Church and State
A Simple Prayer
Our Founding father's instituted the 1st Amendment in order to protect the right to worship as each of us sees fit. They never had any intention to remove God from the public venue. After following the "Strict Scrutiny" test governing religious free exercise since the 1940s, the Supreme Court has recently held that states may ignore citizens right of free exercise as long as they ignore these rights equally across all religions.
In order to fix this misreading of the Constitution Congress enacted the "Religious Freedom Act". The high Court then ruled that this act only applied to federal cases and not the states.
If elected I will sponsor legislation to "make an exception" to this Supreme Court ruling. Under Article III of the US Constitution Congress has this power to make exceptions to any Supreme Court ruling. Congress just has lacked the courage to exercise this power. I will not be lacking and I will inspire my fellow Congress persons to assume their lawful duty to preserve our freedom of religion.
There have been at least three recent cases where local government has denied Churches from building a place of worship. Under the "Freedom of Religion Act" these Churches would have been built.
While our US Constitution protects the right of establishment and free exercise of Religion, the founders of Maryland went further and conferred a duty Under Article 36 of the Declaration of Rights that ever person must exercise there religion as they see fit. Article 36 states: "no person ought by any law to be molested in his person or estate...for his religious practice"
The Maryland Constitution Article 36 of the Declaration of Rights specifically protects the right to profess belief in God and reliance upon him in public venues. Here it is in black and white: "Nothing shall prohibit or require the making reference to belief in, reliance upon, or invoking the aid of God or a Supreme Being in any governmental or public document, proceeding, activity, ceremony, school, institution, or place."
While government can not impose a religion or the belief in God on anyone, neither may it, in any way, prevent us from freely exercise our beliefs in any place be it government, schools or in private venues.