Hmmmm. Pornography existing in your neighborhood should be outlawed, despite the fact that no one forces you to consume or experience it in any way.
Religion being promoted through voluntary classes in public schools should not be outlawed, because the choice of attendance is voluntary.
What am I missing here?
The fact that porn isn’t sold by the government, and neither should religion be.
Now, if only religion were made available to the public through private venues, the same way porn is. Such a shame that it isn’t, huh?
It’s been pointed out already, but you are really unable to see past your own personal lifestyle here. I can easily imagine parties with no drinks and no smoking; they’re the norm in many cultures, after all, and indeed, the vast majority of the parties I’ve been to in my life have been that way (granted, this is aided by the fact that I’m still young enough for the majority of my life to have been my childhood). And, no, not everyone follows pornography with long periods of guilt, shame, or loneliness. Hell, some people get off on pornography as a couple.
The same kind of vague positive purposes you attribute to alcohol and cigarettes can be just as well attributed to pornography, though really, no strong defense is necessary.
Then those parents can find a private religious school in which to enroll their children, or home school their children, or - here’s a thought - teach their children their religious values AT HOME. Not in a public setting.
You don’t think that children, and some adults, would start to identify kids as “Johnny, the kid who is going to hell” if Johnny decides not to participate in religion classes? Then you clearly haven’t interacted enough with EITHER the public school system or with children of any grade.
Well, I’d say a public setting is fine, in the ordinary sense of the word (e.g., at a church, rather than secluded in the privacy of one’s home). Just not on the taxpayer’s dime, with the corresponding endorsement, as would be the case at public school.
Can you imagine how unbelievably bad state supplied porn would be?
Some people might even use it to help get in the mood for sex with their spouse. What would be wrong with that?
Food might be necessary for a party. Trans fats are not. People managed to have social gatherings just fine without trans fats up until around 1900 when hydrogenation of oils was discovered. Nobody’s talking about banning all food, just certain ingredients in foods. For any given ingredient (except maybe water), there are probably people in the world who manage to make food for social events just fine without using it.
First response: It should not be necessary for the people to pass a constitution amendment just to put a cross in their local park. It takes two thirds of both houses of Congress and three quarters of the states to pass an amendment, which you’d probably agree is a rather high bar to set for the residents of one town or county.
Second response: We already have an amendment which protects our right to freedom of religious expression. It’s the first amendment. The reason why we’re haivng this debate is because the Supreme court chose to interpret “no law respecting an establishment of religion” as meaning “yes, there shall be laws establishing the absense of religion”, and also to ignore the part about “free expression thereof”. It’s meaningless to tell those who want free religious expression to pass an amendment that requires it. The Supreme Court could ignore or misinterpret any new amendment just as they ignore and misinterpret the old one. What’s our new amendment supposed to say? Perhaps:
I don’t see why not. And yes, I read the rest of your post. I still don’t see how this entitles one religion to exploit public property to promote their beliefs. Erecting a cross, or a monument to the ten commandments goes far beyond freedom of expression. It should not be allowed.
I’ve already responded to this argument in several of my previous posts. Since you are simply ignoring what I’ve said, I’m going to assume that you have no rebuttal to what I’ve said.
Nope.
I’m a teacher. I’m in school, interacting with children, for eight hours a day. If I haven’t interacted with them “enough”, then nobody has.
The argument that we should keep our children in ignorance because educated children might pick on other children is a ludicrous one. Firstly, children much more frequently pick on those perceived as being too smart. Secondly, if followed to its logical conclusion, this would require that all education be eliminated.
And why should unbelievers be forced to pay for it ? And why would they take any claims of the local government towards being impartial seriously when the government is doing things like that, in order to make it clear that it’s pro Christian, and therefore anti-everyone else ?
They are doing no such thing. You can express your religion all you like; you just can’t use the government as a propaganda arm of your church or as a weapon to force people to follow it. People do pray in schools you know; they just aren’t supposed to be FORCED to.
The law doesn’t enforce “absence of religion”; it forces evenhandedness. In practical terms this typically means keeping religion out of things, since there are so many, and the intolerant nature of religion makes it incompatible with even the appearance of government evenhandedness. We are “having this debate” because conservative Christians can’t stand the idea of a non-theocratic government. They want to force everyone to act according to their collection of delusions and dogmas, and punish them if they won’t. The less conservative Christians are bright enough to realize that they themselves are likely to be among the groups oppressed.
The California Supreme court ruled that parents can homeschool only if they have teaching credentials. Getting credentialed is a long, time-consuming, expensive process. So the ruling, if it had ever been enforced, would have made home-schooling off limits for most parents, and particularly for poor parents.
Well, then you are, at best, being terribly naive. That’s one of the major reasons that people bring lawsuits over schools that violate the laws against established school prayer; both the teachers and the students systematically harass, humiliate and assault any kid who doesn’t go along.
American is a Christian country, and the essence of Christianity has always been hatred of the unbeliever, and the desire to convert or destroy them. And let’s be honest; we aren’t talking about “religion” or “prayer” here; we are talking about imposing CHRISTIAN, and only Christian dogma and prayers on people, and probably only those of specific sects at that. We could indeed have religious education in schools - it’s the believers who would never stand for it, because it would have to be evenhanded, an overview of religion and it’s history in general, and not one sided Christian propaganda.
I’m a teacher too, and I think you’re being disingenuous as hell here. My students make fun of each other because someone’s in a lower level math class, or gets reading lab, or is in resource room. Of COURSE they’d make fun of each other about religion class. Why would it be any different from anything else? That’s not a reason in and of itself not to have it, but since the First Amendment also gives everyone the right to freedom FROM religion, it’s just another reason to keep it in the private sector.
Ridiculous. Not teaching religion in public school is not keeping them ignorant because presumably, if their parents want them to receive religious instruction, they will provide it themselves. Why would you want the public school system to instill your personal values into children? Are we going to teach Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, paganism, Scientology, and atheism in schools as well as all the different sects of Christianity? Will everyone be required to take all the religions? Wherever will we find the time and money? That’s not a sarcastic question. As a teacher, you should know exactly what I mean.
The California Supreme Court wasn’t involved, at any point… It was the 2nd District Court of Appeal, the ruling was never enforced, and it was voided within a month. This is a tempest in a teapot.
I’m all for separation of church and state. The problem is that when you use that phrase, what you really want is a Berlin Wall between church and state. That concept was invented by the courts within the last couple generations and has not benefited anyone, except perhaps lawyers who get rich filing frivolous lawsuits.
Consider that your understanding of ‘separation of church and state’ is most visible in the schools. Sixty years ago, America’s schools were the envy of the world. Now they’re a national disgrace. This doesn’t prove that separation of church and state is responsible, but it sure doesn’t build confidence in the assertion that it “benefits all citizens”.
Nope.
The (rather obvious) common thread between the five propositions I offered was that I don’t buy into the argument that we the people need a ruling elite to protect us from ourselves. I don’t believe that democracy is tyranny because at some point in the future the voters may vote for something I don’t wish for. It comes with the territory that sometimes my side will win and other times it will lose. I would certainly much rather put my freedoms in the hands of the people than in the hands of the Supreme Court.
And furthermore, the Supreme Court always has and always will represent the ruling classes. A mere picture can assure us that women and blacks and under-represented, while Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans are not represented at all. So those who think that the Supreme Court should control local decisions about education and public spaces all over the country are really saying that the poor, women, and racial minorities aren’t good enough to make those decisions, while wealthy, white men are.
Nope.
How can you teach religion with taxpayer money and say it’s a separation of church and state?
I’d like to have some understanding the curriculum you’d like to teach. Care to outline it for us?
Wow. Just… wow.
Given that other posters in this thread are providing the rebuttals I would have provided had I been participating earlier, and given the fact that you are ignoring their rebuttals or dismissing them out of hand, I fail to see how I would benefit from participating in the process of attempting to convince you that your proposals would do damage.
If you’re a teacher, and you can honestly say that students don’t single out other students because of perceived or actual differences (one of which would be their participation or lack thereof in “voluntary” religion classes), then I really have nothing further to say to you.
Damn straight I do. It benefits me, and everyone else who doesn’t want religion endorsed by the government or funded by the taxpayers; a demographic, incidentally, which also includes most thinking religious people.
Nonsense. It’s benefited the people who DON’T want someone else’s religion rammed down their children’s throats.
And what happened is that separation of church and state was actually enforced, instead of being ignored.
Then either you swiftly wouldn’t have any freedoms, or you’d be one of the people doing the oppressing. The tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny.