unless you have been told, as I was, by a junior high school teacher, that I should not bring my preferred religious text to school for reading during free time, and unless you have been told, as I was, by my high school freshman honors World Civilization teacher, that my faith was fairly puny if it could not stand up to some comparative inspection alongside other "great faiths,"
I think both teachers were wrong--the first was absolutely incorrect as a matter of law (and you know it now and might well have known it then) and the second was gratuitiously rude and disrespectful. Nevertheless, although you refrain from identifying your "preferred religious text" and your faith I would best guess that you received these remarks in the comfortable position of being a member of a member of the religious majority.
I am, as I grow older, more in the business of trying to reconcile philosophy and constitutional jurisprudence--and not a facile way.
Re: your statement "empathic abilities do not determine text or meaning," I beg to disagree on the grounds of trying to understand, as so many of my betters before me, what the framers intended regarding the relationship of the powerful and the less powerful in the realm of religion and the state. It seems to me that the framers were very cognizant of the dangers to adherents of unpopular, disfavored religions and thus were attempting to construct a framework to protect the minority regardless of the nature of that minority in the future.
Got to get to work. It's been a pleasure.
Frances R. A. Paterson, J.D., Ed.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Educational Leadership
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
