War on Christianity : Religious Restrictions or Religious Censorship
Like it or not, a trend is growing towards the removal of Christianity and its symbols from public view. As the “number of bans on public displays of Christianity continue to grow”, Fox News questions whether the motivation of these actions—religious restrictions or religious censorship.
bq.. This week as Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Fox News Channel will be looking at the many ways the principles and symbols of Christianity are disappearing from public life and examine the causes and consequences.
Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not. The FCC allows the “F-word” on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no. And some schools freely dispense condoms to kids, but pencils that read “Jesus loves little children” were confiscated from a first-grade class in Virginia.
Some, like “War on Christianity” author David Limbaugh, say the list of examples is long and is evidence of an undeclared cultural war on the religion.
p. An often overlooked point, the truth about the separation of church and state.
bq. The truth is, the Constitution doesn’t explicitly discuss separating church and state. Instead, what it does say is that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …,” which means that, unlike in England, the United States decided not to form an official national religion, nor can the government interfere with the practice of any religion.
p. [ Full Story @ Fox News ]
p(small). Source: Fox News© 2003 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Filed under: Church and State
There is a big difference between flag-burning, the distribution of condoms, swearing, and proselytizing. Burning an American flag and distributing condoms are not practices that directly or indirectly harm people; indeed, both can actually help people quite a bit (the first is an act of radicalism useful in bringing attention to the liberty-promoting protestations, the second an act that keeps sexually-active students from getting STDs and/or pregnant [both of which they were probably willing to risk anyway, condoms or no]). Swearing is indeed an offensive behavior that undoubtedly offends many—
but not to the degree that proselytizing does. A curse word, after all, provides a moment or two of minor irritation. A publicly-sanctioned and -funded nativity scene provides weeks of deep offense at the shunning and ignoring of one’s own belief system.And note, please, the qualifier “publicly-sanctioned and -funded.” Personally, I am deeply offended that the “Jesus loves children” pencils were declared illegal, because that child should have had the right (under the First Amendment) to tell anyone he wanted that ‘Jesus’ ‘loves them.’ He is a private citizen, and has as much right to say that as I do to claim that “Darwin loves you.” However, if there is a Christmas tree on public property, that is not allowed. And let me respond to the idea that Christianity is the only religion being asked to done itself down: the only reason we Atheists have to ask Christians to back off is that Christians are the only ones making noise about this. Though I have heard of Justice Moore’s Ten Commandments display, I have never heard of a publicly-displayed menorah, or Koran, or pentagram. And were I to hear of or see any of those things, I would take just as much offense as I did to Moore’s display.
As to the idea that the Constitution does not prevent state-sanctioned religion, we must remember that the Constitution was not always so absolute. The Supreme Court has a responsibility to interpret the Constitution—and it did, with the 1947 case of Everson vs. Board of Education of Ewing, decide that the Founding Fathers intended that there should be “a wall of separation between Church and state.” A new decision may well change this, but as it stands now, that wall is there. Religious freedom is one of those that tends to be open to more interpretation, because religion does not (though it tries to) touch government, and is deeply personal. Other freedoms (e.g., that of speech) can be taken more absolutely, because they are less personal and have much more to do with the fundamental principles of democracy.
I don’t know about you all, but I have never burned a flag, and see no reason to do so. Nevertheless, the day that flag burning becomes illegal, I will burn a flag in protest.
As free citizens go on a rampage about christianity I’m sitting here wandering, is the world coming to an end? I thought we lived in America “The Land Of The Free”. People have the right to talk about and show there religion wether it be Chriatianity, Islamic, Jewish, or Athiest. We have the right to pray in public, and show our christian symbols and we should not have to hide it from our government and our schools.