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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bob Lao-Tse who wrote (50438)	5/29/1999 5:31:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 67261

Bob, let me ask you a few questions... 1. Should prayer be banned from football huddles before a game? 2. Should prayer be banned from the opening ceremony in the Senate and House of Representatives. 3. Should prayer be banned from public weddings? 4. Should prayer be banned from every public ceremony? 5. Should prayer be banned from the boy scouts? 6. Should prayer be banned from any movie? 7. Should prayer be banned from radio, T.V. Memorial day celebrations, funerals which are public, or the internet? The question really isn't about forcing someone to listen to a prayer. The question really is about forcing someone NOT to listen to a prayer. It's not specifically about christianity vs hinduism or judeism, or atheism or secular humanism. It's about our freedom. If you live in a town which is overwhelmingly Jewish, and you go to a high school commencement address and a jewish prayer is spoken. People should simply respect the occasion. The same is true of a christian prayer or a devil's prayer, or no prayer. You see, secular humanism is a religion. To not have a religion does not mean you don't have belief's. And to force your belief's on the majority in a decent society is not respectful. The same thing is done in Hollywood all the time. They profess to not be believers in a religion, but in reality they have deep belief's in the worship of "Secular Humanism". The earth is their God, and their religion say's we should only worship it. So they force other religions to succeed to their wishes. Of course they will never admit to this, but when you really delve into most of the people who are profoundly against prayers in a public forum, they have those belief's. If there was a high-school in chinatown. And the participants were predominately confusious. I would respect their wishes to hold their ceremony within the context of their belief's. The separation of church and state never meant the removal of church from state. Simply that the state shouldn't sponsor a particular religion. And the state is not defined as a high-school. But we could solve a lot of these problems by simply giving choice back to parents regarding what school they want their kids to attend. The unfortunate issue really is the state forces people to attend schools which may be contrary to their belief's. So I say let's not argue about the symptoms, but get at the root cause, and challenge the assumptions regarding why that young man was forced to attend a school he obviously had deeply held belief's against. The implementation of a voucher system in our public schools would put an end to this divisive issue. Michael

To: Bob Lao-Tse who wrote (50438)	5/29/1999 8:19:00 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 67261

Not really my toes, Bob...you did not address the point that the majority gets to determine the disposition of tax money all the time; that it is hardly a matter of one's "dime" anyway, since it costs practically nothing to include it in the ceremony; and that in a contest between an affront to the sensibilities of the majority and one to the minority, it is right that in most instances the majority should be respected. Only a serious affront, such as an actual attack on someone's beliefs, proselytizing, or enforcing support of a denomination, should be reason to veto the wishes of the majority. Anyway, I believe that there are legitimate grounds for civil disobedience, and that this was one of them, so quoting the definition of administrator doesn't cut much ice with me...