Shall Make No Law

I am tired of hearing people complain that the references to God in George Bush's inauguration ceremony violated the principle of the first amendment establishment clause. It did not.
First, let's take a look at that clause:



Now, that's a pretty specific requirement. So specific, in fact, that no action of any president, now, ever, or in the future will ever violate it.

So specific, for that matter, that George Bush's explicitly religious inauguration speech fails to violate even a single phrase of the clause. Let's break it down:


Congress. -- The president is not congress. The congress consists of the two houses of the national legislature, totaling 535 members, one of whom the president is not and never has been. No president has ever served in the legislature while in office as president. The president is already clear from having violated this clause, simply because he is not congress.

Shall make no law. -- A presidential speech is not a law. Even presidential advocacy, suggestions, and campaigning aren't laws. The president does not make laws -- that is congress's job. The president, even if the clause did apply to him, did not violate it because his inauguration speech was not a law.

Respecting an establishment of religion. [note the singular "establishment"] -- The president did refer to God several times throughout his inauguration. But it's certainly a stretch to say that he endorsed any specific establishment. The various religious people that participated in the ceremony came from several different churches (each of which can be considered an "establishment"), so I think it is safe to say that no singular establishment was endorsed.

Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. -- Nothing in the ceremony could even remotely be construed to have prohibited any religious exercises.

Case Closed.

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