http://www.comics.com/creators/bc/archive/bc-20050321.html
Posted on 04/08/2005 6:54:52 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Comic strip treads on religious rights Friday, April 08, 2005
I fervently protest The Dispatch’s policy of running the bigoted writings of Johnny Hart in his strip B.C., an egregious act made all the worse because this anti-American trash appears on the Comics pages, where it can be read by children.
In regard to the March 21 strip, what is so hard to understand is that the separation of church and state is one of our country’s greatest strengths. The fact that our governments and courts do not put one religion above another is perhaps the finest thing about our country. We have only to look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and other countries to see the great harm, the loss of freedoms, that come about when one religious point of view is allowed to structure the laws of the land.
What Hart wants, and apparently The Dispatch approves of, is his religion dominating America, setting the standard of belief for all, which implies that those who do not believe as he does should not be afforded equal standing before the government or the court. What Hart conveniently forgets, as apparently does The Dispatch, is that there are at least 2,500 religions in America.
I call on The Dispatch to respect the religious rights, freedoms and dignities of all Americans, whether they choose to follow one of those thousands of religions or not, by immediately ceasing to carry Hart’s hostile arrogance masquerading as a comic strip.
EDWARD M. KRAUSS
Columbus
This guy is all twisted up over B.C.??? Good grief. What was the "offending" cartoon?
B.C. sucks rocks anyway
Mr. Krauss needs to move to France.
Or Canada...or Holland...the list goes on.
I wonder if this guy is really Ted Rall? (sp?)
Mark
http://www.comics.com/creators/bc/archive/bc-20050321.html
Better than "Doonesbury" and "For Better Or For Worse" or (yack) "Family Circus".
" What Hart conveniently forgets, as apparently does The Dispatch, is that there are at least 2,500 religions in America."
OK eddie, name em.
Exactly... BC is one of the most innofensive cartoons ever.
Mr Hart is a decent man, which is probably what's really got this writer's short hairs in a twist. But then, some people really don't have anything better to do than look for things to get upset over.
Mark
Eddie Kraus is, of course, a bigot.
Yah... and that sort of thing would never happen, uh, here... fer 'zample. :-)
It is kinda staggering to think of. Just imagine that guy's day. Of *all* the things he saw and heard on that day, ~this~ is the thing that pushed him so far as to write a letter to the editor.
Wow. I'm only glad that he has now warned everybody to try and not be standing next to him when he finally blows.
Our local paper has carried BC cartoons since before I could read and have always contained religious content. I wonder why Eddie is speaking up now.
We need to let editors know we love BC -
and can somebody please give a one way ticket to BC - about 10,000 BC aught to do it - to this jerk
It's "Johnny Hart" or whoever is writing the strip now, trying to stir up interest in a dying strip.
"It's "Johnny Hart" or whoever is writing the strip now, trying to stir up interest in a dying strip."
The strip has always carried some religious content.
Wonder what this guy would think of "Day by Day"?
Let them go ahead and mock GOD .. just don't stand too close to them.
I've heard this, the best explanation I ever got, was that every single different variation of a sect of a religion was considered.
I.E. 3 different types of protestant, are three religions.
If what I was told is right, something like over 80% of them were different variations of christianity. The remaining one fifth includes everything plus atheism.
I may be way off in interpretation of the nonexistent separation of church and state clause but I was under the impression that it applied to THE GOVERNMENTS decisions, not a graphic artist opinion.
The left has become truly totalitarian. They are so blind at this stage of the game. Dangerous crowd.
Except that it's not real.
The same a-holes who complain about Johnny Hart would defend Ward Churchill to the death.
"The same a-holes who complain about Johnny Hart would defend Ward Churchill to the death."
Can you imagine their reaction to Charles Shultz and the Peanuts cartoons?
I have no idea what this guy is all worked up about but at least he got one thing right: the real definition of the separation of church and state. It is not about eradicating religion from the public square, it's about the state not elevating one religion above another.
You're quite right about that. All of it.
Specifically, the First Amendment says "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."
You see, Congress used to be the legislative branch, and so the writers of the Constitution addressed this prohibition to the lawmakers.
Since the Judiciary has taken over the legislative function, I'm not sure what Congress's role in all this may be. The legislative Judiciary will probably have to consult foreign law to determine what laws they will make on this subject.
There's not much that makes me mad any more. But the assumption of the legislative function by the Judiciary does rile my sensibilities.
Will Rogers, a noted fellow Oklahoman, used to say that we had the best Congress money can buy.
Whether we now have the best legislature money can buy is questionable, now that the Judiciary has assumed that function.
I agree, and to be honest I think the cartoon is kind of a lame one. The other half of that church and state line is "or prohibit the free exercise thereof".
The church and state provision, properly executed, isn't preventing anyone from getting together with their God. IMHO the clam is wrong :lol:.
LQ
Yes. The reaction to the Peanuts cartoons has been to quit running "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown" on several TV stations.
Freedom of speech, freedom of religion--for them, not us.
Sorry. I'm not offended.
I have it on good authority that Ziggy is a bomb throwing anarchist...and Charlie Brown is a commie if I've ever seen one.
Romans 8
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Krauss is an idiot. If brains were dynamite he couldn't blow his nose.
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,
For there to be as few as 2500 types of Hinduism in the US, we'd have to send most of 'em packing!
Such counts are usually spurious and reflect not much more than what the counter thinks to be a legitimate religion.
Mr. Hart is a Christian and has run religiously themed cartoons appropriate to the season throughout the history of the comic strip - which goes back at least... what?...three decades?
This comic strip appeared the last Sunday before Easter. Mr Hart has Bird quoting passages from Chapter 8 of Paul's Letter to the Romans:
v35 "Who shall separate us from the the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?"
v36 "As it is written:
'For your sake we face death all day long;we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'"
v37 "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
v38 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any power, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in creation , will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Romans 8: 35-38, NIV)
This is one of the most famous passages in the New Testament. It can be taken as a statement of the unbreakable strength of the love God has for believers.
Obviously, Bird is selectively quoting and when he pauses to recollect the next bit, Turtle, catching the spirit of the moment and picking up on the string of "nors", begins adding a few famous nors of his own from the Letter Carriers Oath:
"Neither rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
In the last panel, Mr. Hart has Ant provide the putative answer to the question asked in the first panel. And that is the editorial comment of the cartoon; the determined attempt (specifically the use of the courts)to drive religious expression and especially all Christian expression from the public square through the use of the unconstitutional "separtion of church and state" doctrine.
It seems to me that Mr. Krauss has extreme Christophobia, the mere mention of his title triggering a massive panic attack. He apparently is so delusional that he believes that privately owned newspapers are organs of the government and that he is being compelled to read the offending comic strip.
He really should relax. The message is not for him. It is for the encouragement of believers. Mr. Krauss, obviously a non-believer, can be separated from the love of God at anytime. In the end, the question is not whether he believes in God, it's whether God believes in him.
I think about 2499 have their registered address of origin in California.
This guy is a Christian cartoonist. Every now and then, he likes to inject his faith into his cartoons. I see nothing wrong with this at all. He is going what every other cartoonist has the right to do, and which in fact many do.
It is refreshing to see a cartoonist with Christian principles. There is too much Christian bashing going on in the everyday news, so it is good that a small light for Christ shine forth in the national media, even if it comes occasionally from the cartoons of a Christian cartoonist.
Eddie Boy gets offended because Christ is mentioned in a comic strip? I bet he wouldn't have complained about Brenda Starr in recent months. I don't know if the 'storyline' is still continuing, because I stopped reading the strip about a month ago.
Basically, Brenda does a report on 'Slash Burns', who is clearly Bill O'Reilly. He is portrayed as dominating (to the point of suggesting abuse) of his wife, and played for all its worth as what the liberal media sees as the Dreaded Right-Wing Religious Conservative. Brenda even identifies herself as a liberal, and is clearly made out to be the heroine battling the evils of conservatism!
Even President Bush, Bay Buchanan and others were drawn into the strip at one point when I could take no more of it. There really was NO plot, just two very bitter, venomous liberal 'creators' venting their disdain over the results of the November election. Very sad, considering that this strip was made famous and entertaining by former artists Ramona Fradon and Dale Messick (who died recently at 98). Now it is the comic page version of Airhead America.
Trashing a 60-year old comic strip to make cheap liberal rantings is fine, but mention Christianity? Now, THAT'S just plain intolerant! The liberal mind: an oxymoron.
Actually, there are only 2 religions in the entire world, not just America. They are Christianity and paganism. CS Lewis taught me that.
To me, the rhetoric of the strip is incoherent.
"CHURCH AND STATE, THAT'S WHO" is given as an answer
to "WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST."
Well, I guess you have to allow the answer as a shorthand
for "The principle of Separation of C and S" . But then
this tends to validate the complaint that this principle
is being used to abolish the Christian religion, that it
"shall separate us from the Love of Christ." "Us" has
to be the people, all of us. I can't construe it as the state.
So to the extent that I can construe a coherent message
from this strip, I can understand why it is inflammatory.
INTREP - Secularization
If the counter thinks there are 2,500 religions in the US, he's probably counting the times back in High School when I was claiming Michael Jordan " was a god in disguise".
I also used to taunt Knick fans and tell them to bow down.
LOL.
Huh? BC is defintely politically incorrect...the last time people were distraught over one of his strips, it was to protest the I-SLAM the outhouse door.
Johnny Hart is the first to institute the FAMOUS "ZOT" into his cartoons! (like a lightning bolt hitting the snake for example)
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