That Baptist Ain't Right: About Those Ten Commandment Displays ...

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

About Those Ten Commandment Displays ...

The Religious Right is a reminder as to why we have the 1st Amendment --- people can't resist forcing their religious interpretations onto others if others won't willingly acquiesce.

Example of the Day - The School Board in Giles County VA

For the last 10 years, a copy of the Ten Commandments has been displayed beside a copy of the US Constitution in the district's five schools. These were no small displays, either. These were 4 foot tall monsters. Huge. Impressive. Dominating. Forceful. These carried a message with size alone..

In December 2010, there was a complaint by the Freedom from Religion Foundation along with an opinion by the school board's attorney that the display were unConstitutional. Duh. Really. Double Duh. So the Ten Commandments were replaced with the Declaration of Independence.

The AP reports that eight parents and pastors, supported by a fighting-mad mob of Christian soldiers, marched on the January 2011 meeting and insisted the schools had a moral obligation to reinforce God's teachings.

The next day, the Ten Commandment displays were back in the schools.

Now let's see ... how about if we change the story a bit ... after removing the Half Moon and Crescent, along with many verses of the Koran that teaches Allah should be praised in all the student's lives, eight parents and Imams, supported by a fighting-mad mob of Islamic soldiers, marched on the January 2011 meeting and insisted the schools had a moral obligation to reinforce Allah's teachings.

What, pray tell, is the difference? Hint: None. If we don't insist the government show no favoritism to our own faith, we lose the moral right to speak out against another faith that gets the government's Most Favored Status.

Doesn't anyone actually read the Constitution any more or believe that the Golden Rule is more than something we talk about on Sunday mornings between 11AM and noon?

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Great Quote List

"The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. ... Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians."
--- John Leland, Colonial Virginia Baptist, "A Chronicle of His Time in Virginia," as cited in Forrest Church, The Separation of Church and State, 92 (2004).

"Religious matters are to be separated from the jurisdiction of the state, not because they are beneath the interests of the state but, quite to the contrary, because they are too high and holy and thus are beyond the competence of the state."
--- Isaac Backus, New England Colonial Baptist, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773.

" 'The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism. Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism.' [Adlai] Stevenson also remarked, 'It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.' "
--- Adlai Stevenson as quoted by TV lawyer Alan Shore on Boston Legal in the courtroom scene "Stick It."

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. . . Our government. . . teaches the whole people by its example. . . If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
--- Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States in the dissenting opinion, later vindicated in Katz v. United States.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and carrying a bible."
--- Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, 1935. (Common spurious attribution, but an oh-so-true statement.)

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.”
--- St Augustine.

"To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death."
---Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, 1963.

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
--- George Carlin (1937-2008) .

"Honesty is not something you flirt with — you should be married to it."
--- Table Top at Joe's Crab House, Aurora, CO.

"It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't."

--- Martin Van Buren.

"The Religious Right is a reminder as to why we have the 1st Amendment --- people can't resist forcing their religious interpretations onto others if others won't willingly acquiesce."
--- TBAR, 07/04/08.

"I'd rather have an honest Atheist in power than a corrupt Christian."
--- Ed Edwards, 09/01/08

“Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles that he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse, or loss of property, for his religious opinions....”
--- John Leland, Colonial Virginia Baptist minister and religious liberty advocate, The Rights of Conscience Inalienable, 1791 pamphlet.