Archive for the ‘ religious liberty’ Category

More on Minarets

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Criticism about the recent ban on minarets in Switzerland from scholars who live in a country that doesn’t allow churches or synagogues. Yeah, that’s who I turn to for opinions on religious tolerance and liberty.

Riyadh: Several prominent Saudi Islamic scholars and preachers lambasted the recent Swiss referendum to impose ban on the construction of mosque minarets in the country.

I’m sure they did. But they didn’t lambaste the marriage of adult men to nine-year-old girls, I bet.

Speaking to Gulf News, they said that this is another evidence of the West’s antagonism towards Islam and such moves detail the serious initiatives being undertaken for holding dialogue among followers of various religions in different parts of the world.

Any churches or synagogues there in Riyadh yet? Didn’t think so. (more…)

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Mixed reaction to Swiss banning of minarets

Monday, November 30th, 2009

I like religion to be personal and private. That goes for all religions. As someone who likes religion to be kept out of my field of vision when I am out in the world, I have a deep and innate feeling of approval for the recent decision by the Swiss populace to ban construction of new minarets, which are heavily associated with Islam today.

However, as a champion of freedom to practice as people wish, I feel also a tinge of sadness at the Swiss decision. This seeming contradiction is not difficult for me to internalize. I think of Voltaire, who didn’t say,

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

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The Psalm 109:8 “prayer” for Obama

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

I recently have seen some right-wingers or Christian fundies promoting a “prayer” for President Obama using the Tanakh scripture psalm 109:8. This “prayer”, if it can even be called that, is a plea that “may his days be few; may another take his office.”

Psalm 109:8 is being offered as a legitimate source for entreaty to the god of the fundies, because they apparently think that the psalmist was asking his god for the same result. I suspect that many of these misguided fundies are reading the KJV, and not only because the KJV is the preferred bible of most fundies I’ve met.
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The Establishment Clause

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

Freedom From Religion

The Establishment Clause seems to be one of the least-understood parts of the US Constitution. Though whether that misunderstanding is borne out of true confusion or willful ignorance—or in some extreme cases, the practice of historical revisionism1—is debatable.

The First Amendment contains several important ideas, that we call clauses. In full, the First Amendment reads:

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.

The Establishment Clause is broken out as the part that says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” To understand what this means, we have different methods of interpretation. Without going into too much detail on statutory construction, I would like to argue one of the most compelling points to consider in interpretation is that we “must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says.” Connecticut Nat’l Bank v. Germain, 112 S. Ct. 1146, 1149 (1992).
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