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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (72725)	8/20/2003 8:19:49 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"There are a few of every sort of nut imaginable around." Thank you for being inclusive.

To: Lane3 who wrote (72725)	8/20/2003 8:25:38 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 82486

If as you say you are "appreciative of our Western heritage and cognizant of the key role religion played in the founding of our country", I honestly cannot understand how you find it "tacky" to place a symbol of it a court house. You are NOT a second class citizen just because it makes you queazy to look at the 10 commandments. You are not affected by it in any way except in your mind.

To: Lane3 who wrote (72725)	8/20/2003 8:58:34 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I think that everyone is hyperventilating over this I agree. But let's look at where the hyperventilating came into the picture. For about 200 years, it was pretty clear what the First Amendment prohibition on establishing religion meant. For those 200 years there would have been no question about Moore's pedestal -- it would have stayed, no questions. It doesn't constitute government establishing any sort of religion or religious requirements. Nobody has to read it or say they believe in it. Nor does it prevent anybody from freely exercising their religion. The present judicial environment may have started with Everson v. Board of Education in 1947, even though in that case the court upheld states rights to transport parochial students at public expense. The opposing view got some support in 1985 with Wallace v. Jaffree, in which the court held that moments of prayer in the Alabama schools violated the 1st amendment. The whole history of establishent jurisdiction is too complex to get into here, even if I understood it all, but while there are various views of what the founders intended -- and indeed, they didn't all agree -- I don't know of a single reputable scholar who contends that the present level of jurisprudence on the issue is consistent with the intent of ANY of the founders. So the philosophical positions which support the federal court in the Moore case are clearly riding on a fairly recent wave of legal challenges which have altered the previously accepted jurisprudence. They could have let well enough alone and just gone about their days just not worrying about this creche being on a public lawn as opposed to a private law, etc. Nobody was ever suggesting forcing them to worship any God in any way they didn't want to, nobody was prohibiting or restricting them from attending any church they wanted to. There is no establishment of religion, and no prohibition on free exercies, in any substantive way. But this wasn't satisfactory, for reasons I won't go into, so we had instances such as the Ferry Service here forcing the local Lions to take the home-made NOEL sign that had been erected on the ferry terminal roof for twenty years and, because one person complained, move it to a different location. There was some strong feeling about one Scrooge destroying a community tradition, and it can hardly be claimed that a NOEL sign in colored lights establishes any religion or prohibits anybody from exercising any religion they want to. That sort of intentionally in-your-face behavior has, I think understandably, led to a backlash. The backlash wouldn't exist if people had just not hyperventilated in the first place, but just gone about their business exercising their religions (or lack thereof) they way they wanted to. But they had to go on the attack against long-standing traditions, and naturally that provoked a counter-response, and now here we are. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Simple physics, simple hunan nature.