For a start, the courthouse is not required to permit you to put up a Festivus pole, Christmas Tree, Menorah, Totem pole, or anything else in fact on their grounds. However, generally speaking, where public ground is made available for displays of private citizens, it must be made available to all private citizens without regard to their political or religious beliefs. And the courthouse may also be able to put up its own Christmas tree, or festivus pole, or menorah.
But that is a different thing to Ceremonial Deism. When a public area permits a private display, we are looking at different law than when the public authority includes vestiges of religion in its own actions, wether on currency, or in the selection of public holidays, or in oaths etc.
Dammit, Bricker, stop being reasonable. I was getting all geared up for an epic six-page battle to convince you that we were talking about different things.
This always amuses me because it is for the most part a slapfest among liberals.
It was liberals that came up with the “ceremonial deism” construction in the first place, and it was through them that it entered case law. Conservatives typically have little use for this construction, as they see the Establishment Clause in such a way as to make this unnecessary.
The best illustration of both approaches is probably the Lynch decision - the majority opinion and dissent both.
So you don’t see a difference between a person saying, “God bless!” after a sneeze, and a government body invoking a deity by saying, “God bless this honorable court”?
It’s amost like there are liberals with differing religious beliefs, and differing interpretations of the way the religion clauses in the First Amendment should be interpreted and applied.
Personally I am a little concerned more about a philosophy that is so doctrinaire, and so beholden to a particular segment of a particular religious belief, that it has no internal disagreement over this issue.
@Musicat: Yeah, I don’t get it, either. I mean, you might as well say that you don’t understand the difference between your neighbor going to Church on Sunday and being required to receive Eucharist before you can pay your traffic ticket.
I doubt it, since they know it’s a strategic lie. As said, it isn’t anything but an excuse to grant support by the government for religion.
Because it is meant as a slam against unbelievers and those believers who don’t believe in the Christian God. It might as well say “We Trust White People”.
OK, lets say I put ceremonial deism on the list of things I’m outraged about, clarion calls to mount the barricades. It’ll still be way down below dignity for the oppressed, food for the hungry, health care for the sick, stuff like that. But if it should come to pass that these others are all dealt with to my satisfaction, I will then give some serious thought to being outraged over this somewhat puny issue. With my great-great grandchildren playing at my feet. God willing.
Yeah, why should we address one of the most widely accepted forms of bigotry in the U.S.? Who cares that it would be impossible to be elected President as an atheist; they’re all bad people anyway. If they really deserved to serve in the highest office in the land, they’d be worshipping Jesus like all the other right-thinkign people.
ETA: I also feel pity for you that your capacity is so small that you have to pick a finite number of injustices to care about.
Not being American, perhaps I don’t get the Constitutional dimensions of this sort of thing - to me at least it looks simply like a last gasp of tradition. Sort of like that swearing on the Bible thing in Court - which eventually became a swear-on-the-religious-text-of-choice - or “affirm” if you have no religious text. The next stop is total disappearance of the requirement, other than the knowledge that lying in court is taken ultra-seriously. Few will even remember that originally the punishment was for ‘breaking an oath sworn on a holy book’, other than as a historical curiousity.
If that is the case, no need to sweat; time will do the trick, and the phrase will simply become part of the traditional background of meaningless symbology - like the Roman Legions marching under “SPQR” centuries after Rome ceased to be a Republic.
Pardon me - where did I say there was no internal disagreement by conservatives over this issue? Just because I said conservatives reject ceremonial deism doesn’t mean they are in full lockstep over the Establishment Clause.
If you think that they are, I would appreciate a cite to that effect. But glancing over recent cases shows quite a number of concurring opinions or even dissents in part. I don’t know that you can make that hold.
What crawled up your ass and died today? You are being bitchy without the saving grace of funny. I’ll give my opinion if I want, and if you don’t like it - that’s just too bad.
You didn’t say it. Where did I say you did say it?
And no, I won’t be looking for a cite on it. But as a rule I will stand by far less internal dissent in right wing parties than parties of the left or center. Hell, we are famous for self destruction. And I would think that American liberals tend to be more heterogeneous than American conservatives, including on religious beliefs.
As long as fundies can sway semi-fundies to the point that evolution is downplayed in biology textbooks, then the struggle against state sponsored religion is still important.
So, I don’t see slogans on the money and oaths in court as meaningless. Neither do the people trying to keep them there, and trying to expand the use of religious ritual by the government.
It’s not an active battlefront, but it’s one charismatic leader away from becoming one. As a proponent of separating church and state, I think we should be consolidating our gains anytime the opportunity arises.
What??? Naming a place after a Christian Saint (or a symbolism of Christianity) is a nod to one particular religion. “God”, at least, can be interpreted broadly to apply to many religions.