Looking back it was the “fundys (of ALL types)” that led me to beleive the OP was referring to all fundamentalists and trying to equate the religuous right with Islamic fundamentalists. If all he meant was the lunatic fringe who are advocating a theocracy in the US then he was right.
Puddleglum.
As I’ve repeatedly stated, I have zero problems with what someone wants to believe. They are perfectly welcome to believe that the world is only 6,000 years old, that Joshua (I think) made the earth stand still for several hours, and that rains of some mysterious food followed the Israelis around in the desert for years. Hell, I have relatives that believe in all of those things. I take great care not to bother them about such things, it’s none of my business and I like to consider myself a polite person.
I only take exception when they (religious fundamentalists with a political agenda) actively try to change the secular nature of the country I come from. I do not think it is simply a “lunatic fringe” that wishes to enact pro-fundamentalism legislation. Nor would the more rational fundys oppose their more fanatic bretheren when they (the radical types) managed to either gain office for themselves or get a few politician in their pocket.
Once these things happen, they are VERY hard to remove, some politician or group of them has to take a stand AGAINST legislation that was supposedly inspired by God himself. It’s a one-way trip.
I agree that we are probably in no danger of electing Jerry Falwell to the presidency right now and as an aside, I DO NOT wish to pass laws against ANY religion at all. I just wish that religious people of most any persuasion, would stop trying to involve themselves in government. How to do that? I don’t have a clue. Personally, if someone identifies himself as a supporter of Falwell or Robertson or that crowd, I tend to think of him as a threat to my own way of life and respond from that point of view.
Thanks for that, you said it better than I could have. As I mentioned to PuddleGlum in an earlier post, fundamentalist legislation is a one-way trip. Once you get professing fundamentalists in power, an stand against them is a stand against God.
Crikeys- you read MEB’s post- you agree with MEB’s post- you even THANKED him for his post- yet you go on with the bit about confusing Religous Extremists (the Religous Right in the USA being the big group) and “Fundamentalists”. One more time, slowly- it is not the “Fundies” who are dangerous- it is the Extremists. Yes- many of the Religous Right are “Fundies”- but not all- and only a few “Fundies” are part of the extremist Religous Right. YOU ARE USING IMPROPER TERMINOLOGY. OK?
Apologies for the confusion in terminology. And thank you, it may be grist for a future thread about what the differences are between those two categories. Now, it may be nothing more than ignorance on my part, but I do not see a sharp dividing line between the two categories, more of a gradual trend toward being more-and-more fundamental. Yes, the ones who are political try to soften their stance to attract more moderate believers but that’s just politics.
Of course Pat Robertson wants candidates aligned with the Christian Coalition’s views to take over government. Just like the head of NOW want politicians who agree with feminists to, like the NAACP wants politicians who agree with them to, like GLAD wants politicians who agree with them to. The question is once this is accomplished then what. Does he then outlaw every religion other than Christianity and Judaism, overturn the first amendment, and outlaw various sexual preferences? All of these things have been imputed to him by people who have no evidence that he wants any of these things. He has not been hiding what he wants, his agenda is clear. He ran for president on it and repeats it on his TV show. It is obviously controversial but it is not what is being imputed to him.
The book by Mel White contains no evidence of anyone in the Christian right believing in a theocracy. He states the views of one nut, and despite having worked closely with many Christian leaders he has no evidence they share the nut’s views.
One of the Christian coalition’s stated goals is the Religous Freedom Amemdment. While it would legalize student-sponsored prayer in schools it also says
So not only do they not want to establish a state-sponsored religion, they want a constitutional amendment which explicitly forbids people being compelled to pray and discrimination against any religion.
You have to go much further out on to the fringes to find people who openly advocate outlawing whole religions. But Robertson has said he doesn’t think members of other religions are fit to hold public office. This is not the same thing as saying “Gee, I support politicians who agree with my political views.” (I would also be upset with the leader of any political pressure group who compared his or her opponents to “termites”, and even more so with the leader of any political pressure group who compared entire religious denominations to “termites”.)
As you’ve already pointed out, the Religious Right supports the “Religious Freedom” Amendment. Since the First Amendment already bans the United States from composing prayers or compelling prayers (and the Fourteenth Amendment applies this to state and local governments) one can only conclude that this proposed amendment is in a sense an effort to replace the First Amendment (or the religion clauses thereof) with something “better”.
Ever hear of sodomy laws? What do you think the position of the Christian Coalition or the Family Research Council has been on having them overturned or repealed? Of course, sodomy laws don’t technically “outlaw sexual preferences”–even the Christian Reconstructionists don’t want to do that, they just want to put people who engage in certain sexual acts to death.
P.S. – Testy, if you only quote those parts of the messages you are responding to, it can make the thread a little easier to read. Remember, we can always scroll up to see what the other person said, so usually it’s enough if you just clearly indicate which message(s) you are responding to. Thanks.
What the proposed amendment does is to clarify the religion clause. It would specifically ban compulsory prayer and ban discrimination against religion. Since there is controversy about what the first amendment means this would end that controversy by explictly stating what religous freedom means. Codifing religous freedom is a strange goal if their aim is to curtail religous freedom as you claim it is. Freedom to practice their religion is what these people want, it is the liberals who are interested in curtailing religous freedom, the religous right is just their convenient boogety man.
The full text of the “Religious Freedom” Amendment:
“To secure the people’s right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience:”
The First and Fourteenth Amendments already “secure the people’s right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience”. Of course, the First Amendment also guarantees the people the right not to acknowledge God, if their consciences so dictate; I suspect the complete lack of any reference to God or a Supreme Being in the United States Constitution rankles supporters of the RFA.
“Neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion…”
Which they have no power to do, and are already forbidden to do, by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
“…but the people’s right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed.”
The “people’s right to pray” is already secure; what this is saying is that a majority of the people have a “right” to force the rest of the people to acknowledge the majority’s God, in the halls of government and government schools which are paid for by everyone’s tax dollars and belong to everyone, Christians, Jews, atheists, or pagans alike. Students can already pray in school; they just can’t force students who don’t want to pray to do so, or to bow down while everyone else prays. The people can acknowledge their religious heritage(s) in their homes, churches (and synagogues, mosques, temples, tabernacles, and shrines), and places of business, but no one can march into a courthouse or a statehouse and take the property of the whole people to make it into a temple to the gods of the majority.
“Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, discriminate against religion…”
They can’t do this now.
“…or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion.”
This is the crux of this sentence. Of course the U.S. or the states can’t pass a law now which says that Christians aren’t eligible for Social Security, or that someone must burn incense before a statue of the Emperor in order to have the fire department keep their house from burning down. What this means is that the majority has the right to tax the minority to support the majority’s religious evangelism, in the form of taxpayer support for Christian schools, Christian charitable ministries, and Christian churches.
This amendment isn’t about guaranteeing religious freedom. It’s about giving the majority the power to give its religious beliefs supremacy over the beliefs of the minority.
Not if you’re codifying it to have the best possible interpretation for your side. You need to keep in mind that they are not proposing the RFRA to protect religious freedom; it’s already protected. They are proposing it to replace the current protection and make it less strong. Suppose you sell a car on credit to someone, and they agree to pay $3,000 for it. Later on they come to you and say “I’d like to pay you $2,500 for that car”. Would you conclude that they really want you to give you money?
I’m sorry; I got the impression that the question and the answer were from different sources; using that answer to answer that question implies that this is the position of Islam.
The question was evidently sent in to Sheikh Al-Munajjid (who I gather is a sort of Wahhabi Advice Columnist) by a college student in a Western country (perhaps the United States). Both the question and the answer come from the same web site.
P.S. – Testy, if you only quote those parts of the messages you are responding to, it can make the thread a little easier to read. Remember, we can always scroll up to see what the other person said, so usually it’s enough if you just clearly indicate which message(s) you are responding to. Thanks. **
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Thanks MeBuckner, I’ll do that. Just getting started here and a bit clumsy with the interface. As an aside, while I think my intent was clear, do you think I could have phrased the OP better?
