Requiring a person to say the pledge is unconstitutional. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). Today’s pledge cases aren’t about requiring children to say it, but about allowing public institutions (namely, Congress and schools) to establish it as a formal ceremony.
Incidentally, While reading this thread I tried to recite the pledge and realized I don’t remember it. On the other hand, I can recite the last sentence of On the Origin of Species. Score one for pluralism!
Nothing in Griswold compels the conclusion that abortion is safe and voluntary. Roe itself finds a compelling state interest in regulating abortion in the third trimester: does that conflict with Griswold? How about if Roe had found that second-trimester abortions also had a compelling state interest?
Roe made those findings about abortion. Not Griswold.
Notice that I said there’s no compelling interest in preventing abortion IF the procedure is safe and voluntary, not that Griswold compels it. The state has the same interest in insuring the safety and consent for abortion procedures as for any other surgery, but once safety and consent are in place, then the right to Privacy obtains. My argument is that if the state cannot show a procedure to be unsafe or involuntary, then it can’t show an interest in restricting that private decision without resorting to citing a religious definition for personhood.
As to the third trimester, I’m already on record as saying that the issue becomes far more blurry at that point and that I personally believe that (except for cases where there is a compelling medical interest to do otherwise), the state may have an arguable interest in protecting the life of a fetus which is able to survive outside of the womb. I think the woman has a right to have the fetus removed from her body, but not necessarily that she has a right to prevent the state from keeping it alive once it’s out.
I also know that such circumstances (completely elective abortions in the 3rd trimester) are rare to non-existent.
Emphasis added. Maybe you don’t see nuance because the 1st amendment doesn’t say anything of the sort. But then, maybe you do see nuance since you postd that the amendment “pretty much says…” and not “unequivicably says…”
In which case, atheism is a religion. They’re categories. I agree with the gist of what you’re saying, but I think it’s better to note that the “under god” clause clearly has religious origins.
I’ve had enough people tell me what’s wrong with “my religion” - meaning atheism; I have no religion - that I figure I’m not going to ignore the reverse mistake. Theism isn’t a religion. It’s a single idea.
Now you’re talking. (It does not say that a “theist state” can’t be established, which is an entirely different thing.)
The question is: does having “under God” in the pledge amount to establishing a religion? No one is compelled to say the pledge. The pledge is NOT part of our government in any operational sense.
Are you seeing any nuance yet? I think it’s bad public policy to have “under God” in the pledge, but it’s entirely unlcear to me that it’s unconstitutional. Damn close to being unconstitutional, but probably not quite there.
I’m an atheist. I just don’t believe you can call atheism a kind of religion any more than you can call a hippopotamus a kind of tree.
Sure, they’re both categories, but that’s where the similarity ends.
I live my totally outside of religious sentiment. Just as if it didn’t exist at all. I resent people thinking that’s somehow a religion, when the very word religion represents, to me, a kind of mindless zeal I try to avoid.
It amounts to a state endorsement of monotheism. The problem with this is not that monotheism per se is a “religion,” but that as soon as the government says “one God exists,” it is necessarily and simultaneously declaring that all other options are false. The government does not have a right to declare whether gods exist or don’t exist. They most certainly do not have the right to tell children that their religious beliefs are false. “Under God” is a de facto declaration that all other religious paradigms (atheism, polytheism, pantheism, animism, ancestor worship, non-theistic spirutualities like Buddhism, etc.) are false.
Nope. Only if it said “one and only one God exists”. But even then, it wouldn’t necessarily follow that othe religions are false. At best you could argue for montheism being given some special status, but that “special status” is not necessarily an establishment of religion.
Why not? I don’t see why it would do so, but why can’t it?
See above. There’s nothing that says other religions are false.
Yes there is. It’s impossible to say one religious belief is true without saying others are false. It would be just as illegal for the government to say that God does not exist as to say that he does. The government is not supposed to take a stance on the issue.
When a public school teacher tells a child that he is “under God,” it amounts to teaching monotheism as fact, and therefore teaching, as fact, that anything else is false. I don’t agree with your suggestion that “under God” does not have to mean monotheism (try changing it to “under the gods” and see if Christians think it makes a difference) but even if you want to abstract the word “god” so that it includes all possible theistic belief, it is still a declaration that nontheistic beliefs must be false.
No, I said that I could see how it can happen, given the unsurpassed irrationality of some religious fundamentalists. My point is that Mr. Moto’s attempt to pin this as a “Democrat issue” doesn’t make (rational) sense.
But let’s not kid ourselves; the Republican Party would use South Park as a talking point against the Dems if they thought they had a halfway decent chance of making it work.
If “Under God” has no religious significance, if it truly is “ceremonial deism”, why is there such a tremendous amount of outrage from the religious right about this subject? Why be so pissed off of these two little words unless they actually meant something important?
I think the fact that people are up in arms about this is evidence that “Under God” really is religiously significant, and thus an establishment violation.
You’re confused because “atheism is a religion” was part of a hypothetical. Hence the “in which case.” Theism isn’t a religion, and if it was, I think atheism would have to be one, too.
So am I, and that’s exactly what I was saying. Theism isn’t a religion any more than atheism is; they’re just categories.
Theism isn’t a religion. It’s a single idea.