Word: torcaso
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week in Manhattan, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned Seeger's conviction. The draft law's requirement of belief in a Supreme Being, ruled the court, is unconstitutional. The decision leaned heavily on 1961's Torcaso v. Watkins case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared invalid a Maryland law requiring every notary public to take an oath professing belief in the existence of God. Neither the Federal Government nor a state, said the Supreme Court, "can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against nonbelievers, and neither can aid those religions...
...Supreme Court of the United States last week unanimously reversed two lower courts to find that the State of Maryland's "religious test for public office unconstitutionally invades . . . freedom of belief and religion." The case in question: Roy R. Torcaso's application for a commission as notary public, denied two years ago because he says flatly that he does not believe...
During the two years' waiting, says Roy Torcaso, he has got three antagonistic phone calls-one calling him a "dirty Communist," another an "atheistic bum." the third insulting his wife. Overbalancing that, he says, he has received "tremendously overwhelming support" from all over the U.S. and Canada...