Posted on 11/07/2013 4:12:16 AM PST by markomalley
Atheists told the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday that the town of Greece, N.Y. has no business opening its public meetings with Christian or other sectarian prayers.
"We hope the Supreme Court will agree that civic participation should not be conditioned on compromising one's religious scruples," said Americans United Legal Director Ayesha Khan.
"It's important to understand that we are not asking the board to discontinue its practice of presenting prayers," she told reporters outside the court. "We are asking that citizens not be pressured to participate in those prayers and that the prayers be nondenominational and inclusive."
"I do not support the right to use the power of government to impose on religious minorities, and that's what's going on here," said Douglas Laycock, who argued the case for the plaintiffs.
He called the town's prayer practices "highly coercive" as well as a sectarian endorsement, both of which "violate all the principles of the Establishment Clause."
According to Laycock, "Both sides of the (Supreme) Court, both the liberals and the conservatives, have agreed sectarian endorsements are prohibited and coercion is prohibited, and we have both those things in this case."
Religious coercion -- being forced to compromise one's "religious scruples" -- is at the heart of another issue that is expected to make it way to the Supreme Court.
If government can't trample atheists' "religious scruples," and if "coercion is prohibited," can the Obama administration force Roman Catholics to buy health insurance that covers services, which violate church teachings?
Forcing Catholics, under penalty of a fine, to pay for birth control, abortifacients, and sterilization, for example -- all of which violate Catholics' deeply held religious beliefs -- is an unconstitutional infringement of religious liberty, they argue.
It should be noted that the The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which led the charge against the Obama administration’s contraception mandate, sided with the town of Greece, against the atheists, in Wednesday's arguments.
"The Founders knew what it meant to have a state church and legislative prayer doesn't come close," said Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund.
"This case is about whether the professionally offended will be able to strong-arm cities into banning anything that could be remotely interpreted as religious."
So the “no god god” reigns supreme in their edict on America?
If you like your God, you can keep your God. - Baraq Hussein Ubama
Liberals believe in "(D)evolving" interpretations.
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
—Matthew 24:36-44
These atheists are arguing against the design of America. It was designed to be a free expression zone with adults recognizing that folks have differences.
They don’t want free expression, they want controlled expression.
They want to change the design to controlled expression where a big government tells everyone the allowed ways to express oneself.
The original design is a whole lot easier and vastly more free. The atheist design change calls for thought police and thought policing. The people for the American way aren’t. They are the people for the north Korean way.
If you like your God, you can keep your God. - Baraq Hussein Ubama
...good one...
“A religious vacuum in a sentient human is impossible.”
Nonsense. I do understand your POV. I think there is a “god gene” in many of us, as we are descended from successful human communities in which the concept of God or Gods played a big role. Those who didn’t believe were less likely to thrive and reproduce. That said, I think that very likely some people were born without that gene or (group of genes) and supported the idea of God to be like everyone else. Today, there’s a choice and some people choose not to believe.
a worldview that is godless is not neutral in content or consequences for the individual or the society in which he lives. ditto for the God centered worldview,
religious neutrality is an impossible state to achieve
nearly all government action has religious consequences,therefor it should be as limited and locally controlled as possible.
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