TBS, has anyone asked for an apology? I noticed one post saying it shouldn\'t be here, but I don\'t think the majority of us are asking for an apology, just weighing in on the issue. For my own part I honestly don\'t see how the story could be taken as anything but an attack, and I don\'t see how the humor could work without buying into some of the assumptions of that attack. If that\'s your outlook, then so be it, no apologies necessary, but I for one do disagree. That\'s putting it mildly.
Thanks for the many positive comments from several of you. Here\'s hoping I don\'t destroy the goodwill with the rest of my post.
For my own part, I never worry about radical left, right, or middle of the road; I try to take each issue in its own terrms Sometimes that lands me on the extreme left and sometimes in the middle of the road. Can\'t say, I end up on the right too often. But I don\'t see much percentage in aiming for any particular balance on the issue.
On the ACLU, I think they are wrong about a few thigs, and the NAMBLA case(s) may well be one of them. When people argue the actual cases against the actual position the ACLU has taken on them, I can respect that. What I can\'t stomach is deliberate misrepresentation, which is part of what this piece of spam is all about.
On the issue of God on the money, in the pledge, etc. I\'m afraid to say I am one of those who is not particularly accomodating. Frankly, I don\'t see accommodation as the issue. The question isn\'t one of being polite to those who disagree; it\'s a very direct question of whether or not any given piece of religious symbolism constitutes an impermissible establishment of religion. If the answer to that question is \'yes,\' then they ought to go. If it\'s \'no,\' then they ought to be allowed by the government at least. Accomodating one another as a kind of general courtesy just doesn\'t enter into it.
I would add that the currrent rationale on things like the Pledge, the 10 Commandments, God on the money, etc. is really bizarre. Time and again we are told these are there only to acknowledge an important historical fact. If that is all it is, then Pledging Allegience to one nation, UNDER GOD, is quite literally taking his name in vain. It is quite literally pretending to talk to God in order to do something else. So is the reference to God on the money, and so are the many applications of the 10 Commandments. If these are simply about history, then every time people invoke God\'s name as a means of merely acknowledging history, then they are quite literally violating one of his commandments (to say nothing of a very clear Biblical injunction from Jesus to keep one\'s prayers private).
It\'s frustrating to see accommodation to such measures taken as a gesture of good faith to Christians when that gesture itself is demanded in such poor faith. And I can\'t help but wish that many of the believers who keep demanding these accommodations would take their own faith more seriously. I don\'t personally want Christians to be less militant about their faith. On this issue more than any others, I want them to take their faith more seriously. ...and to think twice about whether all these half-hearted invocations and convoluted legal arguments might reflect as poorly on their own faith just as they do on our legal system.
