On Sep 10, 2:41*pm, "DGDevin" wrote:
Fred the Red Shirt wrote:

What the Framers had to say at some _other_ point is
irrelevant.

Well, not exactly. The SCOTUS is known to look at the writings of the
Framers and legislation they were involved in at the state level and
so on in making rulings. E.g., in the recent 2nd Amendment case both
sides referred to such extra-Constitutional evidence in trying to
illustrate what the Framers meant.

Again, that *is irrelevant to the point Phil made which is that the
Framers explicitly left religion out of the Constitution.

I'm a realist, and the brutal reality is the Constitution says what the
SCOTUS says it says. *If the court rules that God stays in the Pledge of
Allegiance then that's that. *And if they refer to extra-Constitutional
factors like letters or local laws the Framers were associated with in
making their ruling (as they recently did in the 2nd Amendment case) then
what the Framers didn't say in the Constitution is of academic interest
only.

Points that are well taken, though separate from OP's.

--

FF