Aderholt "Ten Commandment Amendment"The following is the text of Amendment no. 28 offered by Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL) to H.R. 1501, Consequences for Juvenile Act of 1999, and H.R. 2122, Mandatory Gun Show Background Check Act of 1999.
TITLE XX--RIGHTS TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
SEC. XX. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) The Declaration of Independence declares that governments are instituted to secure certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, with which all human beings are endowed by their Creator and to which they are entitled by the laws of nature and of nature's God.
(2) The organic laws of the United States Code and the constitutions of
every State, using various expressions, recognize God as the source of the
blessings of liberty.
(3) The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States secures
rights against laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof made by the United States Government.
(4) The rights secured under the First Amendment have been interpreted by
courts of the United States Government to be included among the provisions
of the Fourteenth Amendment.
(5) The Tenth Amendment reserves to the States respectively the powers not
delegated to the United States Government nor prohibited to the States.
(6) Disputes and doubts have arisen with respect to public displays of the
Ten Commandments and to other public expression of religious faith.
(7) Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment grants the Congress power to
enforce the provisions of the said amendment.
(8) Article I, Section 8, grants the Congress power to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, and Article III, Section 1, grants the Congress power to ordain and establish courts in which the judicial power of the United States Government shall be vested.
SEC. XX. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY RIGHTS DECLARED.
(a) DISPLAY OF TEN COMMANDMENTS- The power to display the Ten Commandments on
or within property owned or administered by the several States or political
subdivisions thereof is hereby declared to be among the powers reserved to the
(b) EXPRESSION OF RELIGIOUS FAITH- The expression of religious faith by
individual persons on or within property owned or administered by the several
States or political subdivisions thereof is hereby--
(1) declared to be among the rights secured against laws respecting an
establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion made
or enforced by the United States Government or by any department or
executive or judicial officer thereof; and
(2) declared to be among the liberties of which no State shall deprive any
person without due process of law made in pursuance of powers reserved to
the States respectively.
(c) EXERCISE OF JUDICIAL POWER- The courts constituted, ordained, and
established by the Congress shall exercise the judicial power in a manner
consistent with the foregoing declarations.
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