+32

continuing from the preceding post:

There is a test here that could leave this resolved with even less doubt (That is for my side at least because I still think there could be a way to see that chaplain for congress thing fit with the full meaning of the establishment clause). I have done some of that test but others may already know how to do it more efficiently. The test is to search past congress enactments before the civil war to see if  that salary for the chaplains which was decided in 1789 before ratifying the Amendment increased or remained the same, and if the latter for how long, while the pay to others was increasing. I did some of that checking on the salary searching some names of senate chaplains and found the salary for chaplains was still that same $500 in 1832 or 1833   ( LINK1, LINK2 ). 
However, I just found THIS, which in its "History" section says that law of 1789, which contains the chaplain salary,  was reenacted in 1816. This is the first time I deal with this legal term and I do not know if it implies that that part of the law was created anew in the related capabilities even if we assume no addition or augmentation.

+31

Continued from the preceding post

I read somewhere on the Internet describing the Congress chaplain enactment of 1789 as a violation of law. I emphasize again that unless I am wrong in my understanding that a constitutional amendment does not become law even on the segment that just approved it until the ratification is complete, there was no violation of law there because the Amendment was not the law yet.

Back to the opinion of the court. According to that opinion the Constitution "affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions". Although this may not matter much here I still want to ask where does it say or imply that? The First Amendment stated the required relation with religion in a way that does not leave a gap to be filled by that.

At first glance it may sound like that opinion contains some strong support for the court. However, on subsequent looks one may find that it contains or imply more than that toward its own demolition. For example, referring to how congress made Christmas and Thanksgiving as holidays might first look impressive for the court until that fires back when one finds out how late that have happened. So why was not that or any thing similar to it in designating respect toward religion approved by Congress earlier if the reason was not being restricted by the establishment clause? The court itself even support you more when it says " Beginning in the early colonial period long before Independence, a day of Thanksgiving was celebrated as a religious holiday to give thanks for the bounties of Nature as gifts from God". So what prevented Congress from formally applying that tradition until so late later? Also, when the court speaks about the deep history of having the presidents honoring Thanksgiving it takes less than what it gives because the establishment clause has nothing to do with the executive branch. On the other hand it makes one wonder what made Congress abstain from doing the same throughout all that earlier period if it were not because of the establishment clause . Notice how much the significance of such points is augmented when one adds the attachment to religion which the enactment related to chaplains for congress imply. It suggests even more that the abstinence mentioned above is an active choice resulted from consideration of related factors. Or, who knows, it might be even the intention of  those people for that chaplain thing is to show that indifference is not the reason for future restrictions toward respecting establishments of religions. Add to that the proximity to the making and approving the Amendment and you would get a picture much more worthy of following than that of those later times. 

On the other hand, the approval of those holidays was, in addition to the time separation, also not far enough after the civil war to exclude as a motive making relatively small sacrifices like these to heal the wounds by bringing the nation together through common things after such disaster.  

It seems that none of the examples cited by the court for congress violation of the Amendment if not understood the way for which it argues goes back close enough, like, for example, before that civil war. 

+30

What the court mentioned there (LYNCH V. DONNELLY)  is not even in the same galaxy with actions that could through what they suggest limit what the text states. The court took things like seeing the drifts away from the path after a person gets tired from running for a long time as part of that path.    There were hardly any conflict with the Amendment for probably more than sixty years after ratification. As for actions mentioned there to suggest a hard attachment to religion in this nation even when it comes to just sparing the government from getting involved, that clearly can also support the opposite direction as a justification. For what the court apparently intended that to serve, it was as insufficient as in somebody telling you that a third person wears a shirt held by ten buttons and because of that that second person expect you to take asking that third person to take that shirt off like asking the latter to get out of his own skin.          

+29

I just noticed how what I described in the preceding post may not fit the formal process of making a law without leaving a record for that initial spending approval. I guess that using the expression "make no law" instead of present no Bill or something like that for example, and probably also the reference to "law" instead of Law (which was also a practice that was kept throughout the Bill of Rights in contrast with the original constitution) made me forget about the formal law making process and instead think about it as an entirely internal process for Congress (Even then there maybe an issue with the internal record keeping not mentioning that initial approval but I am talking about what made me go this direction to begin with).

However, I also noticed a little while ago that I probably gave weight to that action by that Congress much more than I should because I failed to realize that was before ratifying the Amendment. Until the ratification to be part of the constitution for an Amendment is completed it would have no effect as if it does not exist. Because of this, one may actually ask why should we consider any weight for that action instead of taking it as irrelevant to begin with? Still if we force a relevance on ourselves here, why should that be to the direction where the court took that? It can be taken exactly to the opposite of that if we take the action as intended to be done before it becomes impermissible if the Amendment gets ratified. It seems hardly explainable why the court was more willing to take that action as being caused by less restrictive understanding for the Amendment than  that because it was not effective yet. Also what happened to that less restrictive taking for the establishment clause through out all that long time after the ratification? How much can we find what support taking the Amendment that way through out, say, seventy years after that ratification which is a very long time when it comes to holding people from invoking their religions? It is ironic how as much as the court talked about the strength of connection between people and their religion here as much as it also strengthened the indication of the absence of signs for its position as long as that continued after the ratification as an argument against its position.

But I also, after reading the related part in the opinion of the court (LYNCH V. DONNELLY) more carefully, think that I could have been wrong or hasty in my argument against its association of Thanksgiving with Christmas because I depended on the common understanding to the origin of the former. 

+28

To be more specific, notice how the following implementation for the process described in the preceding post seems not to conflict with the establishment clause:

Congress with merely its authority on itself as a group, asked itself in its capacity of having the authority on the nation, to empower the former with needed money for some reasonable spending which the former will choose what it is once, and the latter approved the request. Then the former chose that to be for chaplains for itself.    

+27

It seems that there is a better and easier path to argue for the conformity of that chaplain for Congress decision with the establishment clause of the First Amendment than I did in post 20. Instead of taking deciding to pay for chaplains as not in violation of that clause because it was for the want of an entity and not for respecting an establishment of religion, that paying decision can be seen made by that entity itself. In other words, this action by that Congress to provide payment to chaplains for itself can be seen as comprised of two parts. The first part is the decision by Congress to allocate money for itself which comes from its authority on the nation. The second part is the decision by Congress to use that money to pay for chaplains which comes from its authority on itself. Since at the root the role of Congress is to serve the nation not itself, the second part fits included within the first for presentation. 

+26

Why is there in this country more tension on the issue of immigration than other countries? Other countries seems to discuss controlling immigration with less sense of guilt than here. The bad thing I fear is that this good looking behaviour is being part of trying to deny the implication of the issue that the Native Americans existed in this land first.  Of course suppressing a symptom  is not the answer. This is not about abstaining from helping others. It is about pointing out that doing good things where one owes has more priority than doing good things to others.