESPN decided to yank his opening to Monday Night Football last night. When that news came down, the comment threads caught fire and a lot of people were saying that ESPN was violating his first amendment rights. Here is the thing, ESPN did nothing wrong and neither did Hank Williams Jr. As many people argued, Hank had every right to say what he said, however, the first amendment only protects us from the government censoring you or arresting you or saying what you say, as long as you aren’t talking about killing people or something else in that same vein. Another good example is some regular Joe tells his boss to “fuck off”. Now that guy is going to get fired most likely and quite frankly he should be. Now, by firing him is his boss censoring him and his right to free speech? Of course not because he was allowed to say what he wanted and now he is paying the price for doing it. In this case he lost his ability to make money at that job because his boss cannot allow such behavior from a subordinate. The truth is that the reason they yanked his opening number is because ESPN is a business and they didn’t want to take the chance of sponsors pulling out because of what he said. The same thing is the reason that Don Imus lost his job a few years back for his “nappy headed ho” comment.
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This clause doesn’t is really the only one in this amendment that doesn’t get twisted or manipulated. There have been plenty of controversies behind it though. Said controversies are mostly due to a group that wants to hold a rally and another group tries to stop them. If there is a danger of things turning violent then the second group is of course within their rights though. Examples of that type of tension are almost always attributed to some type of hate group, the KKK for example, trying to march in some town. A good example of how this clause is used though could be seen as recently as this past year when Glenn Beck held his rally in Washington D.C. Now as much as I disagree with most of what he says, you have to admit that his rally followed the true intent of this clause.
So there is my breakdown of what the first amendment means. I am not sure yet but I am mulling the idea of a similar article about the second amendment as well.
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