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No other gods
William Raspberry quotes Kevin Hasson, advocate for public religious expression, who is upset about the court ruling prohibiting display of the Ten Commandments in a courtroom. Toward the end he expresses a noble sentiment:
This is the whole problem, the question of how tolerant we have to be of intolerance. In the United States we allow individuals the right to express intolerance within fairly wide boundaries, and I wouldn't want to change that, as weird and dangerous as it may seem to people in some other Western democracies. But is it intolerant to be intolerant of intolerance in an official government context?
I should be fair to Mr. Hasson and mention that he seems to object not so much to the specific case as to the "predominantly religious purpose" language in the majority opinion. He goes on for a while about the difference between the words "temporal" and "secular"; I always thought they were synonyms derived from roots meaning almost the same thing, but apparently the word "secular" is secretly anti-religious because somebody or other decided to translate it into Arabic as "godless". It's a bit of a head-scratcher.
Anyway, he seems not to get the civil libertarians' case at all. Nobody (well, almost nobody) is trying to expunge religion from public life. The whole reason the Founders wanted government secular was to keep government from messing with their public religious expression. It's resulted in a highly religious population with many sects and denominations that nevertheless has essentially no tendency toward sectarian bloodshed.
In most countries where the government does officially mess with religion, religion in public life is either (a) in decline, or (b) bad for you if you express the wrong kind—and in case (b) the tendency is not toward highly ecumenical definitions of what is the right kind. I don't see why the most publicly religious people in America sometimes fail to see the connection. If I really wanted to destroy American Christianity I'd start by demanding that the government officially endorse it.
"Writ large, that is the solution to the culture war: Respect for others' consciences, even when we're sure they're wrong, is contagious. Not because it's nice. Rather, it's contagious because it conveys an important idea:That's just it, though. The First Commandment (by the prevailing Protestant count, at least) is "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." It says right there in stone that you don't have the right to be wrong. It's pretty unambiguous about that. And it's not a subsidiary proviso; it's the first one.
"Whether it's a tradition as old and venerable as Buddhism or as new and flaky as parking-barrier worship doesn't matter. Because of how we're made, we are each free -- within broad limits -- to follow what we believe to be true in the manner our consciences say we must...."
This is the whole problem, the question of how tolerant we have to be of intolerance. In the United States we allow individuals the right to express intolerance within fairly wide boundaries, and I wouldn't want to change that, as weird and dangerous as it may seem to people in some other Western democracies. But is it intolerant to be intolerant of intolerance in an official government context?
I should be fair to Mr. Hasson and mention that he seems to object not so much to the specific case as to the "predominantly religious purpose" language in the majority opinion. He goes on for a while about the difference between the words "temporal" and "secular"; I always thought they were synonyms derived from roots meaning almost the same thing, but apparently the word "secular" is secretly anti-religious because somebody or other decided to translate it into Arabic as "godless". It's a bit of a head-scratcher.
Anyway, he seems not to get the civil libertarians' case at all. Nobody (well, almost nobody) is trying to expunge religion from public life. The whole reason the Founders wanted government secular was to keep government from messing with their public religious expression. It's resulted in a highly religious population with many sects and denominations that nevertheless has essentially no tendency toward sectarian bloodshed.
In most countries where the government does officially mess with religion, religion in public life is either (a) in decline, or (b) bad for you if you express the wrong kind—and in case (b) the tendency is not toward highly ecumenical definitions of what is the right kind. I don't see why the most publicly religious people in America sometimes fail to see the connection. If I really wanted to destroy American Christianity I'd start by demanding that the government officially endorse it.
no subject
I learned recently too that Germans must pay a tax to their church of choice, or forfeit participation in it. German religious membership is pretty low, though perhaps no moreso than the average european country.