{"id":12934,"date":"2026-04-05T22:27:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/?p=12934"},"modified":"2026-04-05T22:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:28:08","slug":"discussion-post-9-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/2026\/04\/05\/discussion-post-9-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Discussion Post 9.1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1. The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment means the government is not allowed to set up an official religion or support one religion over another. It\u2019s basically there to keep church and state separate and make sure everyone is treated fairly no matter what they believe. The Lemon Test is used to figure out if a law breaks this rule. For a law to be okay, it has to have a non-religious purpose, it can\u2019t mainly help or hurt religion, and it can\u2019t involve the government too much with religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2. Burning the American flag is protected by the First Amendment because it    counts as symbolic speech. This means it\u2019s a way of expressing an opinion, especially about politics. The Supreme Court decided that even if people think it\u2019s disrespectful, the government still can\u2019t punish someone for doing it, because freedom of speech includes actions that others might not agree with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3. When someone says \u201cI\u2019m taking the Fifth,\u201d they mean they are using their Fifth Amendment right to stay silent. They do this so they don\u2019t say anything that could be used against them. This right protects people from being forced to admit something that could get them in trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment means the government is not allowed to set up an official religion or support one religion over another. It\u2019s basically there to keep church and state separate and make sure everyone is treated fairly no matter what they believe. The Lemon Test is used to figure out&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-9-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12935,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12934\/revisions\/12935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0504-spring-2026-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}