Posted on 05/02/2002 4:48:32 PM PDT by TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:33:21 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
(And as an aside: "Frank"? Curious name! Funny, the last name the lady who heads my local ACLU office is "Weinberg". I find this fact interesting, although I won't comment on it here. I'd like to be around for a while and I don't wanna be picked clean by vultures.)
Left out: mean-spirited, get over it, It's only about relegion.
I grew up in Savannah and don't remember Oglethorpe's community being primarily religion based, but I'm sure religion and fair treatment of people from debtor prisons played a role. The early Georgia settlers were from a number of religions, most were included other than perhaps Catholic. My wife's early Georgia ancestors were protestant Salzburgers from Catholic Austria who came in 1734 or 1735 (Oglethorpe came in 1733). There were many other denominations among the early settlers.
I agree entirely with your comments about the colonists avoiding the problems of the European religious wars. The Maryland Catholics, seeing that they were a minority in the colonies, wisely opted for religious tolerance.
The public attitude toward religion in general has changed since the American Revolution as you pointed out. We are more of a secular nation now, probably for the better given our more religiously diverse population.
We still have to guard against those who say, "We are in the majority, so we are going to practice our religion in your face using your dollar." Not in my face. Not with my dollar. Go over to your place and practice your religion all you want. Leave me alone.
Judicial review is no where in the constitution. Chief Justice Marshall asserted the doctrine of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Simply because courts could overturn state law regarding religion after 1803, doesn't meant that they made a habit of it. Separation of church and state wasn't written into US constitutional law until 1947. Religious tests for state offices were not declared unconstitutional until 1961. Prayers were held regularly in government school until Engel v. Vitale in 1962 suddenly decided the practice violated the constitution.
If you want to drive religion out of the public square and out of government institutions, be honest about it. Repeal the first amendment. Don't pretend American history is what it is not.
Remember also that those who favor activist courts, who believe, as Ruth Bader Ginsberg does, that the constitution is a "living document" and means whatever 9 non-elected judges says it means might not like the results if the court goes the other way. That can happen. That has happened.
Even if you did get offended, there isn't constitutional protection against being offended. If so, I demand Paul Begala stick his head in the sand (oh, sorry, he already does...) and leave it there so I don't have to look at it.
Actually, 1874. I forgot the exact case name, but it was the first to make reference to Jefferson's quote, and it was the first to take it out of context as many do today.
The termites. They've been chewing our foundation for a looooong time!
In 1961, Justice Hugo Black declared humanism a religion. Why are you not concerned about your tax money going to push secular humanism? Why no complaints about marxism being shoved down everyone's throats? What is there about a God based religion you find so terrifying it must be driven from the public square?
Marxists and other secular humanists use tax money all the time to advance their cause. Why the double standard? Around 75% of Americans profess to be Christians. Why are they not allowed to have the money they pay in taxes used to fund causes they support while humanists can?
Btw...all most Christians want is the right to express their faith. They want to pray in school, put up the ten commandments and sing religious songs. Big deal. The Marxists and secular humanists are the ones who want to tax us into poverty to promulgate their beliefs.
Thanks. I'll look around and see if I can find it. As you know, Hugo Black's decision was one of the biggies which started the hit parade. SCOTUS has made some very odd decisions regarding religion. There was one which upheld a congressional law seizing Mormon property. Those who like the courts messing with religion should be very afraid of where it can lead.
But they aren't. They can't see past their own prejudices. They cannot see giving such power to the courts can and undoubtedly will, someday, come back to bite them.
And here I thought it was the Demoncrats. Well, same thing maybe.
Since when is leaving religion out of school promulgating a belief? People have been willing to die over their religious beliefs. Why should they want someone else's religion foisted off on their kids at school? If you want religion in school, send your kids to a religious school of your choice. Work to get school vouchers passed.
If someone insists on cramming their religion down my throat, then they are suffering from insecurities in their own beliefs and from the same problems that led to the European wars of religion. No thanks.
So sing it anyway...what are the courts going to do? Jail the entire Choir? Yeah, sure.
Does the choir also sing the national anthem?
last verse:
O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
BTW: I thought John Crighton was helping Scorpius fight the Skarins.
I am a total, unapologetic, knuckle-dragging, pedal-to-the-metal Fundamentalist Christian who thinks the singing of this song should be permitted in public schools.
But I also think that those whose convictions are offended by it should be allowed to abstain.
Dan
Can you name some of those songs?
I know on George Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord' he had some backup singers singing "Hari Krishna, Krishna, Krinshna" but that's about it.
It is a profound theological position. God must not be taught in schools. That is a powerful moral statement
All education is moral education. What to teach, how to teach , why to teach at all. There is no vacuum. Remove one moral teaching from school and another moves in. Because secular humanism is so much a part of our culture, most don't even see it as a faith. It is simply a fact of life. But it does have a moral message just as powerful as that of any God-based religion.
I guess I think of praise music. Put a vineyard musician in to sing praises to Christ and it's electrifying the intensity of it. I suspect if you had BS singing a praise song, the lack of passion for the words would show.
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