I don’t think there’s any such thing as “ceremonial deism”. It’s religion. If it weren’t religion the folks that want religion, their religion, infused into every aspect of American society wouldn’t be in such fits when the so-called ceremonial deism is in danger of being removed from the public sphere.
Your last post to me celebrated the clarity of your OP, and suggested that it was only my lack of reading ability that caused any confusion on my part. Here is that post:
A subsequent post acknowledged that your OP contradicted the link you gave therein to support it, and admitted that your OP would have been clearer if you had added additional information. Here is that post:
I pointed out that these two claims seemed inconsistent with each other – that is, you cannot simultaneously claim that your OP was so perfectly clear that my in ability to read was the only possible way I could misunderstand your point, and then acknowledge that in fact there was clarity missing.
Yom Kippur services can go on all day. Dayenu, alas, can also go on all day if my eleven year old is in singing mode.
OK! This is a much clearer statement of your argument. I guess my reading skills have improved since yesterday.
I believe your argument fails at paragraph three:
- Phrases like “the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross”* are clearly sectarian religious expressions*, and are well beyond what can be construed as ‘ceremonial deism.’
That’s not true. The reason it’s not true is because the test for ceremonial deism does not rise or fall on the inclusion of single instances of prayer. Indeed, even referring to “God,” and asking His blessing excludes Buddhists by contextually invoking the God of Abraham, common to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Instead, what’s true is what has been true since Marsh v. Chambers was decided: the opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country, and from colonial times through the founding of the Republic and ever since, the practice of legislative prayer has coexisted with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom. (Quoting Marsh v. Chambers).
As the Marsh Court pointed out, the same legislative body, in the same week, approved the text of the First Amendment, and voted to appoint and to pay a chaplain for the House and the Senate. They could not, therefore, have intended the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to forbid what they had just declared permissible.
He disagrees with Marsh. Perhaps someone should have windily pointed that out to the rest of us earlier in the thread.
If you had only forced yourself to listen to one verse, it would have been enough.
Yes. I can’t believe I failed to make that observation earlier.
It’s a legal fig leaf that allows us (well, those of us who care which doesn’t really include me) to pretend that we have separation of church and state. We kinda do, but we really don’t. And since it does kinda hang out there sometimes, we do need a fig leaf.
That’s not Christians reacting to another faith praying, that is an asshole terrorizing / vandalizing someone who filed a lawsuit.
I was objecting to the broad brush painting of Christians.
Of course I can’t simultaneously claim those things, which was why I didn’t. I never said there was only one possible way my post could be misunderstood.
John Mace and I had a misunderstanding based on what I left out. You and I had a misunderstanding based on your failure to read what was there.
And you were a big baby about it, too.
Now enough of this meta shit.
RTF: Do you think any of the SCOTUS justices see eye-to-eye with you on this? That is, would any of them be willing to reject the entire notion of ceremonial deism? If not, why the vitriol for Kennedy? Once you accept C.D., reasonably people can then disagree on where to draw the line.
Is there a line that can be drawn that the SCOTUS can actually see when it comes to CD?
I would ask, “What do you mean by an open process”? And does it have to be “turned away”?
The process, for example, might be nominally open, but might also generally involve a member of the council asking a particular person to perform the service. What if they have never “turned away” a Muslim or an atheist (or whatever), but the reason for this is that they have never asked one to perform the ritual?
The very case under discussion here was one in which no non-Christian had EVER been involved right up until the time the lawsuit was filed. And yet i don’t think there’s any evidence that non-Christians were actually turned away, or that the process was officially “rigged” in any formal or regulatory manner; it’s just the case that the default position was to have a Christian prayer. How pervasive must this default position be for a reasonable person to infer that Christianity enjoys a privileged and elevated position in the government?
Are you sure? From the OP’s article (emphasis added):
If the process is such that only Christians are invited, then that process fails. Again, you’d have to look at each case individually (that is, if some citizens object). The process might have to literally be a random drawing in order to make it kosher (pun intended).
This is what Trinopus said that you requested a cite for:
This is what the site I cited says:
Note that once the lawsuit is filed, the town board responds with bringing in Jewish, Baha’i, Wiccan, and Greek pantheist prayers and some person or persons then vandalizes the person who brought the lawsuit’s property.
Whether you think Trinopus was painting with a broad brush or not (I took his meaning to be “Christians” [in the town of Greece, New York] - perhaps you took it differently) it’s reasonable to surmise that although we don’t know the mindset of the unknown vandal(s) referred to in the second paragraph of the cite, they likely preferred Christian-only prayers to the multi-faith prayers provided after the lawsuit was filed, and they therefore likely self-identify as Christian.
That’s *somebody *who doesn’t think prayer is just “ceremonial”, huh?
Oh, absolutely. I’m sure that the minority all harbors doubts about ceremonial deism, and regards it as a necessary evil at best. But one that now is firmly established precedent, so they’re not going to overturn it unless it can be demonstrated to be unworkable.
Probably the main difference between the minority and me is that I regard this decision itself as evidence of its unworkability. I doubt that they’ve come to that conclusion yet.
That’s a side issue to me. I believe this decision has revealed the problem inherent in C.D. like nothing up to this point has, because drawing a distinction between C.D. and clearly sectarian religious expression requires a Supreme Court majority willing to continue to define and hold that line. ETA: But I’m not fundamentally against C.D.; I think we’d be better off without it, sure, but it’s not an argument that I’m interested in investing much energy in.
Because he’s not drawing the line in a different place, AFAICT; his own words say that drawing the line isn’t his business.
And if the Supreme Court takes itself out of the business of drawing a line between C.D. and sectarian religious expression, then anything goes. We can disagree over where the line should be drawn, but we agree that there is a line. Kennedy apparently disagrees, and that’s my problem with him.
“Let us now give thanks that we sacrifice the ‘factually innocent’ by our jurisprudence so that our Leviathan maintains its dignity, power and capriciousness forever and ever. Cash accepted.”
Yes, almost all were Christian, but as i said, the non-Christians only made an appearance after the plaintiffs began making noise. From Breyer’s dissent:
If a school district only begins desegregation procedures after complaints are made and lawsuits are filed, it’s pretty hard to argue that the response justifies a claim that the system has always been fair. I think the same principle applies here.
I prefer a total separation of church and state but if you’re going to have religion then all religious faiths (from judaism to scientology and pastafarianism) should be equally respected.
I heard a bit of the oral argument on CSPAN and it seems like the plaintiffs were asking for:
No prayer at all to address the concerns of the athiests; or
Non-sectarianism that wouldn’t include any references to a specific god or religion(specifically no references to jesus Christ) to address the concerns of the non-Christians and followers of non-Abrahamic faiths.
In the absence of any of that, rules similar to what federal chaplains observe.
Wait till the pastafarians show up.
The difference is that the segregation in the south was de jure segregation not de facto segregation. Here we had de facto protestant prayers but I saw no evidence that other faiths were prohibited from presenting their prayers.
I thought the opinion made it clear that the forum should be open to all faiths in the jurisdiction. At least on a going forward basis.