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    "No option is ruled out for PKK’s eradication from northern Iraq. Everything is in." ..., 2003-10-03 01:44:30 | Main | "unmitigated sympathy for drug abusers"..., 2003-10-10 02:58:36

    cubs 2, braves 1:

    "The white race deems itself to be the dominant superior race in this country, and so it is in prestige and achievements and education and wealth and in power. So I doubt not it will continue to be for all time only if it remains true to its great heritage, but in view of the Constitution and in the eyes of the law, there is in this country no superior dominant ruling class of citizens, there is no caste here. Our Constitution is colorblind."
      --Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlen, dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896.

    "In 1883 the Indian Religious Crimes Code was enforced in Reservation Courts as Board of Indian Affairs policy. This policy of Indian "zero tolerance" prohibited Native American ceremonial activity under penalty of imprisonment and withholding of rations for up to 10 days; medicine men "who shall resort to any artifice or device to keep the Indians of the Reservation from adopting and following civilized habits and pursuits,.... for the first offense shall be imprisoned for no less than ten days nor more than thirty days." (Josephy, Now That The Buffalo's Gone, p.85). It was not until 1978 under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act that First Amendment protection of freedom of religion was afforded to Native Americans, essentially two hundred years after the Bill of Rights."

    Even though the Court admitted that the case involved use of "federal land in a manner that threatens the very existence of a Native American Religion," it chose to reverse the lower courts because such usage neither "coerce[s] conduct inconsistent with religious belief nor penalize[s] activity." However, free exercise addresses "any form of governmental action that frustrates or inhibits religious practice." The effect of the decision is to "refuse to acknowledge the constitutional injury the respondents will suffer," thereby leaving them with "absolutely no constitutional protection against perhaps the gravest threat to their religious practices." The decision in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Assn. (1988) effectively stripped Native Americans of legal safeguards protecting worship at sacred sites because it prioritized federal property rights over the needs of a minority religion.

      --Craig R. Smith, The Center for First Amendment Studies, California State University, Long Beach; Religious Freedom
    .


:: posted by buermann @ 2003-10-04 05:39:37 CST | link





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Enforcing
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Oil for Nothing:
US Holds On Humanitarian Supplies
Iraq: 1997-2001


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The Autobiography
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