Tag: church and state - Page 16

June 1, 2014

Christian Group Doesn’t Want You To Vote

image of Ohio Christian Alliance President Chris Long

Ohio Christian Alliance President Chris Long – a failed political candidate who wants to keep you from voting because – RELIGION!!

It is well known that some fundamentalist Christians, like their Muslim counterparts, The Taliban, don’t want democracy. They want to impose biblical law as the law of the land and be able to opt out of any laws that ‘conflict’ with their religious beliefs. The Ohio Christian Alliance is one such group. They want to see photo IDs be mandated for voting in Ohio while making it harder in general to vote. It seems their agenda is really typical undemocratic conservatism covered with fake religious trappings.

Read the post

May 14, 2014

Recent Court Case Opens Door For Nonreligious Inclusion? Maybe… Maybe Not

City council members praying before a meeting

The recent US Supreme Court decision, Town Of Greece, New York v. Galloway, opened the door to ‘legislative’ prayer that can be said at the beginning of a government meeting or event. Although the court said that government can’t proscribe the content of such prayers, it did give some guidelines on what prayer would pass a constitutional test. Some nonreligious groups are creating programs to offer people who would give nonreligious ‘prayers’. Some conservative governments have taken the court decision as a green light to only allow Christian prayers. This issue is far from being solved.

In the court decision, handed down on May 5th, Justice Kennedy wrote:

Read the post

May 6, 2014

Supreme Court Degrades Christianity With Town Of Greece V. Galloway Ruling

Religion in government is okay if it is generic

In a 5-4 decision on Monday, the US Supreme Court said that the Town of Greece New York could open their town council meetings with a religious prayer. The majority on the court held that legislative prayers were not unconstitutional because they were traditional acts performed at government meetings. We’ve seen this argument before, it has been called Ceremonial Deism and it means a civic religion divorced of any specific religious meaning. I would think that Christians would be very upset that the court considers their religion ‘generic’. Just because Ceremonial Deism has been a tradition doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful.

One argument the court used to rule in favor of the Town of Greece was the old argument from tradition:

Read the post

April 30, 2014

Judge Denies Religious School’s Request For Special Treatment

The city of Upper Arlington is a land locked suburb of Columbus Ohio. Because of a lack of room for expansion they have passed ordinances to protect their property tax base by controlling how property can be used. Tree of Life Christian Schools purchased a seven building office complex in 2010 and want to consolidate the private schools they run at the location. Schools are one of the land uses prohibited by the city. Tree of Life sued in federal court and a judge ruled that the religious school wasn’t discriminated against.

Read the post

April 26, 2014

One Christian Unicorn: Religion In The Schools

If you spend enough time involved in the fight to maintain the separation of the church and state, you tend to see the same arguments from theists used over and over. Even though the arguments have been refuted over and over, they still use them and act like it is a way to get a checkmate against real religious freedom. One such argument is believing if only religion were put back into the schools all the problems in the world will disappear. The reality is much much different.

Something interesting I found on the Intertubes the other day gives a good example of an argument about putting religion back in the schools. It was a blog post about a book by Jeff Wallace titled “In God We Trusted”:

Read the post

March 24, 2014

If Hobby Lobby Wins, Corporations Will Be Able To Tell Your Doctor What To Say

The Hobby Lobby religious exemption to covering contraception case will be heard in the US Supreme Court starting on Tuesday. If corporations are given a right to religious freedom there is no telling how bad this will be for people. One bad result, that hasn’t been reported on by the media, is that both plaintiffs want to prevent Doctors from even talking about contraceptives to their employees. These corporations want to get between you and your doctor.

Read the post