Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site akgua.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!akgua!rjb From: rjb@akgua.UUCP (R.J. Brown [Bob]) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: School Prayer Amendment - reply to ?? Message-ID: <994@akgua.UUCP> Date: Fri, 21-Sep-84 07:40:52 EDT Article-I.D.: akgua.994 Posted: Fri Sep 21 07:40:52 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 03:44:00 EDT Organization: AT&T Technologies/Bell Labs, Atlanta Lines: 75 Mr. BenDavid writes >> >> >>If vocal prayer is a doctrine of some religion then it inheretly >>designs to impose its vocal prayers on the ears of some whose >>right it is to be free of such imposed prayer. That is against >>the constitution. Their right to pray stops at my right not to >>have it imposed on my ears, the ears of my children, and not >>have my children subjected to peer ridicule for resisting (even >>being a passive party to) religious imposition. >> >>Christianity from time to time has the doctrine of forced con- >>version (Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, Naziism, etc.). Shouldn't >>they too be allowed to "do their thing" in schools under that >>same principle? Just because it is a doctrine of some religion >>to pray vocally has no relevance to their right to PRACTICE >>their religion IN SCHOOL! The whole argument of the constitution >>relates to the right to practice one's religion in freedom APART >>FROM PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS and/or governmental ENDORSEMENT. >> >> Dealing with your first paragraph... Wouldn't the logical extension of your reasoning say that I only have freedom of speech as long as it doesn't offend you ? I take this tack because religious speech has too long been relegated to second class status. Again peer ridicule is exercise of free speech. Ignorant and unkind as it can be it is part of the exercise of free speech. Would you have the teachers or their assistants patrolling the school yard searching for those ridiculers (?) of their peers and punishing them ? Christianity must accept "blame" for the Inquisition and the Crusades but the Nazis were not officially Christians (they were more into Nature Worship) although they did put out propaganda that said things like "God sent Hitler to restore Germany to its rightfull place....etc etc" and "The 1000 year Reich will usher in the Millenium..." Jews were not forced to convert to Christianity. You were a Jew, by Nazi definition, if a certain portion of your ancestors were Jews. Your present religion at the time these facts were revealed was not relevant to whether you got to ride the train to the concentration camp. If your assertion is correct please provide a reference of wide spread forced conversion during Hitler's era. Remember Nazi dogma said that Jews were subhuman and it is a tad illogical to want to convert what you consider subhumans into your elite Aryan group, isn't it ? (if we assume Nazism is Christian ) Finally, the Constitution as implemented did not prohibit public exercise of religion (especially Christianity) in our public institutions. It remains to be seen if your view will carry the day legally but your view is certainly anti-historical in view of the continuous presence of God and religion (again usually Christianity) in the Government from the Continental Congress all the way down to the House and Senate today who continue to have invocations and chaplins. In the beginning of our Republic this "flaw" was not evident to the Founding Fathers (and Mothers). Perhaps, like Slavery, it will be a Constitutional error that is corrected. But also perhaps it will be recognized as an exercise of Free Speech which is the outcome I desire. Bob Brown {...ihnp4!akgua!rjb}