News

Dear Republican Voter, from Black Out 2005 president Glenn Maravetz

More Republicans speak out about Black.

More endorsements Dick Black isn't getting.

Dick Black's dwindling GOP support

Exhibit A: Why this race is about turnout.

Huh? "Haven't you ever loved someone?"

The conservative movement needs to dump Black, says this Republican activist.

That debate: 32nd residents sound off.

Loudoun Times-Mirror on the debate.

Another Republican who has had enough . .

Dick Black's letter "made decision very easy" says this writer.

Dick Black needs a time-out . . Black Out 2005 reports on the Oct. 12 debate.

Read about Dick Black's delusional smears of Black Out 2005 in the Loudoun Times-Mirror and Leesburg Today.

Can Dick Black say negative campaign? Read this letter.

Check out our blog.

Dick "Flip-Flop" Black "voted for" teacher pay before he voted against it, and other education spin.

Don't miss the debate! Hear Dick Black debate his opponent on October 12 in Cascades. Expect to hear more thoughtful arguments like this one.

Why can't Dick learn? We don't know either - but he's still making the same uneducated statements about school plays.

More News . .

Imposing Religion

Dick Black has never met a pro-State Sponsored Religion bill he doesn't like. If it mandates special rights for his personal faith, or represents the view that America should be a "Christian Nation," his name will be on it.

Black thinks Thomas Jefferson didn't really "get" religious freedom

In 2005 Dick Black co-patroned an amendment to Virginia's constitution, attempting to add the following words to "clarify" the religious freedom provisions penned by Thomas Jefferson:

To secure further the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience, neither the Commonwealth nor its political subdivisions shall establish any official religion, but the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including public schools, shall not be infringed; however, the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions, including public school divisions, shall not compose school prayers, nor require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity.

Thomas Jefferson said of his religious freedom statute that it was among his proudest achievements. This amendment adds nothing to the content of those provisions and creates no rights that do not already exist. If there are public officials wrongly infringing on religious expression, this shows a need for "a civics lesson," not rewriting the state's 220-year-old Bill of Rights, according to opponents in the Senate. According to Loudoun Senator Bill Mims, "My view ... is that it does nothing more than constitutionalizes that which is already out there."

The resolution was defeated in committee in the Senate.

Sources: HJ 537, Daily Press, Feb. 21, 2005

Black wants an exemption from the Establishment clause

In 2004 Dick Black patroned a joint resolution calling on Congress to make exempt from the jurisdiction of federal courts the public display of "certain" expressions of religious faith by state authorities. This bill was an apparent response to the judicial ruling that Judge Roy Moore's display of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama public courthouse was an unlawful state endorsement of religion.

The language of the bill specified that the display, expression and "subject matter" of the Ten Commandments, the national motto and the pledge of allegiance were to be exempt from federal jurisdiction, and further codified the words "one Nation under God" and "In God We Trust" in those declarations.

Delegate Robert Brink (D-Arlington) called the resolution "an embarrassment to the House, to the General Assembly and to the commonwealth." It ultimately was allowed to die in the Senate.

Sources: HJ 285, Anniston Star, Feb. 17, 2004

Black thinks public school students should be reminded to pray

Not satisfied with the mandated "moment of silence" for public school students, Dick Black submitted a 2002 bill that would also mandate that students be informed "at least three times a year of the purpose of the daily moment of silence," in other words, of what it is they are supposed to be doing during that time.

Students who are inclined to use that time to pray don't need this instruction; in fact students who are inclined to pray are free to do so at any time as long as they are not disruptive to others. This bill was yet another attempt to allow government sponsored prayer in our public schools under another name.

The bill died in committee.

Sources: HB 135, Virginia Gazette, Feb. 9, 2002

Black "is trying to get God in Virginia public schools any way he can"

This is how Dick Black's 2001 "Affirmation of Religious Freedom Act" was described by Leesburg Today. This bill would have forbidden any civil authority from using the criterion of compelling state interest to "restrain the profession or propagation of a person's religion" for any reason, under any circumstance.

This would presumably include prohibition on public school teachers leading students in prayer, or any other activity that is commonly understood to constitute state-sponsored religion. The language of the bill defines any such prohibition, mandated on the basis of the state interest in upholding the Constitution, as itself "by definition, state-established religion."

Was it the circular reasoning, or the unconstitutionality? This bill was quickly stricken from the docket in committee.

Sources: HB 1692, Leesburg Today, Jan. 12, 2001

extreme. ineffective. dick black.

BlackOut 2005