Re: Missouri declares Christianity its official religion.

[Ed Darrell]

Alas, lack of understanding won't increase if such changes occur.  Would it not be better to achieve a workable level of understanding rather than vitiate the laws that protect the freedoms we have?

 

Is there no one who will step up to the podium and tell what the rights really are? 

 

And, by the way -- do you know of any city that has put up a gay pride banner?  How many times has this happened?

 

Ed Darrell

Dallas

Rick Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I read the text of the Mo resolution, and what I read there between the lines is not so much the desire to make Christianity the national religion, but rather frustration caused by judicial decisions that appear to have cleansed religion ! from the public culture.

 

For people who are not as sophisticated as constitutional law scholars, it is difficult to understand why a city can put up gay pride banners in public parks but not nativity scenes. Why public schools can celebrate Earth Day, but not Christmas.

 

Why Christian Charley has no Free Ex right merely to opt out of evolution in the curriculum, but Secular Sammy has a right--not only to opt out for himself--but to stop his willing classmates from even hearing about challenges to evolution such as ID.

 

Interestingly, the frustration may be about to end. With recent changes on the Court (and! perhaps more to come this summer), I suspect that the Court will no longer be obsessed with eradicating even harmless, passive displays of religion such as nativity scenes, Ten Commandment displays, etc. Perhaps the "purpose" prong of Lemon may soon ! be gone, making it easier for school boards to adopt curriculum such as ID critiques of evolution and making it more difficult for dissenters to throw out harmless religious displays such as those eradicated in McCreary. 

 

Frankly, I don't think folks want Christianity to be the official religion of America. I think they merely wish it to have a seat at the table, to allow Christmas as much a place in the public culture as Earth Day and National Coming Out Day.

 

I think what is needed is a little less judicial government under the EC, and a little more democratic self-government at the state and local level.

 

Cheers, Rick

Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

 

"When the Round Table is ! broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner

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