Tuesday, March 28, 2006

What exactly constitutes a "war on Christians"?

An organization called Vision America is going to host in Washington D.C. "The War Against Christians and the Values Voter 2006" Conference later this month. Vision America lists the following as examples of this war
  • Christmas symbols and greetings purged
  • Judge bans "In God We Trust" from Pledge of Allegiance
  • Chaplain told he can't pray in Jesus' name
  • Removal of 10 Commandments monuments
  • Move to stifle religious expression at Air Force Academy
  • Christians arrested for praying at a "gay pride" rally in Philadelphia
  • Homosexual "marriage" by judicial decree in Mass.
  • Blasphemous "Da Vinci Code" movie hits theaters in May
  • Churches torched in Alabama
  • Court says parental rights end at schoolhouse door
A commenter at the Secular Web's Church/State Seperation Forum astutely points out that what V.A. considers war amounts to not being allowed to establish a theocracy or to impose their moralistic beliefs on others through legislation.

Most of those examples they are calling a "War on Christians" and "Overruling God" are proper enforcement of non-establishment, a fact that they hide by omitting mention of the government context outside of which they are not applicable, combined with an arson rampage that resulted in arrests and a popular novel converted to a movie. So we can reasonably conclude: 1) these people vehemently oppose non-establishment of Christianity amd Christian compatable monotheism which they consider to be an unacceptable attack on their religious beliefs 2) they consider laws which don't enforce their religious beliefs on the general population to be an unacceptable attack on their religious beliefs, 3) they consider fictional movies that challange facts which are posited by the religion to be an unacceptable attack on their religious beliefs, 4) they consider 1-3 above to be a raging war comparable in nature to a church arson rampage crime.

When people politicize their religion like this then their religious beliefs become part of the political debate and a proper target for challange. Basically, there is no way to challange their disrespect for the civil rights of non-Christians short of convincing them that their religious beliefs are questionable since they make no practical or meaningfull distinction between their religious beliefs and their perspective regarding public policy.
Failure to make a distinction between religious beliefs and public policy is a trait shared by theocratic Islam, a point raised by Jimmy Carter which was dismissed as absurd by a reviewer at the Weekly Standard.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan links to a legal brief demonstrating that if you're an atheist you're unlikely to win a child custody case in the United States.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post!

I found your blog through Blogs for Bush. I'm a bit of a lurker there lately...every time I start commenting I'm too overcome with outrage to continue. I'm impressed with your much better efforts on that front.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I particularly enjoyed this posting.

Hume's Ghost said...

Thanks for the feedback.