Posted on 03/29/2006 1:04:29 PM PST by Crackingham
The "War on Christmas" has morphed into a "War on Christians."
Last December, some evangelical Christian groups declared that the religious celebration of Christmas -- and even the phrase "Merry Christmas" -- was under attack by the forces of secularism. This week, radio commentator Rick Scarborough convened a conference in Washington on the "War on Christians and the Values Voters in 2006." The opening session was devoted to "reports from the frontlines" on "persecution" of Christians in the United States and Canada, including an artist whose paintings were barred from a municipal art show in Deltona, Fla., because they contained religious themes.
Among the conference's speakers were former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and conservative Christian leaders Phyllis Schlafly, Rod Parsley, Gary Bauer, Janet Parshall and Alan Keyes.
To many of the 400 evangelicals packed into a small ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, it was a hard but necessary look at moral relativism, hedonism and Christophobia, or fear of Christ, to pick just a few terms offered by various speakers referring to the enemy. To some outsiders, it illuminated the paranoia of the Christian right.
"Certainly religious persecution existed in our history, but to claim that these examples amount to religious persecution disrespects the experiences of people who have been jailed and died because of their faith," said Hollyn Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
"This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position," said the Rev. Robert Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Who are you or anyone else to demand that I respect an abusive blackrobe when they abuse our long constitutional traditions?
Judges need not fear the people, tyrants should.
"Blackrobes" didn't create the Fourteenth Amendment - Congress did, and the States ratified it.
I don't request diddly-squat. I could care less what you think. The office of a judge, however, inherently demands respect. "Render honor to whom honor is due."
Disagree with any judge as much as you like. Heaven knows we all do. They don't even agree amongst themselves. But, while disagreeing, show a modicum of respect for people who have studied the law and are really trying their best to rule justly.
And this is why I decided to turn down my acceptance to law school.
When you're in legal trouble, it's great to have a big legal gun on your side. So I suppose someone has to be a lawyer, but God help them. To see both sides of an issue equally eventually can cause blindness.
Don't you mean "I couldn't care less what you think?"
If I were to suggest to you that you can understand the Bible by reading the writings of Carl Sagan -- who would skew it to fit his own atheist views -- then you wouldn't really be able to understand the Bible at all. You need to go to the source and the source's source. It's fine to read critics, even a good idea, but you won't understand the book itself by reading only critics.
Modern day law book authors often act as critics of the Constitution in its original form and intent. That's why they so fancy the idea of a living constitution that can be amended by the courts rather than by the people and their representatives.
Whether things should be this way is a different question - and my own viewpoints are irrelevant on this question. The law speaks for itself.
Probably.
"Original intent" is only of limited use where there has been a huge sea change in the Constitution itself because of the the Fourteenth Amendment. The very essence of federalism in our Government was radically changed when that amendment was ratified, leaving a lot of the arguments by the signers of the Constitution anachronistic.
I call BS. Mannequins don't havbe genitals.
A link to a local story would help your credibility.
Was it the intent of the writers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment to do as you suggest? Maybe you should check out those sources and not just rely on what the law book writers with partisan passions of their own tell you it means today. Separating an amendment from the intent of its ratifiers and replacing it with the whims of judges is basically the same thin as replacing a republican democracy with an oligarchy form of gov't. I hardly think that was the intent of our founders, or even of the ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment.
If you will read the amendment process as written in the constitution you will find that judges play no role. They are supposed to only make sure everyone plays by the agreed to terms.
Though it was never intended to create a 9 ruler oligarchy, this is what the legal positivists would have us believe, the 14th amendment is the revisionist catch-all for the ACLU and other abusers.
Listen up. I am a free man, and do not have to respect lawless diktats.
One day an ambulance chaser, the next day a minor god. I respect the law as our founders made it, not as unelected tyrants twist it.
Someday, those of us of faith will be forced to choose between man's law and God's Law....it's fast approaching.
All this "legalistic argument" will then be truely irrelevant.
Of course for those who are truely observant, there is a clear and present danger to those of us on the "right"...and I believe that this is a well funded, organized effort to reduce those of us who "believe" to the status of Terrorist.
Additionally, too many conservatives believe that the "real" fight is between Liberals and conservatives...whereas there is a much darker "organization" benieth this.
For the time being I will render unto "the government"....but my real eternal home is in another land beyond the river.
Please explain how the 14th rescinded the God given right of an individual to say a prayer aloud, even over a loudspeaker at a high school football game.
No doubt. The 14th sat there quietly for 90 years or so until the blackrobes and their ACLU anti-american allies decided to ban public religiosity.
The law to the left is that which advances their goals. Factuality is irrelevant.
Bingo. Amending the Constitution as our founders and the states ratified it is not an anachronism. The recent eminent domain decision for example is merely the last insult in two generation's worth of unconstitutional decisions.
Leftist Blackrobes contorted it to fit their Utopian worldview.
Leftist Blackrobes contorted it to fit their Utopian worldview.
utopian? (think NWO)
Communism went underground in the 60s and 70s and today has reappeared as the ACLU, NEA, Media et el and all over our colleges and Universities.
But communism is just a sub set of the NWO organization...and they have infiltrated the "right" too.
We call them RINOS.
"It seems to me as though you wish to have total freedom to do or say anything..."
You've made up your mind. You don't seem to like facts. I see no point in discussing this further. If you need more information get David Limbaugh's book.
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