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The Hollywood Reporter notes: The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has selected Judge Judy Scheindlin to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for 2006. Judge Mills Lane can’t be far behind. In other news, The Onion reported recently…

Jefferson said (and did) many things in his private, personal life that I (and you, I suspect) would disagree with. Read up on him. And then tell me that I should give as much (or any, for that matter) precedential value to a private letter he wrote, compared with the Constitution.

And while you’re at it, please explain why it took until the first half of the 20th century for the wall of separation argument to find its way from Jefferson’s personal letter to the Supreme Court? That’s about 150 years! Was it because the early Americans were just not that enlightened? If that’s the case, why are we trying to abide by a 215 year old document drafted by them? If we’re so much smarter than them we should just change and add a bunch of stuff to the Constitution that was never contemplated by the founding fathers and which has no basis in the original text of the document.

And then next we can update those old-fashioned tennis rules that just don’t make any sense and were probably made up by folks as unenlightened as our founding fathers. After all, tennis regulations should be living, breathing rules too…just like the Constitution! First change: Make tennis more like golf…lowest score wins! Hey man, I noticed you have 30 and all the people you’re yelling at have “love.” Sorry, buddy.

P.S. Spellchecker is our friend!

I know. Which is my point. If the phrase was found in one of those documents, it would be a legitimate source of Constitutional Law (or in the case of the Federalist Papers, a well respected source of information about the founder’s intentions). Last time I checked, the people of the United States never ratified any of Jefferson’s letters. As such, the fact that one founder used the phrase in one private letter is meaningless and certainly doesn’t make anything a moot point.

If it were the case that one letter from one founder could form a legitimate source of constitutional law, the overwhelming number of documents written at the time Jefferson wrote that letter would negate any legitimacy of Jefferson’s letter.

Notice the word “about”, as in “wrote about”. And the fact that Jefferson wrote that statement to a Baptist congregation in Connecticut means that it should be held in lesser value than the one penned in Philadelphia? In that letter, he stated (paraphrasing) that the government would not impose religion on the state, or it’s residents.

Also, I don’t believe I stated the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Federalist Papers in my post. Regardless of any state’s official religions in the 1700’s, that is not currently the case now. The 10 Commandments are not found in the al-Qur’an, the Talmud, the Tao-te-ching, or many other international religious texts. Notice the word “international”, as your state, I am sure, does not currently dictate one religion over another. All of the above texts exist in the world, along with the many versions of the Judeo-Christian Bible, thus necessitating a need to co-exist. A judge who has the crucifixtion sitting on his bench next to his gavel does not “imply” impartiality, regardless of intent.

Serving: 30 – love.

(Katherine) Let’s use this public forum to flog that equine a few more times. Your personal/family beliefs are irrevelant to the matter of seperation of Church and State. Whether or not the Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed at the local DMV doesn’t conflict with your beliefs, but may be an insult to ancient Mesopotamians living in your community. Get over it…

(Nanopundit) The display has nothing to do with which TV program character you slap next to your sculpture. Well established displays, that have stood without contest, for a undetermined (but I would imagine greater than 5-10yr) period of time are grandfathered into the ruling. New displays are ruled illegal. And, before all the NeoCons come out of the wordwork squawking, the opinion that the law is derived from Judeo-Christian beliefs became moot the day the framers wrote about “seperation of church and state”.

Who cares about ex-wives and -husbands who want legal protection from loonies?

Lots of decisions by SCOTUS today, and great roundup over at SCOTUSblog. Some highlights: the Supreme Court upheld a federal court order against a display of the religious document on the wall of courthouses in two Kentucky counties. The Court,…

Great writeup. I’m sure my readers will appreciate it. I’ve added you to my favorites and will likely add a permanent link.

-Jacqueline