It seems that when the majority religious sects have a government policy go against them and their religion – they make a legal claim demanding separation of church and state. They never ask for it when a policy – say the Faith Based Initiative – supports them or gives them an advantage – like government funding.
Tag: 1st amendment
On March 29th it was reported that the Borders bookstore chain had decided not to stock the April/May issue of the “Free Inquiry” magazine. The chain claimed it was concerned about the safety of their customers because the issue of the magazine would include a selection of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that had been published in a Danish newspaper back in September However Secular Left has learned that Borders looked the other way when a conservative magazine, “The Weekly Standard” published an article about the cartoons AND included a full color photo of the Danish newspaper with the cartoons.
In response to the passage on February 24th of an outright ban on abortion from the South Dakota legislature, an Internet based church, The Church of Reality, has issued an edict that the ban violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the church’s exercise of its religion. I loved the idea of using a law like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993)( aka RFRA) against laws that are passed mainly to legalize someone’s religious agenda. Something, however smelled fishy.
It is not the government’s job to acknowledge religion of any kind and no one I know would support such a position. The only people who do are religious conservatives. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be fighting tooth and nail to keep the words “under God” in the pledge.
Reading various religious right and other political conservative writings on the issue of the “religion of secularism” one would get the idea that there is a “religion of secularism” and that it is trying to corrupt “our children” and “our values”. Evolution, sex education, abortion and everything else against their beliefs is seen as the creed of the “religion of secularism”.
Being that this website is called the Secular Left, you can be sure that the religious right is wrong on all accounts. But don’t take my word for it, let the evidence back me up.