06/29/05

There's a children's party game [sometimes called 'telephone'], in which one child is given a phrase or a story, who then whispers it to a second, in turn to a third and so on. The fun in the game is to see how wildly divergent the final phrase or story is from the original. Not so amusingly, that children's game is an apt metaphor for the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence, particularly on religious expression cases such as those decided on Monday. In this instance, the beginning point is what the Constitution actually says about religion, which is: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' That's rather clear: Religious expression and practice should be neither compelled nor suppressed...

http://tinyurl.com/cldy5

from Arizona Republic, by Robert Robb


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp