School Prayer Banner

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
61

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
The Court rules that Plaintiff [Ahlquist] has standing in this matter and rules in her favor on the merits of this dispute. The Court also orders the immediate removal of the Prayer Mural from the auditorium at Cranston West.

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The Court refrains from second-guessing the expressed motives of the Committee members, but nonetheless must point out that tradition is a murky and dangerous bog. While all agree that some traditions should be honored, others must be put to rest as our national values and notions of tolerance and diversity evolve. At any rate, no amount of history and tradition can cure a constitutional infraction. The Court concludes that Cranston?s purposes in installing and, more recently, voting to retain the Prayer Mural are not clearly secular.

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Plaintiff is clearly an articulate and courageous young woman, who took a brave stand, particularly in light of the hostile response she has received from her community.
[/quote]

LOL at the tolerance and diversity line, what a crock. What tolerate everyone but christians.

The community is the primary supporter of the school, if they wish to disply it, it is their decision.[/quote]

This is such a pathetic line I can’t believe some Christians still use it. You really feel persecuted in the United States? Really? Are you that insecure? You only make up what, 77% or so of the country?

If this were a banner praising Allah you wouldn’t be saying anything about Muslims being persecuted when someone complained.

“Christian persecution.” This is so funny.

64

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]MeinHerzBrennt wrote:

…The establishment clause prevents the government from endorsing religion over non-religion…

[/quote]

BTW, which one of your thumbs did you pull this delicacy out of?
[/quote]

Supreme Court cases. I do not have the time nor patience to pull them out for you.

65

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]MeinHerzBrennt wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]MeinHerzBrennt wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
“…nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”[/quote]

What does this have to do with the story? are you saying the school has a free exercise claim to post this banner?

[/quote]

Well, let’s carefully examine things.

IF the “separation of church and state” which incidentally is an invented phrase - one that appears NOWWHERE in any founding document whatsoever - is derived from "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, the first clause of the First Amendment, than why can’t the second clause, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” have an equally strong, equally enforced derivative?
[/quote]

You are confusing the rights granted by these clauses. The establishment clause prevents the government from endorsing religion over non-religion, or one religious belief over another. The free exercise clause applies to individuals. the school does not have a free exercise clause argument because it is not acting as an individual.

[/quote]

Friend, you have no business commenting on this subject much less surmise that I of all people are confused about this subject. Let me give you a lesson and tell you why.

These rights are not granted. These rights are recognized and if you are having trouble with the verbs “grant” and “recognize” please excuse yourself from the discussion. Your error is a dead giveaway that you are a constitutional illiterate.

A government that can grant rights is one that can take them away. Our government is not allowed to take them away. God granted them, not a collection of mere mortals wielding some temporary political power.

In response to your concern about the free exercise clause allow me to quote the First Amendment as it officially reads in regards to religion:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

That’s all there is to it. No “separation of church and state” and other assorted varieties of steaming bullshit that legal bozos would have you believe is indelibly inserted in the Constitution.

First of all despite the gross perversions of these words over the centuries by judicial activists the Constitution is crystal clear that Congress was the entity disallowed from legislating a national religion

AND

Congress was the entity disallowed from legislating prohibitions of the free exercise of religion.

The conjunction “or” allows us to read and understand the First in this matter:

[u]Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.[/u]

Your “free exercise clause applies to individuals” manipulation is simply a concoction by some dumbasses bound and determined to revise some very simple words and a very relatively simple concept.

[/quote]

  1. We are clearly not friends, so do not refer to me as such. I will never be a friend of yours, because for as long as i’ve been on this site you have been one incredibly arrogant, narcisistic, condescending son of a bitch. You are intelligent and well read, I will give you that. But I don’t have much respect for someone who thinks they can tell another to excuse themselves from the conversation.

  2. I got as far as “God granted them.” You lose all credibility right there. “Mere mortals” did in fact draft the Constitution, of which I am more familiar than you arrogantly assume.

  3. I’m just extremely grateful you are not in charge of interpreting the first amendment, and are instead just some old, arrogant man who probably thinks this is another example of “Christian persecution.”

Good night pushy

71

[quote]MeinHerzBrennt wrote:

  1. I got as far as “God granted them.” You lose all credibility right there. “Mere mortals” did in fact draft the Constitution, of which I am more familiar than you arrogantly assume.

[/quote]

Then I am sure that you know that the US constitution is based on a hardcore natural rights doctrine and this doctrine, at that time, was based on Locke and others who argued that those rights were a necessity if human beings belonged to God.

More or less.

That belief was a very important safeguard against governmental overreach and it stood in the way of the big political religions of the late 19th, early 20th century that in effect made the state their god.

72

Feds: Religious employers must cover the pill

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGZIM_yzrH9hcW9h0T8FrLE3nSgA?docId=37e2d51f77734116adfcc59703548618

73

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Feds: Religious employers must cover the pill

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGZIM_yzrH9hcW9h0T8FrLE3nSgA?docId=37e2d51f77734116adfcc59703548618[/quote]Yeah, but Obama’s a Christian. He said so. I hope he keeps this up because as degenerate as this nation has become it still hasn’t caught up with him. This will get him faaar left support only. It’s amazing that after this much time in office he is still this clueless. What’s even more eye opening is that the brain dead public will probably put him back in the whitehouse. God help us.

btw, whatsa MeinHerzBrennt?

74

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Feds: Religious employers must cover the pill

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGZIM_yzrH9hcW9h0T8FrLE3nSgA?docId=37e2d51f77734116adfcc59703548618[/quote]

This is REALLY interesting. I don’t know why, but my initial pre-coffee thought was that I was surprised that “the pill” and “the morning after pill” were taken together in this…they somehow seem separate in my mind.

75

The solution is not vouchers or the extrication of religion from schooling or any combination or variation of those. When someone says that tax-funded schools shouldn’t participate in religion, I agree. There shouldn’t be tax funded schools to begin with. No vouchers are needed if the price of schooling wasn’t artificially inflated by government subsidies.
And don’t give me the bullshit about poor kids not being able to afford schooling. What about the kids who you drive into poverty by taxing their parents more to pay for the perpetually rising price of schooling?
You can just subsidize housing so they can afford the property taxes? Oh wait, housing prices were inflated too, when did that happen? Shit, poor people couldn’t afford their inflated mortgage payments and food at the same time so they defaulted en mass? Let’s subsidize food and unemployment? Wait, it’s already subsidized heavily? There’s huge inflation in food prices?
Hmmm, what should we do?
Vouchers? Yeah, let’s pay for kids to go to “private” schools subsidized at an inflated rate? That’ll create competition and competition is good because it will mean better education. Wait, the “private” schools will just continue to raise prices to fund the same administrative bureaucracies as “public” schools, because there’s no actual price competition with subsidies? Nani? This is already what happens at the university level?
Impossibru!

76

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Feds: Religious employers must cover the pill

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGZIM_yzrH9hcW9h0T8FrLE3nSgA?docId=37e2d51f77734116adfcc59703548618[/quote]Yeah, but Obama’s a Christian. He said so. I hope he keeps this up because as degenerate as this nation has become it still hasn’t caught up with him. This will get him faaar left support only. It’s amazing that after this much time in office he is still this clueless. What’s even more eye opening is that the brain dead public will probably put him back in the whitehouse. God help us.

btw, whatsa MeinHerzBrennt?[/quote]

German nursery rhyme and also a Rammstein song.

77

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Feds: Religious employers must cover the pill

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGZIM_yzrH9hcW9h0T8FrLE3nSgA?docId=37e2d51f77734116adfcc59703548618[/quote]

This is REALLY interesting. I don’t know why, but my initial pre-coffee thought was that I was surprised that “the pill” and “the morning after pill” were taken together in this…they somehow seem separate in my mind. [/quote]

I think they are separate in many people’s mind, mine included. There are arguably legitimate reasons for “the pill” outside of pre-marital sex (which would obviously be contrary to doctrine and employer’s ethics)…but not “Plan B” pills. Also, with one you are not involving the issue of abortion and with plan B pills you most certainly are, which could even be an issue for non-religious conservatives. I think the pills are in very separate categories.

I am supremely disappointed that they are requiring this. I do not think there should be any such requirement at all for a religious employer to sabotage their own beliefs.

78

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Feds: Religious employers must cover the pill

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGZIM_yzrH9hcW9h0T8FrLE3nSgA?docId=37e2d51f77734116adfcc59703548618[/quote]

This is REALLY interesting. I don’t know why, but my initial pre-coffee thought was that I was surprised that “the pill” and “the morning after pill” were taken together in this…they somehow seem separate in my mind. [/quote]

I think they are separate in many people’s mind, mine included. There are arguably legitimate reasons for “the pill” outside of pre-marital sex (which would obviously be contrary to doctrine and employer’s ethics)…but not “Plan B” pills. Also, with one you are not involving the issue of abortion and with plan B pills you most certainly are, which could even be an issue for non-religious conservatives. I think the pills are in very separate categories.

I am supremely disappointed that they are requiring this. I do not think there should be any such requirement at all for a religious employer to sabotage their own beliefs. [/quote]

Weeeeeellll, apparently the normal pill also works by aborting zygotes, i.e. by preventing them from attaching to the uterus.

So, depending where you stand on this one, it produces as many abortions as the other. Probably more because it is more common.

79

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Feds: Religious employers must cover the pill

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iGZIM_yzrH9hcW9h0T8FrLE3nSgA?docId=37e2d51f77734116adfcc59703548618[/quote]

This is REALLY interesting. I don’t know why, but my initial pre-coffee thought was that I was surprised that “the pill” and “the morning after pill” were taken together in this…they somehow seem separate in my mind. [/quote]

I think they are separate in many people’s mind, mine included. There are arguably legitimate reasons for “the pill” outside of pre-marital sex (which would obviously be contrary to doctrine and employer’s ethics)…but not “Plan B” pills. Also, with one you are not involving the issue of abortion and with plan B pills you most certainly are, which could even be an issue for non-religious conservatives. I think the pills are in very separate categories.

I am supremely disappointed that they are requiring this. I do not think there should be any such requirement at all for a religious employer to sabotage their own beliefs. [/quote]

Weeeeeellll, apparently the normal pill also works by aborting zygotes, i.e. by preventing them from attaching to the uterus.

So, depending where you stand on this one, it produces as many abortions as the other. Probably more because it is more common. [/quote]

My understanding of this is that the uterine wall in the period following ovulation can be naturally more or less susceptible to support the zygote at the time or place that it makes contact. So if anything the pill de-conditions the uterine wall from successfully accepting a zygote. I would make a comparison to the temporary sterility that men experience while using androgens. This is mostly conjecture on my part, so I don’t have a concrete source for this. Just thinking aloud.

80

To remove theism from our public life, you must remove “endowed by our creator” from the foundation of our system of government.

To do so would be devastating in practice.