The South Gibson Star-Times serves the towns of Haubstadt, Owensville and Fort Branch.
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1472429
South Gibson Star-Times Tuesday, July 5, 2022 A-7 right under the free exercise clause. The First Amendment's free speech and religion clauses, Gorsuch wrote, are not "warring" with each oth- er. The lower courts treated them that way only by relying on the Supreme Court's 1971 decision in Lemon v. Kurtz- man, which invited judges to explore the purpose and effect of government actions, as well as make subjective judgments about "excessive entangle- ment" between government and religion. The Lemon decision was so difficult to understand and apply that many courts sim- ply opted to "purge from the public sphere" anything that anyone might think "partakes of the religious." The lower courts in Kennedy's case had relied on Lemon when, in fact, the Supreme Court "long ago abandoned" it, although it never has been formally over- turned. Although relying on Lem- on resulted in pitting the First Amendment's religion clauses against each other, the Supreme Cour t looked instead to "historical prac- tices and understandings" to bring the clauses into harmo- ny. "An analysis focused on original meaning and history," Gorsuch wrote, leads to the conclusion that a brief silent prayer, even if others might ob- serve it or even be offended by it, does not amount to the gov- ernment's endorsing religion. It's important to remember the facts of this case. A coach knelt by himself, after a game ended and ev- er yone else was tending to their own business, to offer a silent prayer lasting less than a minute. The school district claimed that the First Amend- ment required it to ignore his rights and fire him because someone might have seen him kneel and might have thought the school district approved of this. That view, Gorsuch wrote, is "a sure sign that our Es- tablishment Clause juris- pr udence has gone of f the rails." In his 1973 dissenting opin- ion in Roe v. Wade, then-Jus- tice William Rehnquist wrote that "the Court's opinion will accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of leaving this area of the law more confused than it found it." That charge had long applied to the court's decisions involving the reli- gion clauses. Once the court started ig- noring what those clauses originally were intended to mean, it started inventing its own versions, with new tests or standards popping up and then fading away, and similar cases being decided with op- posite results. The Supreme Court's deci- sion in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District is a helpful step in sorting out the mess. Thomas is a senior legal fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. scolding airlines over their operational per formance, he is par tly responsible for the problem and isn't actu- ally doing things within his power to help fix it." He's acting a lot like his boss. In sum, the supply chain problems and high inflation aren't going away because no one in this administration knows anything about logis- tics, business, commerce or fixing things. The Committee to Un- leash Prosperity did a Google test to see how of- ten people search for the term "supply chain prob- lems." Sure enough, the searches weren't too common for any of the 20 years before Biden was inaugurated. Then al- most from the month that Biden was sworn in, the number of searches quadru- pled. Coincidence? Perhaps Biden, the man who blames ever yone else for his failed presidency, is the real source of the sup- ply chain problem. Maybe to get the Great American economic engine running smoothly again, he needs to be replaced. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. SUPREME Continued from page 6 SUPPLY Continued from page 6 Man charged with dealing meth Police originally left it up to the Prosecutor's Office to decide whether to pursue dealing and possession of methamphetamine charges against Tracy Gayer, 50, of Evansville, after police be- lieve he threw nine bags of methamphetamine out of view while walking away from police during a suspi- cious person stop on April 25. Gayer entered a not- guilty plea June 27 in Gibson County Superior Court. Princeton Police received a suspicious person call at 9:40 p.m. from a residence near St. Joseph Church from a woman who told police a man with a jacket knocked on her door and seemed sus- picious. They located a man they believed to be the person, but when they hailed him he continued walking. After explaining why they stopped Gayer, they both patted him down and re- moved a knife from his per- son. During the pat down, they felt a rock-like shape in a pocket that police believed could be methamphetamine, but it was a rock. However when retracing Gayer's route after he was hailed by police they found a pill bottle, metal smoking device, and, inside the bottle, nine small bags of a cr ystal substance that later tested positive for metham- phetamine, and totaled 6.79 grams. Gayer told police the methamphetamine was not his. Evansville man charged with OWI Tyler Luff, of Evansville, was charged with operating while intoxicated during a Haubstadt traffic stop on his Ford F150 June 19. According to the report he was stopped for not us- ing a turn signal near Elm and Vine, and when Gibson County Sheriff's Office depu- ties approached the vehicle, they smelled a strong odor of alcohol. Luff, according to the report, failed field sobri- ety tests to the point officers had to assist to keep him from falling, so they took him to Deaconess Gibson. His blood alcohol concen- tration at the hospital was .266 according to the proba- ble cause. He bonded out June 24 at a cost of $650. During his June 28 hear- ing last week, he agreed to drug and alcohol screens and was approved for spe- cialized driving privileges on the condition he have no alcohol. His next hearing is Aug. 11. O N L I N E • S M A RT P H O N E • TA B L E T sgstartimes.com/edition Web, Smartphone, Tablet Streamline the Headline! 812-753-3553 • 203 S. McCreary St. Fort Branch, IN • ads@sgstartimes.com Club meets the Schmitts By Annie Lucas 4-H Club reporter On June 26, the Owens- ville Boys and Girls 4-H Club met with Rick and Lois Schmitt to talk about the 4-H Tractor Club. This club meets three to four times per year throughout the months of Febr uar y and March. They go around to estab- lishments and businesses to lear n what it takes to work in them. They go to cer tain businesses so that members can lear n about dif ferent equipment and how to drive and take care of them. The 4-H Tractor Club also competes in competitions that involve a driving por- tion and a written por tion. In the driving por tion, compet- itors do dif ferent maneuvers on dif ferent types of equip- ment. Whoever is the safest and the most accurate wins. Competitors can move up to area and state competitions. Rick's 4-H Tractor Club had 18 qualify to go to state. The Tractor Club is one of the many clubs that Gibson County of fers to lear n more about agricultural life. On Wednesday, all proj- ects need to be entered. Non-conference judged projects will be entered at the 4-H Exhibit Building from 4 to 7 p.m. Conference judging will be conducted for Fine Ar ts, Foods, Pho- tography, Gift Wrapping, and Sewing in the Princ- eton Community Middle School cafeteria from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Conference judg- ing for cake decorating will be in the 4-H building from 4 to 6:30 p.m. All 4-Her's need to pick up their 4-H t-shir t sponsored by Supe- rior AG and Dewig Meats along with their fair pass at the 4-H Building after enter- ing their projects. Exhibit Building projects will be released Friday, July 15, 1 to 5 p.m. and Saturday July 16 from 9 to 11 a.m. Please be sure to pick up your proj- ects at these times. The 4-H Club visited the Schmitts this week.