Huckabee - First Amendment gives us freedom FROM religion..

breitbart tv ^

[timm22]

That's an irrelevant question because in recent cases the government paid for nothing.

It was just a hypothetical question. I'm not trying to make a point about any of the recent cases.

The question should be should the government have the privilege of prohibiting religious displays?

On private property, the answer would be NO. Although I suppose there could be rare exceptions when the display is a public danger for some reason (i.e. fire hazard).

On government-owned property, I think the government should legitimately be able to prohibit religious displays. However, such restrictions would have to be uniformly enforced.

Whether or not governments must prohibit displays on public property is another question. Generally speaking, if tax dollars are not being used, I would lean towards "no".

[Grig]

“From the clip it is clear that when he says “freedom from religion,” he is speaking of an individual’s right not to believe in God.”

An individuals right to not believe in God is protected by freedom OF religion. For many years defenders of religous liberty have labeled militant secularists who want all public displays of religion removed as being for freedom FROM religion.

Mike is showing is a gross ignorance of what freedom of religion is, and of the whole battle to protect it. Either that or he is trying to play both sides of the fence. I would not trust this guy to protect my rights or elevate him to a position where he had power to violate them.

[HKMk23]

They built the war memorials with taxes collected by force, and we’ve not had a war that wasn’t protested by a fair number of Americans.

I figure that, if government can build a memorial to a war protested by, say 10% of the population, and use tax money — including money collected from those 10% — to do it, then they can equally well build a Ten Commandments memorial protested by 10% of the population, and use tax money — including money collected from the 10% — to do it.

No matter what you support or oppose, as a taxpayer, one of the first things you realize is that somewhere, somehow some government agency is doling out YOUR tax money to advance an agenda that you’d NEVER DREAM of supporting, so if we’re going to nullify Ten Commandments displays on the basis of the tax dollar argument, we’re going to also have to unhinge a HUGE swath of Federal, State, and local government bureaucracy. And, if it’s ludicrous to do that, than it is equally ludicrous to bar a Ten Commandments display on that basis. If it’s NOT ludicrous to do that, the I’d assert that we’ve got MANY MUCH bigger fish to fry before we go after some local municipality over a couple of tons of sculpted stone.

[Steamburg]

Freedom from every religion except his. Come on. It is freedom to believe what you want without the government telling you what to believe or suppressing your beliefs. Freedom from religion implies the suppression of the practice of beliefs. The operative phrase is freedom of not freedom from.

[visualops]

I’ll be the first to admit there’s alot I don’t know about Romney, I did less reading about him than anyone because I didn’t care one way or the other (being a Fredhead). I did look into Huckabee and wasn’t pleased with his record as governor or the way he conducts himself. McCain we are all already suffering under his terrible legislation and even with his supposedly strong suit WOT, how can you trust a guy with his stance on the border. So far, Romney seems to be a very mixed bag, as alot of candidates are, good in some areas, poor in others. The MA health insurance stuff I find very frightening, but the thought of universal insurance being instituted under Hillary or Obama is even scarier.

[Ingtar]

Tag-line has my 2/5 candidates and a word of why.

[muawiyah]

Fraid I'd trust Mike more than any of the other candidates the system has tossed up this year.

Although the Baptists are totally wrong when they claim that the best course is no entanglement with government at all, they do have an idea what they're protecting.

[timm22]

They built the war memorials with taxes collected by force, and we’ve not had a war that wasn’t protested by a fair number of Americans. I figure that, if government can build a memorial to a war protested by, say 10% of the population, and use tax money — including money collected from those 10% — to do it, then they can equally well build a Ten Commandments memorial protested by 10% of the population, and use tax money — including money collected from the 10% — to do it.

I disagree. First of all, I don't the government should be in the memorial-making business anyway. That is properly the province of charities and private associations, and something they are perfectly capable of doing on their own.

That having been said, I agree that the nature of taxation inherently involves making people pay for things they might not want to. That's why I think it's crucial that tax monies are only used to pay for the essential functions of government. I don't think commemoration of history or of our religious heritage is an essential government function. Those may be nice things, but they are not on par with things like national defense or a functioning court system.

I also think religious belief is more important, more fundamentally tied to individual rights and dignity, than opinions on foreign policy. Making someone pay for a monument against their beliefs as to the latter is bad, but making them pay for a monument against their beliefs as to the former is even worse.

No matter what you support or oppose, as a taxpayer, one of the first things you realize is that somewhere, somehow some government agency is doling out YOUR tax money to advance an agenda that you’d NEVER DREAM of supporting, so if we’re going to nullify Ten Commandments displays on the basis of the tax dollar argument, we’re going to also have to unhinge a HUGE swath of Federal, State, and local government bureaucracy.

Cut down on government bureaucracy? Why, that seems to be the inspiration for this website...and it's also music to my ears :)

But I agree, tax dollars are always going support things that some taxpayers don't like. That's why we should minimize the areas of government spending as much as possible, and try to avoid making people pay for things that go against their personal convictions. This is the same reasoning behind conservative opposition to PBS, public funding of the arts, no-questions-asked welfare entitlements, etc.

And, if it’s ludicrous to do that, than it is equally ludicrous to bar a Ten Commandments display on that basis. If it’s NOT ludicrous to do that, the I’d assert that we’ve got MANY MUCH bigger fish to fry before we go after some local municipality over a couple of tons of sculpted stone.

Drastic reduction in government bureaucracy is not ludicrous to me. In fact, it sounds like a darn good idea to me.

Part of me agrees with you, though, about our priorities. In terms of all the abusive, intrusive, rights-infringing, and conscience-shocking government problems we face, Ten Commandment displays are very low on the list. I've always thought the partisans of both sides in the debate are a little silly. The display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses is not essential to our survival, but neither does it represent the death of religious liberty in this country.

But part of me does think it is important, only because of the value of precedent and the slippery slope it may lead to. If we accept that a community may compel others to pay for a religious display in this form, how do we later deny the same power to a Muslim majority that wants tax support for a minaret? Or SHOULD we deny tax dollars for this purpose if that's what the majority wants?

[Old Student]

“Re-read the founders correspondence and books to find the truth of the matter.”

Don’t you just mean “read” there? Anyone who has would know better. Even the Deists did not want there to be no religion in the US.

[MarcoPolo]

He's not the only one who believes in Jesus. He's just the only one who uses his religious beliefs as a political tool.

I've been a Christian for 20 years myself, and there is nothing more anathema to me these days than a politician who tries to use Christianity as a platform to grab political power. IT ALWAYS RUINS THE CHURCH!!!

If we all didn't learn from the negative results of Constantine's politicization of the church nearly 1,700 years ago, we may never learn. We got nearly 1,000 years of religious oppression, spiritual and doctrinal error (as the desire for money and power do corrupt even religious leaders) and a long, long road that we're still having to climb to get back up out of the abyss of scriptural and spiritual ignorance that the lust for power among those so-called Christian leaders foisted on us.

I will NOT vote for the corruption of Christianity into a political tool no matter what the good intentions may be of those who are candidates in that cause.