The What If? Files, Vol 1

Welcome to the first ever "What if? Files". To be honest, the What If? Files are going to be thoughts that I have clanging around in my brain, but which I haven't yet developed to full coherence. Think of the What If? files as the intellectual equivilant of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks. So with that, here we go.

In today's What If, we'll look at the First Amendment as it relates to the public airwaves. But first, let's review the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Okay, review over. As we are aware, the "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion" portion of the First Amendment is being interperated rather liberally by the courts these days. So, with that as a given, what if an individual or an organization that supports a clear and wide separation of church & state were to take the FCC to court for allowing the public airwaves to be licensed for Christian Broadcast stations on the basis of the Establishment Clause? First off, I'm not a lawyer so I cannot say whether a case of this type would have any validity, but as an interested observer, this seems to be a likely progression of the separation of church & state battles. But what would a challenge of this type do to the First Amendment? Every once in a while in this country, we breathly discuss the possibility of a Constitutional crisis. A challenge of this type would seem to be our first real crisis. The challenge to licensing of the airwaves for Christian broadcasting would pit the establishment clause against freedom of speech and freedom of the press-a situation that would pit the First Amendment against the First Amendment.

First, would the courts even agree to hear such a challenge? If so, has the liberal interpretation of the Establishment Clause become an influential enough line of thought in the courts for it to redefine freedom of speech and the press?