"How about if the next president decides to erect a giant crescent moon, the traditional symbol of Islam, on the White House lawn - that would be okay with you?"
Whether it is "okay" with me or not, such an act is CERTAINLY CONSTITUTIONAL! If you dont like how certain public official use their freedom of expression, you can vote them out. I for one would have no problem with, say a President Joe Leiberman, putting out Hannukah lights instead of a White House Christmas tree. No problem.
What I do have a problem with is the fascistic idea that all public expressions of religious sentiment are out of bounds simply because they (by necessity) fail to be all-inclusive. *Any* expression fails to be all-inclusive, so this is a recipe for supressing *any* religious sentiment in public. That is repressive, anti-freedom and and anti-religious bigotry.
"What on earth is Roy Moore so very terrified of, that he can't put his beliefs to the Pepsi Challenge without stacking the deck in his favor, without putting his thumb on the scale?Please tell me it's not so, that the faith is not that thin and filmy. I don't believe it. "
You can turn that around. Do you really think this mere stone slab is going to somehow forcible convert the state of Alabama into Judge Moore's 'true' religion? You think it has such amazing powers that it becomes an 'establishment' of it? You really think to build up one thing (Moses) somehow degrades anything not related to Judeo-Christian heritage. What a fragile and easily offended ego it would take to belive that!
No of course not. It's just an innocuous display. It really doesnt matter one way or the other to the beliefs of anyone and, and will not change minds. Of course this is not about what people believe deep down, it's just a public expression, a testimonial of what people (some people) *already* believe and respect.
If anything, it's the nutty ACLU who falsely make this stone monument to be more than it really is.
" Why can't the damn atheists put their damn atom in the rotunda too? "
They *can*, if the officials managing it let them. You find a sponsor for it, go ahead. It's fine. IN fact you find such stuff in some world's fairs. ... But dont go around pretending like the bogus ACLU-types here that there is a Constitutional aborgation simply because there wasnt 'equal time' or "equal space" here. You have to hang on to the worst of Judicial activist bogus logic to reach that point (hey it didnt stop the Carter appointed Judge Myron, but that doesnt make him right).
I need to take a break from this subject, I think - I am now heartily sick of Roy Moore and his antics ;)
Whether it is "okay" with me or not, such an act is CERTAINLY CONSTITUTIONAL!
What then, to your thinking, does the establishment clause mean, exactly?
No of course not. It's just an innocuous display.
If it's just an innocuous display, what's the big deal about taking it down? Why are people so agitated about it, praying in front of it, and being dragged out by the police at the thought that it might be removed?
Sorry, don't buy it. The display clearly has religious significance to many people, making it more than just an innocuous display. It's an article of a particular faith, promoted over and above all other faiths by an agent of the state of Alabama, which is impermissible under current law. Roy can try to change the law if he doesn't like it, but that's how it stands right now.
They *can*, if the officials managing it let them.
Oh, good. I can enjoy the same sort of freedom in the public square that Roy Moore does. So long as Roy Moore is gracious enough to let me, which he won't.
No, thanks. The hound that guards the henhouse isn't supposed to develop a taste for chicken....