Church and State
stcynic | October 3, 2004It's always fun seeing the Worldnutdaily weigh in on church and state issues. They can predictably be seen pushing the "Christian Nation" idea to their credulous readers. I've documented the false claims on this subject that regularly appear there. The latest bit of nonsense comes from columnist Kelly Hollowell. Here it is, in all its...glory:
The Founding Fathers of America understood this human tendency. It actually gave rise to and provided justification for the principle of separation of powers in the establishment of our republic. This, our system of checks and balances, is a…
stcynic | September 15, 2004From Robert Abele:
The Washington quotation frequently used to demonstrate the "religious right" point is this: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." This quotation is frequently found on fundamentalist Christian web sites, without provision of citation. I searched forty-eight such sites before I found one that stated that the line allegedly uttered by Washington was from a speech he gave to the Dutch Reformed Synod in 1789. After extensive research, I was finally able to obtain a copy of this speech. I found three things in this research: first, it is not…
stcynic | August 10, 2004Jon Rowe has an interesting post up about a new book, available online here, by Gary North, the Christian reconstructionist. The book is called Conspiracy in Philadelphia, and North's primary thesis is that the constitution itself was an illegal document that overstepped the boundaries of the mandate given to those at the convention and replaced the Articles of Confederation without going through the process mandated under those Articles. His secondary thesis is that the constitution itself was a blatantly Godless and atheistic document that not only overturned centuries of tradition whereby…
stcynic | July 15, 2004One of the things that irritate me most in the world is how conservative authoritarians have hijacked the word "family". The ridiculous phrase "family values" - as though all families had the same values, or should - is a textbook example. So I cheered last night when I read Jon Rowe's post that nailed the failed attempt to amend the constitution to ban gay marriages perfectly:Lets be straight: The now failed FMA was fundamentally an anti-family amendmentone that insulted all gay families as well as every straight family containing an actual gay family member. Even straight families with no…
stcynic | July 13, 2004Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice is asking the Supreme Court to overrule an appeals court decision in Ohio that removed postings of the Ten Commandments from 4 schools in that state. In a WorldNutDaily article about the appeal, the following quote appears:"It is an undisputable fact that the Ten Commandments played a significant role in the development of our legal system in this country," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, in a statement.
Since it has come up yet again, I'm going to reprint a post that I made in December on this subject, examining the ten…
stcynic | July 10, 2004In his continuing exchange with Clayton Cramer, Jon Rowe has written a very interesting post on the timeless and universal nature of the principles found in the Declaration of Independence. As usual, I find myself in almost complete agreement with his views, though I'm probably more apt to oppose what he calls "public proclamations of a generic non-denominational God". But like him, I am a strong supporter of school vouchers, a position that tends to get me into trouble with my fellow humanists and civil libertarians. I was even once told, at a state level American Humanist Association…
stcynic | July 9, 2004Clayton Cramer says the concept of separation of church and state should be "given a proper (and secular) burial". Jon Rowe has already said much of what I would say in response to it, so I'm only going to comment on one aspect of Cramer's post. I have to give Cramer credit for at least accurately describing the reason why the Danbury Baptists wrote to Jefferson in 1802, something his fellow conservatives seem to lie about rather frequently. Cramer writes:Back in 1802, a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, wrote a letter to President Thomas Jefferson, congratulating him on his election…
stcynic | June 30, 2004The WorldNutDaily is reporting on a Federal court case involving Palm Beach, Florida, where they allowed a Jewish menorrah to be displayed in a public park, but refused to allow a Christian nativity scene. Both were paid for with private funds. The city was obviously wrong to do so and they have now settled the case, reversed the policy, and agreed to pay the legal fees for the plaintiffs. All well and good. But here's the thing that I find bizarre about it:As WorldNetDaily reported, the suit claimed for two years the city refused to review requests to have a nativity scene placed alongside…
stcynic | June 1, 2004The WorldNutDaily is famous for their breathless, moron-level headlines and writing, but this one may take the cake:Divine intervention sought in presidential race
And to no one's surprise, the article is really just an advertisement for a new book called We Will Pray for Election Day, by Thomas Freiling and Michael Klassen - sold by ShopNetDaily, naturally. According to this mock article cum advertising blurb, this "inspiring blockbuster" contains "40 prayers to change America" and, obviously, seeks divine intervention in the election. But how exactly do they expect God to intervene? Let's…
stcynic | May 31, 2004Check out Jon Rowe's exchange with Randall Terry. Jon initially wrote this essay about Thomas Fleming, dubbing him an "honest theocrat" in distinction to Randall Terry, and Terry replied to him in an e-mail. Jon dutifully shreds his arguments, which are, predictably, poorly thought out and riddled with grammatical errors and misspellings (is there anything funnier than the combination of smugness and stupidity?).
Randall Terry is a dyed-in-the-wool theocrat who seeks nothing less than the overthrow of freedom of conscience and the establishment of an officially Christian Nation. If that doesn…
stcynic | May 14, 2004In yet another blow to those who have bought the "the ACLU just hates God" line from the religious right, the ACLU has successfully defended the right of a student to place a bible verse in her yearbook. The case involves Abby Moler, the 2001 valedictorian at Sterling Heights Stevenson (a school I know very well from my days in debate. I was the top speaker at that school's debate tournament in 1984 and my student was in 1989). She was asked, along with a few other top students, was asked to submit a few words to the yearbook for her fellow students. She chose a bible verse and the school…
stcynic | May 13, 2004After reading Randy Barnett's latest post on the ongoing debate between he and Stephen Bainbridge (and by proxy, between Jonathan Rowe, Tim Sandefur, Larry Solum and myself against Clayton Cramer and Owen Courreges), I was planning to finally write something in disagreement with a position he has taken. Alas, Rowe beat me to it, so I'll keep this short and sweet. Barnett had written that the Establishment Clause of the first amendment did not describe either a natural liberty right nor a positive right, as opposed to the free exercise clause, which did. In this, I believe he is incorrect.…
stcynic | May 8, 2004Clayton Cramer, in the midst of taking on Jonathan Rowe and Randy Barnett on the matter of judicial activism, paused to address, rather badly, the issue of whether America was "conceived as a Christian nation". Cramer begins:Rowe has a very long blog entry trying to debunk the notion that the United States was conceived as a Christian nation. He claims that a book by a guy named David Barton has passed around a lot of incorrect quotes from the Founders, and that someone named Brayton has caught this guy Barton:Brayton also informs us that there is no evidence that George Washington ever said…
stcynic | May 8, 2004One of the arguments that we often hear from those who are either opposed to separation of church and state entirely, or who favor a more accomodationist view, is the argument to the effect that modern interpretations of the first amendment religion clauses were unheard of among the founding fathers. They argue, for example, that the founding fathers would be stunned to see any complaint about the insertion of "under God" in the pledge because that was a given to them. But this argument is patently false. The reality is that, at least as it regards one of the most prominent of the founding…
stcynic | April 12, 2004The only two sure things in life are death and taxes, the old saying goes. I think by now we can safely add a third certainty - reading a Phyllis Schlafly column will leave you baffled that someone could write such nonsense with a straight face. Her latest column, about the Supreme Court's current pledge of allegiance case, is a potpourri of stupidity from beginning to end. To wit:A lower federal court threw out Newdow's suit because he does not have custody of his daughter. The Supreme Court could follow suit, or the justices could decide, once and for all, if the words "under God" are…
stcynic | April 7, 2004The ID crowd just continues to push this ridiculous argument that the Understanding Evolution website, by pointing out that evolution is not necessarily in conflict with religion and that many Christians and other types of theists accept evolution without giving up their faith, violates the establishment clause. The latest is from our old friend Francis Beckwith. This argument has been completely shredded by Timothy Sandefur, in a piece that Beckwith has no doubt seen. Yet he continues to push this, on his blog and in print. I'm sure he made a few bucks with the article in the American…
stcynic | March 29, 2004The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has an interesting debate on the subject of the pledge of allegiance and the case before the Supreme Court right now. The participants are Douglas Laycock and Jay Sekulow, names familiar to anyone who follows constitutional law and religious liberty cases. Laycock, from the University of Texas Law School, is perhaps the most respected academic voice on religious freedom matters in the nation. He is no firebreathing anti-religious liberal, having been the primary author of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was passed in 1993 (and later…
stcynic | March 19, 2004Rusty of the New Covenant Blog put up a post that included a link to this article by James Hitchcock, entitled "The Enemies of Religious Liberty". In this article, Hitchcock argues that numerous academics, including such prominent legal scholars as Cass Sunstein and Kathleen Sullivan, are opposed to the very idea of religious liberty, a negation that he refers to as "a radically comprehensive and even imperial version of liberal ideology." On a cursory reading, it seems to me that Hitchcock is misrepresenting the views of at least some of these scholars, building a straw man to destroy. His…
stcynic | March 1, 2004Rusty from New Covenant has replied to my post on the religious right lowering its expectations, but more specifically to a comment I made at the end. I ended the post by saying, "The culture war isn't going well for the religious right. Another victory for true decency." Rusty responds:True decency?
Why is it that Darwinists continue to hold on to ideas such as decency, morality, justice, and rights? Actually, what I should ask is: Why do inconsistent Darwinists continue to hold on to such ideas?
Let me say a couple of things. First, I hate the term "darwinist". I am no more a "darwinist"…
stcynic | February 29, 2004Interesting article in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle titled Culture war being reshaped; Conservatives lower expectations. It points out that in the debate over gay marriage, the religious right seems to have pretty much given up on stopping the trend toward civil unions for homosexual couples:Conservative activist William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, says he believes Bush's proposal for a constitutional amendment is a "cultural tipping point" that will restore a "culture of restraint and decency."
The ban will not prevent the…