Stephen Harding wrote:

Guy Alcala wrote:

I'm unaware of that being the case. I think I can tell the difference between political humbug
and true belief. I have no doubt about, say, the sincerity of Senator Lieberman's beliefs, nor
do I (generally) doubt the sincerity of President Bush's. But when they start making a big
public deal out of it and mentioning God at every (politically) opportune moment, it starts to
smell.

Well if you're at a convention of xylophonists, you tend to talk
about xylophones, so I don't think it's terribly smelly to have
Bush talk religion at a religious convention (I believe that was
the context of his "God's delivery boy" statement).



Yet at least around here, there seems to be a belief he's promoting
born-again christianity, and the division between church and state
is being narrowed.

His religious base certainly is trying to do that, and at the very least, he's pandering to them.

How do you figure that? You can decorate your house, you car, or yourself with Crosses, Stars of
David, Crescents, Ankhs, Prayer wheels or Pentagrams all you want. You can spend every waking
minute of every day praising your god(s) as much as you chose. Just don't try and force me to
agree with you, and don't try to force me to listen to you in a public building/space that I'm
constrained to be in. You want to stand on your soapbox in the park and tell everyone _who wants
to listen_ about the wonders of your religion, knock yourself out. But don't do it at the top of
your lungs to people who have no interest in what you're saying, and who can't move out of
earshot while still enjoying the location.

"Public space" is supposed to be for the public. You can't get a
more "public space" in New England than a town common. In Amherst,
the town common is the location for all sorts of stuff people put
up to display.

Try and put up a nativity scene there. You can't. "Separation of
church and state" ya know. But the UMass pagans can put up their
wooden whatever commemorating various spirits of "Mother Earth".

And shouldn't be able to, for the same reason you can't put up a nativity scene. Alternatively,
anything goes, and anyone can put up anything they want, provided they pay for it. The problem is, at
some point someone is going to object to something that's there or say that there's not enough space
for something new, a public official will try to decide what's okay and what isn't or what is more
worthy of space, and the line has been crossed. Can Satan worshippers put up what they want? How
about followers of Santeria; nothing like a nice animal sacrifice to help you solve big problems.

Christians should be able to put up their nativity scene. Jews
should be able to (and somehow do) put up their menorah or star of
David, Islam...

And they are able to do so on their own property, just as much as they wish.

Placing these symbols in town space is NOT promoting religion.
It's allowing public expression. It's not "forcing" views on people
any more than having a flag waving on a flag pole (which I might add,
have also been objected to).

As long as anything goes, no problem. But anything _doesn't_ go, now does it?


No, it's saying that government can not favor one religion over another, nor can they sponsor one
or many. You want a nativity scene, feel free to pay for it (or get like-minded individiuals to
do so) and put it up on your lawn. Which is pretty much what happens around here. You want to
have a stone sculpture monument of the Ten Commandments? Be my guest, and mount it in your yard,
home or (in some cases) business. But it doesn't belong in the Courthouse.

It most certainly can belong on the courthouse lawn, if that is a
convenient public place. Religion is a part of national life.

For some (most), at the moment. It's no part of my life, and it has no business in civil, secular
government.

It
should not be excluded from the courthouse any more than "In God
we Trust" removed from coinage. It's a cultural expression as well
as religious.

"In God We Trust" may be part of your culture, but it's no part of mine since I'm not religious. Are
you saying that your culture is officially approved? And no, it doesn't belong on the money, any more
than the Masonic symbols do.

Separation of church and state simply means you can not say OK to
the nativity scene while excluding a Menorah during Chanukha.

The problem is, someone always wants to exclude something, and as soon as you start picking and
choosing, you're over the line.

Some were deeply religious, some went through the motions because it was expected, some were
agnostic or atheist. You'd be pretty hard-pressed to describe Benjamin Franklin as "deeply
religious." The important thing is that they all had the legal right to be of whatever religion

Actually, I'd call Ben and Thomas Jefferson quite religious
individuals, just not in an "organized" way.

It's a bit hard to say about Jefferson. I'm not sure how much of his supposed deism was just an
acceptable eccentricity for a politician, and how much of it was real. Franklin, no, I don't think
so. He felt religion could be useful and supported many churches across the spectrum, but his personal
beliefs seem to bepretty agnostic.

[I like the "Jefferson Bible" where he went through the King
James cutting out passages that he liked, pasting them all
together to form his own "bible". I've only just started the
Ben Franklin bio, so I'm not up to speed on details of his
religious thinking beyond general knowledge that he was not
atheist.]

He has pandered to his religious base quite a lot, in the last election and now this one.
Sometimes he's sincere, but in some cases he's throwing them a bone after making a political
calculation. The hesitation about coming out and saying he'd support a constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage being a case in point. The decision itself, and the timing of it, was a
political calculation through and through.

I don't think that's entirely the case. Bush is President so
there is going to be political context in whatever he does or says.
"Calculation" for me implies a sort of insincerity that may not
always be the case. Virtually any political action can be labeled
"calculating" I suppose.

If the timing of the decision, and whther to make it at al, is made primarily for political
considerations, you bet it's calculating. Do I think Bush's speech at Ground Zero, when he said, off
the cuff, "the people who brought down these buildings will be hearing from us all real soon," was
calculating? Nope, that was what he felt.

Fundamentalist, and sometimes non-fundamentalist Christians such
as myself, don't particularly like the idea of gay marriage.
I live in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, so my right
wing thinking on this has been moderated into a willingness to
accept "civil union" for gays...or polygamists...or almost whatever.

Living in the SF Bay Area, and having spent a lot of time (while growing up) in the People's Republic
of Berkeley, I early came to the conclusion that what consenting adults wish to do is their business,
provided I'm not forced to participate. I dislike many things that my fellow human beings choose to
do, but if it doesn't injure me, what business is it of mine? I've got gay friends, relatives of
friends, co-workers, acquaintances, etc. I judge them on what kind of human being they are; why should
I care what gender they sleep with?

Personally, I think the simplest solution would be for government to get out of the marriage business
altogether, and just perform civil unions for everyone. The civil benefits of 'marriage' should apply
to all who wish to take it on, regardless of what it's called. If marriage is primarily a religious
exercise, then religions should be the ones to conduct them, and they can set any standards for what is
and is not a marriage that they choose, as they do now; parishioners will vote with their feet to find
a religion that suits them best, just as they always have (when not forced to adhere to a particular
one).


Whether you believe an amendment to obtain "correct" constitutional
interpretation of the issue on the part of judges, or some other
way, may or may not be a pandering to a political group.

That wasn't the pandering. The pandering was making a political calculation about whether to come out
and openly support such an amendment, or whether to just continue to make vague statements that could
be interpreted to mean anything or nothing, because it was felt the latter was politically safer.
Given the catalyst of the marriages in SF, and their clear understanding that the equal protection
clauses of both the California and Federal Constitutions will toss out defense of marriage acts (as
happened in Mass.), His religious base really put the pressure on for Bush to take an unequivocal
stand. The political calculation was clearly made that he'd lose a lot of his base if he didn't do so,
and not gain many converts on the other side, so he did it despite his obvious wish to finesse the
whole issue (much as the democratic leadership also wished to do). That is totally separate from his
personal beliefs on the subject, which seem to be fairly live and let live.

I personally don't like adding constitutional amendments whenever
a new "interpretation" of something comes up, but, what else can
you do besides be careful about the judges you appoint?

Avoid trying to legislate purely personal behavior, no matter how much the majority may disapprove of
it.


And fortunately the Supreme Court has just found against the guy who sued the state of Washington
(IIRR), because they refused to pay the scholarship they had awarded him when he wanted to use it
to attend theology school. He seemed like a decent sort, but I certainly don't want my taxes to
pay to support his particular faith (or any other). If his denomination needs ministers and he
can't afford it himself, they can pay his way if they choose, but it shouldn't be coming out of
my pocket.

I'm torn on this example. I don't want government funding the
development of religious "professionals". Yet education is a
primary and just use of government funds, and discrimination on
the type of professional perhaps isn't warranted. Biology,
electrical engineering, Italian Renaissance art, theology?
Perhaps shouldn't rally matter.

Producing an actual minister? A bit shaky, but as long as
the government isn't promoting the production of only Episcopal
ministers, perhaps not entirely wrong.

I had to think about this one for some time myself. Originally, I felt that it should be up to the
student to spend their scholarship money on any education they chose. But after further thought, I
decided that civil government has no business paying for a purely _religious_ education. I also felt
that sooner or later the civil government would find itself involved by having to make value judgements
of what is or is not an acceptable_religious_ education, and government just doesn't belong in that
arena. If cult X decides that the appropriate eligious training for their prospective ministers is to
send their students on a three year binge in Paris, is the government going to say, "whoa, we don't
think that's religious enough"? An extreme example, I agree, but it illustrates the problem.

For a slightly more benign example (IMO), I have no problem
with public vouchers for Catholic schools of choice, as long
as students who wish can opt out of any of the religious
components of such education. This is not be promoting
religion. It's promoting education!

I feel the same way myself, but try and find a Catholic school that lets you to opt out. A friend of
mine's parents sent him to a Catholic high school instead of a public one, despite them being
protestant, so he could get a better education. But opting out most definitely wasn't an option. Even
if it was, I tend to doubt that it would be practical to do so, as the whole environment is saturated
by the prevailing dogma. That could possibly be fixed, although it would tend to remove the religious
from religious schools, turning them into just another private school, and that's unlikely to be
acceptable to the parents who send their children their for that precise purpose.

Nevertheless, I'm a cautious fan of vouchers, provided that admittance and participation is completely
non-discriminatory, and the only other qualification for a school being acceptable for vouchers is its
educational standards. In other words, I don't want public funds going to support, say, Bob Jones'
University. This brings me back to the same dilemma as in the case of the theological grad school
above, but for whatever reason it seems more acceptable to me. I'm not saying that my drawing of the
line there can be defended on any strictly logical basis, because you really are splitting hairs.

Guy