Keep It To Yourself
Believe whatever you want to believe, but keep it out of my laws. The laws of the United States are judged by the Constitution, not anyone’s belief system.
I’m not impressed that a proposed law is in concert with an Imam or Ayatollah’s interpretation of Sharia law from Mecca or Qom, nor a Rabbi’s interpretation of the Mishnah in Jerusalem, nor the Pope’s interpretation of Canon law in Rome, nor a pastor’s interpretation of the laws laid down by a French lawyer in exile in Geneva. None of these sources have relevance to the laws in the United States.
Most of the people who are pushing these ‘Personhood’ laws that make a zygote a person would probably not want it known that this is the position of the ayatollahs in Qom in their interpretation of Sharia. I wonder what voters would say about these politicians trying to impose Shi’ia Sharia law on them?
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There’s no one more unwelcome at my door than a door-to-door preacher, unless it’s a whole family of them. I still remember one occasion over 20 years ago, in which I had prepared myself a splendid Sunday dinner, opened the door to a beautiful spring day (with the screen closed, of course), sat down alone with my thoughts to enjoy my meal… and was preempted by someone who wanted to talk to me about liberal politicians taking God out of America and liberal judges with their agenda-based adjudication… that’s as far as he got before I stopped him. I was polite, all things considered… but I refused to listen to his spiel. He was unhappy at being sent away, but I hinted to him that I could say the same thing much more rudely if he lingered.
For an accurate picture of how much conservatives care about people’s First Amendment freedom of religion, one need only consider the joint effort of NYPD and the CIA to spy on Muslims and mosques, with no warrants and no individualized suspicion. (All this is while NYPD was operating across the border in New Jersey!) To me, that says it all about conservatives’ understanding of “freedom of religion.”
Thank you, you guys, for being the voices of sanity in these mad times. The teabaggery set has not really thought out what a theocracy would look like in the US… after the years of wars determining exactly WHICH translation of the Bible was the true word of God and which Christian religion was the one to govern…
For the religious I would point out the obvious logic of Abraham Lincoln talking about both sides claiming divine support in the Civil War – both may and one must be wrong.
John Locke pointed out much earlier that no one has more concern for a person’s soul than the person himself, so each must be allowed to follow their own path to salvation.
Without some form of psychological manipulation there is no way of changing ‘belief’ – it is buried too deeply into what goes into making someone who they are. Changes must be voluntary or they have no meaning.
A Jewish carpenter got it right when he noted that public displays of religiosity were hypocrisy.
I have always viewed religion as a private matter with no place in the public arena. It is a matter of historical record that every time religion and government merged the result was a disaster, with religion taking the majority of the damage.