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Tuesday 1 September 2015

If Only the Establishment Clause's Power Could Be Used For Good and Not Evil?

Well lookie, lookie. They can!
(Seriously, I have always thought that - even when I was a kid and didn't, AFAIK, have a single Satanist, Muslim, Wiccan, Hindu or Buddhist among my acquaintance, I wondered if the people who were still fighting the lost cause of "prayer in school" had considered how they would react if their children happened to be in the class of a devout person not of the Judeo-Christian persuasion who led the children in a prayer of which the parents might not approve.)
(I didn't put it like that, don't think I knew the phrase "Judeo-Christian heritage," my thought were actually more along the lines of, wow, what if Mrs. Abercrombie was a pagan and we prayed to Minerva? That would be cool!)
In a society that sometimes seems to be doing its damnedest, (word chosen with care,) to silence certain religious voices in public debate, it is nothing short of bizarre that anyone would seek to deny the expression and action -- perhaps that should read "expression IN action"? -- of a non-religious entity's voice.

Have we not all the right to act in accordance with our morals and ethics, whatever their source, to try to create a society that is moral and ethical, as we define those things?
Not necessarily to prevail, but certainly to call upon them in making our decisions as to what promotes the common good?
A federal judge on Monday sided with an anti-abortion group in its challenge of a key birth control provision of the Obama administration's health care overhaul.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon adds to the legal debate surrounding the law's requirement that contraceptives for women be included among a range of cost-free, preventive benefits offered to employees.
The 29-page opinion held that March for Life could be exempt from the requirement, known as the contraceptive mandate, even though it is a non-religious organization that opposes abortion on ethical grounds rather than religious ones.
March for Life, which holds annual anti-abortion marches in Washington, was founded in 1973 following the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade opinion that established the legal right to abortion. The organization contends that life begins at conception and opposes coverage in its health insurance plans for methods of contraception that it likens to abortion.
So legally you can be "not religious, but spiritual", (even if the hearer of such a statement is "not honest, but interested.")
Speaking of being interesting - I wonder how many of the individuals who make up that "non-religious entity" are very religious indeed. I'll bet a high percentage.
(Me, I often if not usually interpret"spiritual but not religious" to mean "I know what I really ought to do, but I prefer to do what I really want to do, and besides, I like to sleep in." Especially since most of the people from whom I happen to have heard it over the years are in professions in which any idiot knew you couldn't really do much of anything if you didn't, whaddya call it? .... oh, yeah,  practice.)

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