Oh, you've gotta be kidding!
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Posted on 03/26/2004 8:28:01 AM PST by Schatze
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Marie Alena Castle, a Minneapolis atheist, contends that the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is a hate crime.
Not one to stand idly by in the face of perceived injustice, the 77-year-old former Catholic has written a long brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of California atheist Michael Newdow, who urged the justices Wednesday to drop "under God" from the pledge.
Castle's brief is one of more than 50 that have been submitted in the case, which tests the constitutional prohibition on the official establishment of religion.
But Castle's is the only one that sets forth the thesis that Congress put "under God" into the pledge out of hostility toward atheists.
Supporters of the current pledge -- backed by the Bush administration -- argue that it merely reflects the role that religion has played in the nation's history and that it is more of a civic ritual than a religious one.
A retired business and technical writer with no background in law, Castle rests her argument on congressional records dating to 1954, at the height of the Cold War, when Congress inserted "under God" into the pledge.
She cites a speech by Congressman Louis Rabaut, the Michigan Democrat who sponsored the addition of the two-word phrase. He said: "You may argue from dawn to dusk about differing political, economic and social systems, but the fundamental issue which is the unbridgeable gap between America and Communist Russia is a belief in Almighty God . . ."
Given the level of hostility at the time, Castle said, "it is not an overstatement to call it a hate crime."
Castle's is the only atheist brief from Minnesota, the headquarters of a 300-member national group that she calls Atheists for Human Rights. She said the history of the pledge underscores how atheists have often been villified and attacked as "an unpopular group."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Not necessarily speaking of this case in particular, but if something supported by the vast majority is unconstitutional, then it doesn't matter if there is only one atheist in the whole country. The Constitution protects us from mob rule.
Probably. That's the home of the American Communist Party. I spent 14 years of my life up there, and never figured out what it was about Da Range that gave rise to hard core liberalism. Maybe it was the Finns. Or all that dissolved iron in the water.
You're assuming facts not in evidence. As a matter of fact, I'm agnostic. I'm just sick and tired of the minority dictating to the majority in this country.
Oh, you've gotta be kidding!
Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
Bingo. I'm not even religious, but I'm tired of seeing this country overrun by small groups of zealots.
I know we are a minority in a majority Christian society. But the number of people believing in a spherical Earth was a minority at one time, too. I believe society will eventually grow out of religion, but only when it doesn't need it anymore, which will be in a long time. I see a logical progression through cultural history: Polytheism >> Monotheism >> Atheism. Notice the decreasing number of gods?
We are no threat to you.
You were. Discrimination is still on the books, although no longer enforceable. And atheists are about the only group left that PC allows public degradation and ridicule of.
Are you kidding? Try Christians, fat people, smokers ... and the French.
That would be six one-thousandths of one percent. I think you meant .6 percent, which is still about 1.7 million people. So if you're going to use god in a way that interferes with the religious beliefs of people, remember that you are violating the rights of 1.7 million of them.
Minority sounds small as a percentage, until you put a number on it.
Marie Alena Castle also contends that whistling, eating a peach, and defrosting a refrigerator are hate crimes.
What's amusing is that these are the same people who scream about "tolerance" while trying to force their views down the throats of everyone else. Evidently, the word hypocrisy is not in their lexicon.
I'm just tired of the majority dictating to the minority in issues where there are constitutional protections.
But don't get me wrong, I don't care about God in the pledge. I think it's stupid and divisive and against the spirit of this country, but it doesn't affect me. I will care if my daughter's public school starts requiring her to state allegiance to a perceived Christian religious organization ("nation under God") or face ridicule or punishment for refusing to do so. But I'd never sue unless she herself complained and we couldn't work things out otherwise.
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