The Augusta Courier

Christian Index, Official Organ of the Georgia Baptist Association,

Denounces the U. S. Supreme Court for Encouraging Adultery.

Judicial Arrogance Licenses People To Go To Hell, Editor Says in Editorial.

THE CHRISTIAN INDEX, the official organ of the Georgia Baptist Association, has joined the crusade in lambasting the Supreme Court of the United States for its unscrupulous usurpation of power.

This time it is not on the school desegregation cases. This time it is for legalizing the showing of a "motion picture because that motion picture advocates an idea, that adultery under certain circumstances may be proper behavior."

The Supreme Court ruled that New York State, in banning such a picture "struck at the very heart of constitutionally protected liberty."

Freedom Is Precious

THE CHRISTIAN INDEX, in reply said:

"Freedom is precious, to be sure. Men through all the years have died, and died gladly, that their sons and daughters might be free. But, freedom under the Court's interpretation will wreck this nation more quickly and more completely than Khrushchev and all his henchmen."

The attack was made by THE CHRISTIAN INDEX in an editorial in its issue of July 30, 1959.

That editorial, in full, follows:

The United States of America, once a nation boasting that "In God We Trust," has a license from the Supreme Court to go to hell without any legal restraint.

There is a Biblical commandment that "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

It is the law in every one of these United States.

The command is also the part of the language, the Court in its prejudice for free speech gives the green light to advocating adultery. Justice Stewart, speaking for the court in knocking down New York's censorship, said
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"What New York has done, therefore, is to prevent the exhibition of a motion picture because that picture advocates an idea-that adultery under certain circumstances may be proper behavior. Yet the First Amendment's basic guarantee is of freedom to advocate ideas. The State, quite simply, has thus struck at the very heart of constitutionally protected liberty.

"It is contended that the State's action was justified because the motion picture attractively portrays a relationship which is contrary to the moral standards, the religious precepts, and the legal code of its citizenry. This argument misconceives what it is that the Constitution protects. Its guarantee is not confined to the expression of ideas that are conventional or shared by a majority. It protects advocacy of the opinion that adultery may sometimes be proper, no less than advocacy of socialism or the single tax. And in the realm of ideas it protects expression which is eloquent no less than that which is unconvincing."

What's ahead? If there is to be freedom to advocate breaking one Commandment then there must be freedom to break all. If there is freedom to endorse breaking of one law, then there must be freedom to advocate breaking all laws.

Freedom is precious, to be sure. Men through all the years have died, and died gladly, that their sons and daughters might be free. But, freedom under the Court's interpretation will wreck this nation more quickly and more completely than Khrushchev and all his henchmen. History proves what happens to a nation that loses its moral standards.

The Supreme Court is notorious for its ultra-liberal rulings, entirely apart from its historic opinion concerning public schools.

But, one or two more like this latest in the ultra for freedom and only Congress can save us. If Congress can't, then there must be amendments to the Constitution. We must save ourselves.