The atheists thing again

[evmori]

Check out some public school district sites on the internet, Merlyn. I think you will find many school run clubs that are as "discriminatory" as the BSA. I'm not gonna do your research. Why? Because I don't have a problem with it. You do! Go get 'em big guy!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Ed, you're the one claiming such groups exist, not me. I'll go look as soon as you bring me a snipe, ok?

[LongHaul]

Sometimes its funny how people that will argue about interpretation of single words or phrases can fail to understand the meaning of the First Amendment. Lets remember that the first ten amendments were just that, amendments, changes to the original document. The framers of the Constitution didnt think those ten guarantees needed to be in the constitution at all. It was written, presented and adopted without them. When those that did feel those ten guarantees needed to be included finally prevailed, the ten changes were made at the same time.

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. How does that become interpreted to mean the City of Nowhere can not have a Christmas tree? Congress isnt supposed to be involved with religion one way or the other. Congress has come to be interpreted as any civil government agency. Does that also mean that any civil agency can declare War or print money or any of the other things reserved for Congress?

 

It was the interpretation of the First Amendment by 14 men after the American Civil War, the SCOTUS at that time which arrived at the current interpretation. The Constitution does not actually guarantee the right of anyone to stop the City of Nowhere from putting up a Christmas tree, in fact it guarantees the exact opposite. If we want to discuss the SCOTUS it was that same body that ruled that the BSA does not discriminate but the same people that want the one interpretation considered law are ready to ignore and deny the second ruling. Laws pertaining to religion were supposed to be left to the States, most of which have a provision similar to the First Amendment in their constitution, and finally the local community. If the City of Nowhere wants to erect a Christmas tree the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States actually says that they can. But who cares about such minutiae?

LongHaul

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

LongHaul, the ratifying of the constitution wasn't entirely separate from the bill of rights; that's what the federalists and anti-federalists were arguing about, and some opposed ratification until they got at least a promise of later amendments.

 

And the original constitution, with or without the bill of rights, still allowed for states to have official state religions, financed by public taxes, and religious requirements for office, so of course a city could be an official Christian city and put up their own religious icons. The states even had the authority to make other religions illegal.

 

Plus, your wrong about what the supreme court ruled; they NEVER ruled that the BSA doesn't discriminate, they ruled that the BSA is a private organization that isn't subject to public accomodation laws. The BSA can legally exclude Wiccans, Muslims, Jews, blacks, or anybody else.

[evmori]

Actually, Merlyn, you are the one spouting that public schools can't sponsor discriminatory groups. Using that skewed logic, any public school that sponsors an all-male or all-female choral ensemble is sponsoring a discriminatory group. And in what document does it state everyone has a right to belong to everything?

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Ed, I've explained it to you before, and you simply can't learn.

 

Public schools CAN discriminate in some ways. Religion isn't one of them.

[OldGreyEagle]

::Looking over Forum::

 

where did that Ed and Merlyn Smackdown thread go now that we could use it?

 

::shrugs shoulders, oh well::

[Gonzo1]

 

DanKroh,

You said: "Methinks Paul Harvey was just pulling numbers out of thin air.... " I just went to www.paulharvey.com and listened to the archive of Tuesday's broadcast. He said that according to Newsweek Magazine, 91% of Amercian adults believe in God, atheists, however noisy, are just 3% of us. If I'm not mistaken, you would say that Newsweek magazine is a reliable source. But, to be sure, i looked it up, it's in the March 30, 2007, Newsweek. I guess your "reliable" polling data isn't reliable, Me thinks you're wrong.

 

I wouldn't mind if a pentagram wee put up, as long as it's display is proportional to the number of wiccans in town. So, Christmas get 3 weeks, pentagram gets 10 minutes. It's only fair on a per capita basis.

 

DanKroh, it's too bad people get murdered for thier beliefs. I don't want to see anyne get murdered or beat up. Be glad you live here, in the "good ol' US of A" as you put it. There is no execution or murder because you believe differently. Believe on!

 

You also said: "Yes, and if they are required by the BSA to disapprove leaders who are atheists or gay, or to reject the membership applications of boys who are atheists or gay, then they would be breaking the law. THAT is the difference. Meet there all you want. Just don't ask them to enforce the discriminatory policies of the BSA"

 

If it's OK for schools to discriminate by having all-girl teams, they are dicriminating based on gender, how about the senior ciizen who want to use the tax payer funded community center for indoor walking. The age discrimination isnt it? You can't have it both ways.

 

Poof! Be gone!

 

Merlyn,

You said "Public schools CAN discriminate in some ways. Religion isn't one of them." So, it's OK to discriminate, schools have have an all girl basketball team, but not BSA. School could host 100 Black Men Chorus, but not BSA, Schoools could hos All-Latino Soccer Championship, not BSA. Here's a good one, Schools can host Rainbow Coalition, not BSA School can host anything but BSA, is that right? Down't make sense. As long as Boy Scouts can't get the charter from a school, that seem to be OK, all of the gay, all boy, all girl, race divided stuff is OK, just not Boy Scouts, is that right?

 

Merlyn, I ackowledge your courage to come here and try to make your point. You have a lotta courage, determination, stick-to-it-iveness, drive, motivation and personal devotion to your cause. I'm thinking you are more like Jehovah's Witnesses, you keep at it and keep at it, but you're just plain wrong.

(no offense to our Jehovah's Witness brothers or sisters here, I know you believe devoutly in God, I simply don't care for your approach)

 

 

 

[LongHaul]

>>And the original constitution, with or without the bill of rights, still allowed for states to have official state religions, financed by public taxes, and religious requirements for office, so of course a city could be an official Christian city and put up their own religious icons. The states even had the authority to make other religions illegal.

[Lisabob]

Ed, Gonzo, the reason why it is acceptable for public schools to run certain clubs that are all one gender or the other and yet not acceptable for schools to run clubs that treat people differently based on religious faith (or lack thereof) is due to the fact that the United States Constitution provides specific protections for religion but less so for gender.

 

The first amendment to the Constitution begins as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,..."

 

Now you can put whatever spin on this you personally desire but over the decades and centuries the Supreme Court has ruled that this means we do, in fact, have separation of church and state (this is the "establishment clause." Look at any standard Constitutional Law textbook if you don't believe me but I teach this stuff for a living too so I do think I'm qualified here. The second clause, the "free exercise clause," is a somewhat different issue although they are commonly, and somewhat wrongly, conflated in public opinion.) And in practical terms, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries, the Court has ruled that since public schools are part of the government, this applies to them. They cannot discriminate on the basis of religion.

 

Whether that also means that schools must give the same credence, leeway, sensitivity, etc., to atheists as to various religious groups is still an arguable point (see the Newdow case, but that was a messy case for reasons that had little to do with the basic religious argument and so it is an issue that will probably surface again in some other form in the future, IMO). But there's little contention about the fact that public schools are not supposed to support any particular religious expression. This is the basis for why the BSA backed off from having public schools as COs.

 

While you've got that Constitutional Law textbook out, let me suggest as well that you look up "selective incorporation." This is the tenet that the bill of rights ought to be interpreted to include not only Congress, but also the states (and by implication, local gov'ts which are creations of the states). While this has happened on a case-by-case, right-by-right basis since the early 1920s, the net result to this point in time is that there is very little from the bill of rights that is NOT applied today to the states as well. And this is not because of state-level constitutions. Rather, it has to do with the 14th amendment and in particular the part in section 1 that begins "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens...."

 

The 14th amendment was one of the so-called "Civil War" amendments, ratified just after the end of the war in 1868 to keep states from passing what were known as "black codes" (laws that systematically stripped people of their rights explicitly because of their race) and while it was really only about race in the context of the times, it has been interpreted and applied more broadly (by many people) since that time.

 

Now look again at the Constitution and search for references to women's rights. Yes the 19th amendment guarantees the right to vote for women (though not until 1920 - not really THAT long ago). But there is no broader protection or requirement that government provide equal protection under the law or otherwise treat men and women the same. As I'm sure you'll recall, the Equal Rights Amendment of the previous era failed in the early 80s. So the Constitution is somewhat more ambiguous on this issue and thus it may be permissible for government institutions like public schools to have all-girl or all-boy clubs. Still, federal law does require some gender parity when it comes to public schools and sports via Title IX (another controversial topic for many, I'm sure). And beyond sports teams, it is exceedingly rare to find school clubs that are limited by gender. It might be that some clubs simply draw more participants of one gender than the other but that's not the same as setting rules that say "no boys" or "girls keep out." So even here, I don't think this is a very good comparison point to be perfectly honest.

 

Finally, whether the 14th amendment extends to gender (or sexual orientation or a host of other rights claimants) is also a debatable point. Some tend to read it very narrowly and say no, while others read it more broadly and say yes. But regardless of how you read the 14th amendment, the 1st amendment guarantees not only free exercise but also prohibits the establishment of religion which has, over time, come to mean a "separation of church and state" in practical terms. You might not like this but it is none the less the way it is. And as a society that places a great deal of emphasis on past decisions (precedent) in terms of jurisprudence, this is not likely to change any time soon.

[Lisabob]

I really don't know if I ought to be posting this here or in the thread on "the rule of 25." But here goes.

 

People have made various assertions about the current religious make up of our country. Well ok, here is some data from a highly regarded source. What follows is a survey question from the General Social Survey. The G.S.S. is conducted annually and asks a wide variety of questions about all sorts of aspects of our society. These same questions have been asked (with some minor variations) for close to 40 years now, providing researchers with a rich base of information for comparative purposes.

 

This particular question and results come from the 2004 GSS. The question asks about the religious affiliation of the person taking the survey. While it does not get into specifics for some lesser-known religions (such as Wicca - part of the thread on "the rule of 25"), it is quite interesting to see the results anyway. And although there are statistical issues with assuming that this survey is a perfect mirror for the American population as a whole, in general the GSS follows the best practices in survey research (sampling techniques, etc.) and is fairly reliable. And I'm not going to do the statistical analysis to come up with exact measures of reliability or margins of error tonight. Do it yourself (or hire someone) if you want to know.

 

What strikes me from these results though, is that only about 76% of respondents identify themselves as Protestants or Catholics, and about 14% identify as having NO religion. That's a pretty big group there in the "none" category.

 

124) What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion? (RELIG) (RELIGION)

TOTAL %

1) PROTESTANT 1483 52.7

2) CATHOLIC 656 23.3

3) JEWISH 55 2.0

4) NONE 403 14.3

5) OTHER 37 1.3

6) BUDDHISM 13 0.5

7) HINDUISM 13 0.5

8) OTH.EASTRN 13 0.5

9) ISLAM 16 0.6

10) ORTH-CHRST 13 0.5

11) CHRISTIAN 71 2.5

12) NAT.AMER. 1 0.0

13) NONDENOM 26 0.9

99) NO ANSWER 12 0.4

TOTAL 2812 100.0

 

If you are interested, check out the 2004 GSS. Here's a link from the Association of Religion Data Archives. You'll need to click on the GSS and then do a search for "religious preference" in order to find this question.

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Gonzo1, you seem to have no idea how public schools can and can't discriminate. You can't just make up things.

 

LongHaul, states can no longer have official state religions. As Lisabob pointed out, check into the 14th amendment and incorporation.

 

Lisabob, Newdow is currently representing a number of atheist families in a new lawsuit over the pledge of allegiance. There's also talk about the equal rights amendment again, for that matter.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Here's an article on the Newsweek poll:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17879317/site/newsweek/

Although one in ten (10 percent) of Americans identify themselves as having "no religion," only six percent said they dont believe in a God at all. Just 3 percent of the public self-identifies as atheist, suggesting that the term may carry some stigma.

 

So the Newsweek poll shows 6% who don't believe in a god; about half shy away from the term "atheist", but that doesn't make them theists. Of course, if people would stop demonizing and ostracizing atheists, maybe that would change. Start when they're young, maybe a youth group that encouraged respecting other people's beliefs. Nothing like that here, of course.

[evmori]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,..."

 

And by not allowing a public school to charter a BSA unit is in violation of the prohibiting the free exercise thereof part.

 

Schools can sponsor Bible clubs or Atheist clubs or Jewish clubs but can't charter a BSA unit?

 

A blessed Good Friday to all.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Lisabob]

Ed, you are correct that there is some tension between the establishment and free exercise clauses. But note that the courts have never really interpreted the free exercise clause to be about absolute freedom of ACTION - they have interpreted it to be about absolute freedom of BELIEF. You may believe anything at all, but the courts have always (even the most conservative courts) come down on the side of allowing certain limits on behavior. Moreover, while you can probably engage in most religious practices too in your private life (there's that free exercise business), there are some public instances where this is inappropriate (in the Court's eyes) if you are an agent of the government because at the very least, it will APPEAR as though you are speaking for the gov't when you do so. For example, as a public school teacher/principal or as a judge while on the job. Others who do not share your belief might reasonably suppose that public professions of religion from such as those carry with them a certain threat (you'd better profess a similar belief or else you'll be graded differently, receive a harsher penalty, etc.). And this bumps up against the establishment clause.

 

Now, in the case of public schools, the Supreme Court has said over the years that while schools MAY sponsor Christian clubs or Bible study clubs (or atheist clubs) or what have you, that there are some criteria that apply. First, these clubs cannot formally exclude fellow students from joining on the basis of religious belief (nor, for that matter, can membership be compulsory). This is an enormous difference from the BSA, which both can and does exclude some people on this same basis. Second, the clubs cannot be an attempt on the school's part to proselytize, and the club must follow the same rules as every other official school club.

 

Again to put this in practical terms, what most Justices have said over the years boils down to two things: You do not have to check your *beliefs* at the schoolhouse door, but the school officials cannot actively promote the practice of religion because of the establishment clause. Some schools take this to ridiculous extremes but this is not because the Constitution or the Courts require them to do so - it is a matter of occasional nut cases on local school board or in principals' offices (or a few parents) being waaaayyyyy out there and usually without a solid grasp of the law as a basis.

 

Oh and I forgot to include the link to the GSS data from my previous post. Here it is if anyone is interested.

 

http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/GSS2004.asp