silveradept | VEWPRF (ish) and the First Amendment - A Potentially Incoherent and Logically Unsound Post

Ah, it’s December, and that means the VEWPRF are finally safe to be talked about. And that also means that the War on Christmas folk are back - like James Dobson, who wants you to know which stores haven't been properly Christian, Bill'O, who after having come out in defense of the separation of church and state, is now back to the front lines of the war, and Michael Reagan, also a front-line solider in the War.

Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks that the outrage against the LDS church because of their large role in Proposition 8 is a warning that all religions will soon be under siege for doing things according to their beliefs. She’s late, I think, if she’s not accounting for all the doctors making a fuss because they want to avoid making recommendations for or performing abortion procedures, prescribing birth control, the pharmacists that want to avoid filling it, et cetera. If that makes people feel they need to get their Armor of God on and go save Christmas... or admit they want to punish teenage women for being sexual beings, prevent homosexuals from raising children or receiving the protections of the law outlined in marriage, decry other religions as idolaters, infidels, or otherwise unblessed and unchosen, and live in perpetual fear that at some day, they will be the minority again, well, good luck to you.

Did you know? Kentucky's Homeland Security office is required by law to state that God helps the country stay safe, and that government cannot do the job alone? And furthermore, that a Kentucky lawmaker is mad that the annual report did not do this? Well, no court challenge, so I suppose there’s been no avenue to analyze on First Amendment grounds.

Which is where all of this has led and is leading to, the First Amendment and religion. Christopher Merola expounds upon this idea, believing the idea of "freedom from religion" is a perversion of the First Amendment. On the same tack, although trying to find a ridiculous example to use as the leading point, Chuck Norris also feels that things have gotten out of hand.

Setting aside Merola’s rhetorical flourishes designed to distract and distort (the ACLU founder was a Communist! A five year-old girl was scolded for prayer!), the premise is that a judge’s ruling in 1947 and a couple key rulings afterward have warped the First Amendment from “freedom of religion” to “freedom from religion”, where the lowest common denominator is to have no religious anything at all when there’s a governmental entity or action nearby, most notably adding on to this 1962 case, later spun back by a 1991 case, that brings things around to the free exercise part that currently prohibits organized prayer in school, on instruction time. Apparently, though, despite being able to individually pray in schools, the expression of religious beleifs in school, or many other public forums, in writing or in other assignments, is still cause for bad grades, silencing, and other forms of “belief discrimination”. Taking those events as a whole, let’s whittle away those that can be explained by other causes, such as poor writing contributing to a poor grade, regardless of topic, expressing nonscientific views in a nonscientific manner in a science class and refusing to budge, and the entire class of events that run opposite to the idea of “But do not pray as the hypocrites do...instead, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father, who sees things that are secret, will reward you.” The people waving signs that say “All Fags Go To Hell, And You Are Too”? Permitted on the campus to wave their signs and shout hellfire and brimstone. I could almost synchronize my calendar by them, knowing which day it was based on which sign was out. Zo. I’d also include in the “big, ostentatious, and disruptive displays” someone wearing a crucifix around their neck that would serve just as well on a church altar. Having stripped away most of the things that make media attention and fuss, what’s left? Muslim students getting harassed by peers, and possibly instructors, for wearing hijab? Non-monotheists afraid to wear their religious symbols because peers, and possibly isntructors and administrators, wouldn’t udnerstand it at all and will still assume some sort of dangerous cultlike behavior? Bans on all displays of religious symbols in public space? Those things are fruitful grounds for First Amendment stuff. I’m betting it feels like a siege on Christians or a War on Christmas or what have you because of the fact that Christians are the majority religion in this country. If the country were more religiously balanced, then perhaps there would be a bigger scatter on cases, and I could find Merola’s and Norris’s points more compelling. Is there anywhere that would serve as an example/counterexample to my statement?

Beyond the face issue, this “belief discrimination” tack sounds an awful lot like “the evul libruls are indoctrinating” argument, excepting in this case, it’s atheism/secular humanism that’s the liberal agenda, intended to get all the children to forsake the religion of their parents, become godless, and crash the country into the ground because we lack morality by not having God. Both of these ideas are ridiculous. Parents have much more opportunity to indoctrinate their children than the schools do - the law compels education, but doesn’t say how these days. Parents compel church attendance from an early age, and good luck trying to wiggle out of that one until you’ve had quite a few years of instruction. Second, while God may be a necessary invention, I have sufficient trust in the course of human civilization that even without God, humanity would have developed necessary morals to permit peaceful coexistence - once banded together, raising crops, and beginning their specialized tasks, humans have to depend on each other for survival. Which menas that bashing the head in of the only guy who knows how to make fire because you want his woman means death or enslavement for you and your tribe at the hands of another tribe. The tribe that cooperates wisn. That covers most of the social commandments of most religions. Beyond that, it’s usually purity laws and rituals for worship. Civilization built that way might not resemble anything we have in our sliver of the multiverse, but I suspect civilization would have still developed.

Anyway, so I’m feeling that before the majority complains lots about how everyone is against them, maybe we could start with making the minorities feel welcome and comfortable enough to practice and protest for their rights with support from the majority, and it might turn out that the things the majority is complaining about get resolved by being forced to take a look at the bigger picture. I could also be wrong, and that it’s all already there, but I haven’t seen it, because of a media-distorted lens or something like it.