In this last post of 2005, I wanted to review the struggles those of us who want to get the government out of the religion cheerleading business.
Tag: church and state
A 3 judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court ruled on Tuesday December 20th that a 10 Commandments display in Mercer County Kentucky was not unconstitutional.
The case brought by the ACLU, concerned the Commandments viewed alongside nine other documents, including the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence at the Mercer County courthouse in Harrodsburg.
The court used the recent precedent of McCreary County, Ky., v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky that was decided by the US Supreme Court this past June.
The court used the common historical sham to justify the presence of the Decalogue and gave the ACLU some lumps for their involvement in the case.
In 2005, the mayor didn’t put up the Navtivity scene. He claimed that road work in front of city hall made it too difficult to keep the scene safe from damage. He intends to put it back up in 2006 along with symbols from other religions:
McPherson said he already has approved a symbol celebrating the winter solstice and another for the Hindu religion — a partman, part-eagle deity called Garuda who sometimes represents the sun.
Of course if he plans on including such symbols then he also needs one from Kwanzaa, Jain, Sikh, Witchcraft, magick, the occult, Sumerian, Zoroastrian, Baha’i, Islamic, Wicca, Neopaganism, Druid, Celtic, and on and on. If Mayor McPherson says no to any religious symbol then he is risking the city of Reynoldsburg to a law suit.
Just like in 2004, McPherson is ignoring the law and even the advice of his own City Attorney.
Robert Meyer tries to make a case that businesses expressing “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” are being offensive to and exclusive against Christians.
“Free exercise of religion isn’t realized by an exclusion of all. This is an attempt at negative neutrality that publicly squelches the free exercise of religion, but does nothing constructive to ultimately avoid conflict. It amazes me how the First Amendment, which protected the public’s free religious exercise from intrusions by the government, now is twisted so that the Establishment Clause is used to sanitize the public square from any mention of God.”
Find out why and how he is SO wrong on the next episode of Secular Left…..
Cal Thomas, a conservative columnist, has gone against his conservative brethren. Both in a recent column and on the FOX News Channel, Thomas complained about the efforts in support of “Merry Christmas”. In his column titled “Not so silent night”, Thomas writes:
“The effort by some cable TV hosts and ministers to force commercial establishments into wishing everyone a “Merry Christmas” might be more objectionable to the One who is the reason for the season than the “Happy Holidays” mantra required by some store managers.
I have never understood why so many Christians feel the need to see and hear “Merry Christmas” proclaimed to them at stores by people who may not believe its central message. While TV personalities, junk mail letters and some of the ordained bemoan the increasing secularization of culture; perhaps some teaching might be helpful from the One in whose behalf they claim to speak.”
So we may not agree with everything Cal has to say but at least on this issue he gets it.