Chronicle columnist John McCroskey’s comments on Aug. 11 concerning the Two Dogs Fasaga trial decision made a couple of really good points.
Our justice system is under fire these days, and I chalk that up to social media. Opinions are like behinds, everybody has one. With social media, it seems that everybody thinks they have the proper word on any topic.
That goes from what you’re having for lunch to gun control to legal decisions made by courts. The problem with these opinions is that the person seldom has all of the facts, didn’t read the entire transcript of the trial or hear all of the evidence.
I believe it’s true that most judges try to be fair and honest, but politics usually rears its ugly head in high profile trials. Because we have a document called the Constitution, and there’s a First Amendment that gives us the right to speak our opinion, it’s pretty hard to clamp down on social media.
And our press tends to rely heavily on that amendment, printing whatever they like without fear of legal ramifications. And the press has had its foibles recently, such as CNN’s apparent admission that they made up stories about President Trump in order to keep him from being re-elected.
So the First Amendment is a double-edged sword, which brings up Mr. McCroskey’s second comment concerning last week’s decision by the Lewis County Seniors board to not allow political discussions and prayer. Apparently, the board hasn’t read our Constitution, particularly the First Amendment.
It’s a pretty broad amendment giving us the right to freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. That last part has been used to justify a lot of religious restrictions in recent years, and it’s because some courts have chosen a very narrow definition of the clause.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
This came about because of Henry VIII and his establishment of the Church of England. He did this because the Pope refused to give him an annulment to one of his wives because she hadn’t given him a male heir.
So, Henry created the church and made being a Catholic illegal, leading to lots of killing of priests and nuns and burning and destroying churches, etc. This was still fairly fresh in the minds of the Founding Fathers and they didn’t want that here. But recent court decisions have narrowed that “establishment” as actually allowing religious activities in government funded establishments. I think that every elected official should be required to read the Constitution and pass a test on its contents. Might do away with a lot of these political decisions.
Bruce Peterson
Centralia
