Slate recently published Thou Shalt Not Pray – Does the Constitution hate God? By Dahlia Lithwick. In it the author discusses the trickiness involved in simultaneously working to guarantee freedom of individuals to practice religion with prohibiting the state from establishing religion. She mentions a few points, but then concludes with a passage that takes a stance similarly to “John Stewart Mill’s On Liberty”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140432078/qid=1061567620/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-7077556-5130436 which argues that the rights of the minority must be disproportionately protected to protect those of all. I think in this particular case, however, that the argument is specious.
p. Religion, along with abortion is one field where strong arguments have been made for breaking with the rest of the legal code in terms of procedure and scope. Increasingly, political correctness seems to have produced a situation where avoinding merely the appearance of state support for religion becomes grounds for serious action. Simultaneously, state facilities can often be used for anything BUT religionious uses, which seems to present a situation where instead of not establishing a state religion, we are actually establishing a state attitude of prosecution of religion.
Slate: Thou Shalt Not Pray
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Slate recently published Thou Shalt Not Pray – Does the Constitution hate God? By Dahlia Lithwick. In it the author discusses the trickiness involved in simultaneously working to guarantee freedom of individuals to practice religion with prohibiting the state from establishing religion. She mentions a few points, but then concludes with a passage that takes a stance similarly to “John Stewart Mill’s On Liberty”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140432078/qid=1061567620/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-7077556-5130436 which argues that the rights of the minority must be disproportionately protected to protect those of all. I think in this particular case, however, that the argument is specious.
p. Religion, along with abortion is one field where strong arguments have been made for breaking with the rest of the legal code in terms of procedure and scope. Increasingly, political correctness seems to have produced a situation where avoinding merely the appearance of state support for religion becomes grounds for serious action. Simultaneously, state facilities can often be used for anything BUT religionious uses, which seems to present a situation where instead of not establishing a state religion, we are actually establishing a state attitude of prosecution of religion.