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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}