It's that time again!Follow

I played Medieval: Total War. Those viking dudes are total Catholics.

Except Mazra's aunt. She's a lesbian prostitute.

Thanks for the correction.

"This" (meaning the old law(s) we were talking about doesn't but the host of lawsuits and legal decisions in the last 50 years which have consistently pushed religious speech (and specifically Christian speech) out of the public square absolutely does. Perhaps if you lived in an area where we've seen landmarks on public parks that have been there for multiple decades being torn down because they are symbols of Christianity, you might get it. The Cross on Mt Soledad was originally erected in 1913. It was replaced with a new one in 1954. Only in 1989 did some group of Atheists decide that it violated the 1st amendment. So something that was legal for 70 plus years now suddenly violated the 1st amendment of the constitution? There are several other similar cases. In a state largely created because of Catholic missionaries, it's somewhat silly to separate state history from religious symbology, but they're trying to do it anyway.

The law didn't change. The interpretation of the law did. You're free to hold your own position on the issue, but please don't pretend that there has not been a growing movement just in the last few decades to eliminate religious symbols from public land. It absolutely does represent a "movement" in that regard.

No. Something which no one ever considered to be a violation of the first amendment from the beginning of our nations history is now considered one because the interpretation of the law has changed over the last 50 years or so.



No. From the beginning of our nations history the carrying of firearms for personal defense was allowed. Until the last 50 years or so when some states began passing laws which violated the 2nd amendment. In this case it took 50 years to get a case to the Supreme Court to demonstrably declare the Illinois law unconstitutional.



Two major differences:

1. The crosses were not erected by legal requirement. There was no law passed which placed them where they were. The Illinois law is, well, a law. It changed a condition which was legal (carrying firearms) to one that was illegal. So not directly comparable situations.

2. The Illinois law was a violation of the 2nd amendment the day it was passed. The placement of crosses on public land was not a violation of the 1st amendment at any point in our nations history until the relatively recent change in interpretation. How .long a particular cross was in a particular location is not the issue.



It was determined that there was no way to move the cross without destroying it completely. That's also an irrelevant argument. We should not make decisions about infringement of rights based on how easily someone can work around the infringement. So it's ok to deny someone the right to speak in public if their own property is within a short distance and they could speak there if they wanted? Not your best argument Joph.



Several mistakes were made, but also several incredibly bad rulings. They took the obvious course. They sold the land to a private party. Apparently, selling public land isn't allowed if there's a religious symbol on it either. One kinda has to conclude that the whole claim that this is just about public funds used to display religious symbols is a front for really just wanting to eliminate any religious symbols from locations where anyone might see them. I mean, the city twice attempted to sell the land and twice the sale itself was ruled illegal. Think about that.


While I'm hardly running around lighting my hair on fire over this issue, you really do have to kinda have your head in the sand to not see that this is an organized effort (a "movement" even) with the specific intent to eliminate to the greatest degree possible any exposure anyone might have to religion in any form. Public land is the first step, but I have serious doubts that this movement will stop there. I don't find it hard to imagine at all that once such things are banned "on" public property, they'll be banned "within plain view of" public property. Why not? I mean, churches can have their crosses on the inside of the church and not force their symbols on any random person walking by on a public street, right? I ought to have a right to walk down the street without being assailed by such things!

Not hard to imagine at all. Because the movement isn't really about the first amendment. It just uses the first amendment to achieve its goals. Failing to see that is a huge mistake.


Edited, Dec 12th 2012 6:01pm by gbaji

Ah, so suddenly "70 years" has become "for the first time in our nation's history". I've better things to do than look for any examples of religious iconography removed from public land in a timeline so I'll just say... so what? If it's a violation, it's a violation. It seems much more like there's been plenty of willful violations for years that were never addressed because of social pressures and lack of clout.

Per the same document that disallows the entanglement of Church and State, right? Right.


(1) The Republicans like crosses so ignoring the 1st Amendment is good
(2) The Republicans like guns so ignoring the 2nd Amendment is bad

Not much more complicated than that.


No great loss. It's not as though you'd needed the finest artists of the Classical Age to resculpt the thing.


Not so much in the whole mythical "War on Christians! OMG those athiests hate Jesus and won't let us have anything ever!" aspect. No one gives a sh*t if the cross is 200' away on privately owned land. As far as the ACLU was concerned you could move it there, adorn it with neon lights and everyone have a big God party at its base... so long as it wasn't on publicly owned land. There's no fear of giant ugly-*** crosses with no redeeming artistic or historical value, just the simple fact that they don't belong on taxpayer funded dirt. The basic argument that it violated the First Amendment stands on its own and doesn't need "It's easy to move" as a defense. The fact that they refuse to move it just points to how much they actually care about the chunk of concrete versus throwing a righteous hissy fit.


Hahaha... thanks for making my point so crystal clear for me. You want to dearly to make this into some imaginary crusade where no one is allowed to display any religious symbol... oh, except it's totally okay to display it a stone's throw away but that doesn't count because it has to be right there with no exceptions.

I guess 200' was too far for you to walk before you nailed yourself up there and cried pretend tales of persecution

As a side note, I had to look the thing up because I first thought it was the Mojave desert cross that was in the news a few years ago. That one was made out of some welded steel bars and was temporarily replaced by one made of PVC. Between your cinder block looking thing and this one, what is it with these people and their hard-on for crosses made out of construction debris? Couldn't you people find a nice cross with some sort of cultural merit to make an argument about?

Edited, Dec 12th 2012 11:39pm by Jophiel

It isn't so much a "movement" as Christians were able to ignore aspects of the First Amendment that didn't work for them since they controlled both government and culture in the United States. As recently as the 1950s when that eyesore was erected, being an atheist was akin to being a communist and enemy of the nation. We were busy plugging "One nation under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, blacklisting Hollywood actors and passing the Communist Control Act around that year to show how freedom loving we all were. Small wonder people weren't lining up to fight it then.

The fact that a group was able to ignore the rules by virtue of having a small and marginalized opposition doesn't make ignoring those rules legitimate. Nor does that period of ignoring the rules suddenly become evidence that it's how it always should have been. Now that things are changing and they can't ignore the rules, it's all wailing and wringing of hands saying how "under attack" they are that they can't flaunt and ignore the First Amendment.

Edited, Dec 13th 2012 9:38am by Jophiel

Given your stance on SSM, that's got to be the most ******* hypocritcal thing youv'e ever posted here.

You really are a terrible human being.

Ignoring the whole "marriage status and benefits isn't a right" bit, it's not hypocritical at all. I'm not married. I'm protecting a status that applies to and benefits other people because even though it doesn't benefit me either way, I understand why the status exists and believe that it makes the most sense for that status to continue to be limited to that group. I'm not picking sides based on what benefits me the most, or what benefits some group I want to help.

I think far too many people think in terms of who they want to help or harm rather than what is the right thing to do.



Because I don't think a legal system based on rewarding people I like and penalizing people I don't like is a good idea? If that makes me terrible, then so be it. I think that if you pulled yourself out of the emotional aspects of these individual issues and looked at the bigger picture, you might just realize that my positions are not only the right ones, but benefit all of us more in the long run.

No. You made up a reason you believe the status exists.

Also, why do you assume that I have an emotional stake in SSM? I'm not gay and don't personally know any gays looking to marry each other.

I have this crazy notion that, as an American who is not a selfish a-hole, that anyone should be free to do as they like so long as it doesn't harm others.


You can go on and on about he horrible tax burden these sneaky gays lay upon us (or would if they got the benefits you say they don't deserve) but I'd personaly rather see them get marriage benefits then see one more year of, say, massive tax breaks (oops, I meant subsidies) for, say, the oil companies who clearly don't need them.



For the record, most of us are sick of your Ayn Randian ********************** attitude. At least I am.

The whole "Thou shalt not steal" thing didn't mesh well with the way things were handled back then.

Also, mead. Bible only mentions wine, which is not beer. Major flaw in their marketing strategy.

Edited, Dec 14th 2012 12:38am by Mazra

I'm all for SSM and all that, but I don't get why homosexual couples want to get married in a church in the first place. I'm a pig-eating infidel, which is why I don't plan on getting married in a mosque. I sure wouldn't demand that an imam ties the knot. What's wrong with doing it at the city hall? If the religion forbids same sex relationships, why seek it out?

Hopefully that doesn't come across as homophobic or anything. We can argue whether or not the christian religion needs to be updated slightly to match modern times, but until it does, the priests should not be forced to abandon their religious beliefs.

Whatever. I'm drunk.

Well, what do I know. Homosexual couples have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples in our country. The SSM debate here is about homosexuals wanting to be wed in a church, by a priest, and the priests refusing to do so because it goes against their constitutional right.

Homosexuals should obviously be given the same legal rights as heterosexuals. Can't even believe it's still up for discussion.

Edit: By the way, sorry if I'm using the terminology wrong here. I'm not sure if gays, homosexuals and so on is offensive. Homosexuals is the common term for, well, homosexuals here. Primarily because we don't give a ****. MORE BEER!

Edited, Dec 14th 2012 1:26am by Mazra

Homosaurus Dix