Voters challenge to overturn removal of nativity

[forrestkc]

The voters can challenge it all they want, but unless they want to burn the constitution, they are not going to get anywhere. The courts at all levels have consistently ruled that it is unconstitutional to use the government and or its institutions to endorse or promote religious beliefs. By placing a Nativity Scene on taxpayer property, thats exactly what is being done. The reason why the ACLU consistently wins in cases like this is that they have the constitution on their side.

If you ask me, instead of using this as some culture war whipping post, us Christians ought to put our nativity scenes on private property and we ought to be more concerned with the rampant materialism and commercialism of Christmas as that is what is really wrong in how society treats it.

The First Amendment was referring to Congress. That's why it said "Congress". This is not a US Constitution issue.

And 50 years worth of courts, both Democrat and Republican appointed, would disagree with you. The principle of a separation of church and state is not primarily based in the establishment clause, its primarily based in the general language of the constitution. The constitution simply does not grant the government the ability to aid religion.

As to the establishment clause, their is no reason grammatically to read it narrowly, and the congress rejected versions of it that were to be narrowly construed.

[nebula]

Ichabad

[Guest]

The constitution simply does not grant the government the ability to aid religion.

Dear Brother May I Take Another Look With You.

Thank You.

When I Was a Very Young Man (1940's - 1950's), The Constitution Simply Do Not Grant The Government The Power To Interfere With The Free Exercise Of Religion.

When It Did Interfere, The Government Was Aberrant And Was Called So Straight From The Pulpit.

The First Amendment

Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/BillOfRights.html#1

Today, As You Have So Succinctly Put It "The constitution simply does not grant the government the ability to aid religion".

We See Folks Who Know Better Play Acting Like The Constitution Commands The Courts To Punish Its Citizens If They Try To Worship God Or To Show Anything Biblical In The Public Domain.

Vigilance Is The Price Of Freedom.

We Appear To Have Gone Shopping Or Something And Missed Its Loss.

Dear Forrest, This Problem Is Not Your Fault.

My Generation Left Our Walk With God To Walk With Power And Now We Find Power Walks Us.

We Became World Class Consumers But Now We Find Ourself But World Class Fools.

You Know Not The Truth About Freedom Lost Because We Failed You.

Keep Your Bible Open And Look Up And You'll Catch On Fine.

You Go Bro!

Time Is Short And We Do Have A Way Out Of This Entanglement With The World

Live To Please God

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

2 Timothy 2:4

Know The Real Enemy

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

Rejoice And Pray

Rejoice evermore.

Pray without ceasing.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-17

Share The Good News

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

Abide In Jesus

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

John 15:4-5

Glorify God

Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

John 15:8

And Be Blessed Beloved Of The LORD

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:

The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them. Numbers 6:24-27

Love, Your Brother Joe

[Hunterpoet]

Yeah, your idea of personal liberties intrudes on my own. I do consider myself to be quite intelligent, thank you. Displaying a religious symbol, in no way endorses it, nor establishes it.

Then why display it?

When a majority of local Citizens are Christian and are celebrating Christmas, they have the right to display that culture/religious belief collectively. The land belongs to them.

So, if the majority of the local citizens wants to create a child labor camp on public land should they be able to do so? If we were simply a land of majority rule, then we would not need a constitution. The whole point of it is to protect the rights of the minority from majority tyranny.

Sure, since we are being accused of burning the U.S. Constitution by displaying a manger scene, of which the U.S. has proudly done for centuries, why not start by burning the 1st Amendment of the Constitution since you seem to believe your civil liberties are more important than my own.

For one thing, we have only actually started living up to the constitution and founding ideals of this nation in the last 40 years or so. In the past we had segregation, child labor, women could not vote and so on. The principle here is simple. Your right to live your life the way you choose to do so extends so far as to not to impede another individuals right to do the same. That is liberty.

We can burn the constitution together, then stomp on the flag aftwards and for final touches we can go to Arlington National Cemetery and desecrate the headstones there. But, only the ones with crosses on them, since they obviously violate the 1st amendment.

Displaying a manger scene on the the lawn of City Hall is a much of a threat to the U.S. Constitution as me saying I will burn it myself. We have been doing this for hundreds of years, yet miraculously no one in our over 200 year history has been forced, by the government to convert to Christianity.

Thats not the point. The point is that you cannot have liberty and not have a separation of church and state. By using government institutions to promote Christian beliefs, you in tern imply that non-Christian Americans are not fully American. A Christian citizen is no more American than a Muslim citizen or an Atheist citizen.

You are overreacting to this forrestkc, our Constitution is not under threat by social conservatives, they aren't the ones that are trying to change things against the will of the nation. They want to stick to tradition, like we have for over 200 years, yet to this day, we are still free.

The constitution does not protect tradition, it protects individual rights. For example, even though separate bathrooms for whites and blacks was a tradition, it was unconstitutional.

I don't even get the point. Is:

"Merry Christmas! Welcome to Walmart. Please buy all your child slave labor made gifts here! After all nothing celebrates the birth of our savior like supporting third world child labor"

Some how better than:

"Happy Holidays! Welcome to Walmart. Please buy all your child slave labor made gifts here! After all nothing celebrates the holiday season like supporting third world child labor"

What a perverted sense of priorities we have as Christians in this country anymore. You know I have never heard my mother complain about "Happy Holidays" being said instead of "Merry Christmas", nor have I ever heard her complain about some town not being able to put up some big plastic nativity scene at their court house. But every Christmas dinner you eat over at her house your going to have some homeless people or people without any family there eating with you. Instead of throwing some fit because we can't put our nativity scene up at the town square, why don't we worry about all the homeless people spending Christmas out there sleeping on it?

Very well spoken.

[JustinM]

quote forrestkc: "So, if the majority of the local citizens wants to create a child labor camp on public land should they be able to do so? If we were simply a land of majority rule, then we would not need a constitution. The whole point of it is to protect the rights of the minority from majority tyranny."

Now, here you go, yes, please retreat into the word of theory and philosophy, it's much safer than facing reality and as an added bonus, you won't have to worry about losing a debate there either.

Somehow, my support for citizens of a community displaying the manger scene, means I hate the kids and want them in labor camps. What an absurd thing to say. No one is advocating child labor, so why bring that into the discussion? It's irrelevant and rediculous that you would use such an unrealistic scenario to try and reinforce your perception of the US. Constitution being in danger.

quote forrestkc: "Thats not the point. The point is that you cannot have liberty and not have a separation of church and state. By using government institutions to promote Christian beliefs, you in tern imply that non-Christian Americans are not fully American. A Christian citizen is no more American than a Muslim citizen or an Atheist citizen."

First point: There is no Federal religion, unless you believe that secularism and atheism are the same religion, then yes our federal government is trying to force atheism on the population and is running the government according to that belief system. No one is trying to establish one. So, that fear is unfounded. It's just a stupid scare tactic people use to promote their Godless ideology. Second, government institutions have been promoting religious beliefs for sometime now, unfortunately they are promoting everything but Christian beliefs. Third, I am not implying that anyone that isn't a Christian isn't an American. That's a false statement. Nothing is more American than freedom. If a community wants to use that freedom to display a manger scene, that is their right, just like it's the nonobserver's right to not participate in religious holidays. A depiction of a baby sleeping in a manger is not a hostile image. It isn't going to force anyone to convert to Christianity. He's the Prince of Peace, remember, why are you so opposed to that?

As a fellow Christian, perhaps it would be in your best interest to work with us, instead of against us. You cannot have an atheist government and still expect it to remain moral. People aren't moral beings, they must have an outside influence to teach them that. Having a government that believes there is nothing after death will imply that human life is meaningless and worthless on a personal level. The value of an individual will be worldly, so worldly things will make unequal human beings. That's why the poorest amongst us are also having the most abortions. Our secular society has placed a monetary value on an individual. We are no longer being seen as children of God, so our lives are no longer priceless. Murderers and rapists are receiving more sympathetic judgements, millions of poor children are being aborted.

Yes, let's make it about the children, we can start with the Child in the Manger.

[kat8585]

Somewhere in this thread, a point was brought up that deserves consideration. If it's public property, it's property that we the taxpayers have paid for, so we should be able to have anything there that we wish.

And yes, I know that open a pandora's box to have things we wouldn't want on it, too.

[JustinM]

Somewhere in this thread, a point was brought up that deserves consideration. If it's public property, it's property that we the taxpayers have paid for, so we should be able to have anything there that we wish.

And yes, I know that open a pandora's box to have things we wouldn't want on it, too.

I tried to make that point several times, but Forrestkc seems to believe that even if 1% of the population opposes Christianity, that their wishes should be weighed evenly with the wishes of the majority. But, society doesn't function on unanimity. It never has, the only time a society is unanimous, is when it is controlled by 1 person.

He seems to think a majority opinion is tyranny. But, it is not if the consensus, because he loves that word, where millions of people of like mind agree on something, while thousands oppose, then that's a lot of voices that the minority is trying to shut out. In this case, he calls it the tyranny of the majority, but that is a far cry from what that term truly means. That's an oxymoron.

Tyranny offers fewer choices and fewer options made by fewer people in power. The more people that have a say and agree to something, the more diversity and inclusive a government becomes.

He seems to believe that Atheists and non-christians, which make up less than 20% of the population, should have their say. That's 60 million people controlling the thoughts, decisions and actions of 240 million people. Tell me just who is being a tyrant?

[forrestkc]

Somewhere in this thread, a point was brought up that deserves consideration. If it's public property, it's property that we the taxpayers have paid for, so we should be able to have anything there that we wish.

And yes, I know that open a pandora's box to have things we wouldn't want on it, too.

I tried to make that point several times, but Forrestkc seems to believe that even if 1% of the population opposes Christianity, that their wishes should be weighed evenly with the wishes of the majority. But, society doesn't function on unanimity. It never has, the only time a society is unanimous, is when it is controlled by 1 person.

He seems to think a majority opinion is tyranny. But, it is not if the consensus, because he loves that word, where millions of people of like mind agree on something, while thousands oppose, then that's a lot of voices that the minority is trying to shut out. In this case, he calls it the tyranny of the majority, but that is a far cry from what that term truly means. That's an oxymoron.

Tyranny offers fewer choices and fewer options made by fewer people in power. The more people that have a say and agree to something, the more diversity and inclusive a government becomes.

He seems to believe that Atheists and non-christians, which make up less than 20% of the population, should have their say. That's 60 million people controlling the thoughts, decisions and actions of 240 million people. Tell me just who is being a tyrant?

If Atheists wanted to put up a monument denying the existence of God at the courthouse, their would some logic to your assertions. However, thats not the case. If you use a public institution to further a religious belief, then your actions are unconstitutional. Whether 99% of local voters agree with you or not, it does not change the fact that its unconstitutional.

It seems to me that your whole argument is: "I can't put up a nativity scene on taxpayer property, therefore, atheists are tyrants."

[kari21]

Ichabad

The glory has indeed departed...

[JustinM]

If Atheists wanted to put up a monument denying the existence of God at the courthouse, their would some logic to your assertions. However, thats not the case. If you use a public institution to further a religious belief, then your actions are unconstitutional. Whether 99% of local voters agree with you or not, it does not change the fact that its unconstitutional.

It seems to me that your whole argument is: "I can't put up a nativity scene on taxpayer property, therefore, atheists are tyrants."