Bachmann is an Idiot

I know that’s not a big surprise to anyone but she’s dumber than I thought.

I was watching a town meeting video with her discussing both Gay Marriage and prayer in school. Let’s start with Gay Marriage.

Her position was that the law allows marriage between a man and a woman and therefore allowing marriage between individuals of the same sex would be a “special privilege.” After all, gays are free to marry individuals of the opposite sex just like heterosexuals. The problem with this argument is you can use it to justify any law that is unfair. No one is questioning what the law says; the point is that the law is wrong. You could justify laws that prohibit interracial marriage with the same argument.

Marriage includes the right to marry someone to whom you are sexually attracted. If your sexual orientation is to the same sex, then you are prohibited from doing that if Gay Marriage is not legal. So it's not a "special privilege," it's a comparable right to heterosexual marriage.

In the second half of the video Bachmann addresses school prayer. She states that she would eliminate the Department of Education (DOE) which she claims would somehow then let local school boards decide whether or not school prayer should be allowed.

Where the hell did she get her law degree?

Here’s the deal. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed in 1965 as a part of the War on Poverty and was amended and reauthorized in 2002 as part of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiative of the Bush Administration. NCLB has an almost unbelievable 621 sections. Sec. 9524 relates to school prayer and states “The Secretary shall provide and revise guidance … to State educational agencies, local educational agencies, and the public on constitutionally protected prayer in public elementary schools and secondary schools, including making the guidance available on the Internet.”

Now the secretary and the DOE aren’t making the rules, they are just providing a summary of the current state of the law. Sec. 9524 goes on to state “The guidance shall be reviewed, prior to distribution, by the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice for verification that the guidance represents the current state of the law concerning constitutionally protected prayer in public elementary schools and secondary schools.”

Get it? The DOE is simply providing, in layman’s term, guidance on the current state of Constitutional Law. The executive department is not making up the rules, the judiciary is, and eliminating the DOE isn’t going to change things one bit.

The last guidance was issued in February of 2003 and provides the bottom line on school prayer as follows, “The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment requires public school officials to be neutral in their treatment of religion, showing neither favoritism toward nor hostility against religious expression such as prayer… the First Amendment forbids religious activity that is sponsored by the government but protects religious activity that is initiated by private individuals.”

“Students may pray when not engaged in school activities or instruction, subject to the same rules designed to prevent material disruption of the educational program that are applied to other privately initiated expressive activities. Among other things, students may read their Bibles or other scriptures, say grace before meals, and pray or study religious materials with fellow students during recess, the lunch hour, or other noninstructional time to the same extent that they may engage in nonreligious activities.”

Again, it needs to be noted that the DOE is not making up the rules. Rather it is enforcing laws (the ESEA and NCLB) passed by congress and legal directives established by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The only school prayer related activities that are proscribed are school or teacher promoted prayer. The school and the teacher are extensions of the state and as such are restricted by the Constitution in the same way any other government agency is restricted. They must be neutral. They cannot encourage nor discouage prayer. They certainly cannot prevent a student from praying on his or her own time.

If Bachmann doesn’t know this then she’s a bigger idiot than I thought. If she does know, but is simply saying what the under 80 IQ Republican base wants to hear, then she’s dishonest. Either way, having her as even a second tier candidate for the Presidential nomination of a major political party is an embarrassment.