1. Pity away; personally, I'll be sticking with the humanist and Enlightenment traditions and ways of knowing upon which our Constitution rests.
2. For the umpteenth time: nobody in their right mind is arguing that anybody's rights to believe, or to pray, should be taken or limited in any fashion whatsoever. We're simply going with the Constitution as interpreted by some very conservative people opver the last two hundred plus years: the power of the goevernment, and the money of the taxpayers, should not be used to push fundamentalist Protestantism.
3. You folks would do well to read up on the guys you're supporting, and the issues they repeatedly cite. The judge in Alabama, Roy what's-'is-name, is NOT, repeat NOT, merely posting the Ten Commandments and letting that be enough. Oh my goodness, no. He and a group of followers--fundamentalists all--have been demanding that their views and their views only be put into courthouses for quite some time; they snuck in with a ten-ton rock with the Commandments attached; they're running the guy for office. What's more, he and his supporters are citing PRECISELY the State's Rights doctrines that have been used, again and again and again, to block Federal laws about minor things like voting rights for a century and a half.
4. The notion that citing the essence of Islam contributes nothing to the historical understanding of Western law, or to the understanding of this country's history, is absurd. Moreover, my point was that--despite the repeatedly-cited smokescreen--this has nothing to do with, "religion," in general. (Unless of course you think that the words, "religion," and, "Protestantism," are synonyms.) It has to do with the State's sponsorship of a particular religion.
The oral arguments in the Supreme Court on Wednesday--which, despite the frequent lying and distortion by right-wingers, is a quite conservative Court--specifically addressed the issue of the difference between a ceremonial remark such as, "God bless this honorable Court," and the systematic, explicit sponsorship of a particular sect.
Listen up, guys: what you are supporting is not religion, or even Christianity in general. What you are flogging is the narrow, extremely-conservative Christian fundamentalism pushed by guys like Jay Sekula, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell ("9/11 is God's punishment for homosexuals and the ACLU..."), Bob Jones and the rest of these clowns.
These are the guys who are pushing this, together with an occasion somewhat wacky atheist or two. The fundamentalists are well-financed, they are insistent, they have pretty much the same set of beliefs as the guys currently running Iran or the Taliban, and they have been extremely explicit about their plans and their strategies. It isn't "Christians," it ain't Catholics, it ain't Buddhists and Muslims, and it damn sure ain't Jews. It ain't even Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist his whole life, or Cornell West, deacon of his church for decades. You're arguing for right-wing Christian fundamentalism.
So if you're on their side, it's certainly your prerogative as an American citizen--a prerogative, I might add, fought for by the very humanists and Enlightenment people who you fantasize are your enemy. So support Robertson, Falwell ("9/11 is God's just punishment for the ACLU"), and the likes of Ollie North (arms for hostages/death squads for Christianity Ollie) as much as you like.
Just be honest about what you're arguing for.
