seporation of church and state VS freedom of religion

You mentioned the "Under God" phrase in the Pledge, so that was what I was answering specifically. The issues you mention below are somewhat different, but I'll be happy to give you my opinion on them



We are agreed that schools should not lead students in any type of religious expression, nor (in my opinion) should a school represent any religious preference of any type.

I don't know of any banning of voluntary actions by individuals (such as personal prayer or reading religious documents and other such private personal actions), except when those personal expressions are imposed on others in the school by virtue of their association with school functions like football games and graduations. In the case of graduations, when the validictorian speaks, I believe they can express their personal views, but this is because they are being requested to speak as an individual, and not as a representative of the school. If the validictorian were asked to speak "for the class", then I think the validictorian would be wise not to endorse any particular view. Also, note that if a validictorian is allowed to express personal views in a speech, then everyone must be prepared to hear from Budhists and Islamists and Wiccans and anyone else who is selected as validictorian. Anyone who is not prepared to hear from a range of viewpoints, is not really thinking in a equitable way along these lines, so imagining this is a good way to measure your view of freedom and equality within these types of speeches.



I don't know why you think that "separation of church and state", and "freedom of religion" are in conflict such that you can't have them both in balance.

At the moment, I don't know of any case where someone (in the USA) has been denied their freedom of religion.

I do believe however, that the principle of separation has been infringed in slight cases, and it under attack on several levels. For example, in my opinion, the "Under God" phrase in the pledge is unconstitutional because it is contained in a "pledge of patriotism" which has become symbolic of childhood education, and which is endorsed by the authority of the school, and because of the motivations which caused the phrase to be inserted into the pledge (clearly a religions motivation drove the alteration of the original pledge). In addition, I feel that the current push (by religious extremists) to undermine the scientific fact of evolution, with the dogma of creationism and intelligent design is an ongoing attempt to chip away at the wall of separation.

for most of our countrys history the two rights have not only had no conflict , but they have supported each other i.e. separation of church and state keeps the state from discrimination toward any chosen faith. but is this area starting to turn grey . some of the more recent actions of ACLU are moving the lines that have helped to keep us in balance .Did you read my earlier post they better define my dilemma ?

This wouldn't even be an issue if we had people like the founding fathers in government still. But we don't. How did they get the respect necessary to lead the country in defiance of Britain anyway?

After the original fathers (who were later elected on their fame), very few figures in government have lived up to their standards of clarity of vision. Maybe our problem is that our leaders are elected by the public. We would be in dern good shape if Jefferson and Ben Franklin (even though they were theists [or at least so they said]) and the rest were still running the show.

Not sure which post you are referring to. Can you extract the portion you want comment on, and I'll give it some thought. Thx.

my son started school this year , and necklaces or earings bering spiritual syimbles are not allowed in the dress code. I 'm not even a christian , and that still doesn't seem right to me[/quote]

a few days ago ACLU fieled against a school in CA trying to get the Declaration of Indopendance taken out of the history books becouse it has the word God in the text .

is this the right place for the line to be drawn?

I am interested, in the progression of this thread. I am 64 and an Unitarian-Universalist. As such, I am considered a non-Christian.

I have found myself becoming uncomfortable with the increasing influence of conservative Christians. In a way, I afaid of losing my independence.

For my part, I feel I benefit from the mixture of religions. But of course, that's the way UU members approach life.

in a way , those who try to sensor expression of religon only fuel the super consevitive christians . insitutions like ACLU are trying to eliminate free expression of a persons chosen faith in addition too eliminating any historical record that that faith had any part in.many non christians like myself are swayed to the right in order to have a tool to fight this opression. freedom belongs to all of us or it belongs to none .That includes the right to pray or not pray as we see fit , christians have rights too.

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."
- President George Washington -

"The United States is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles and beliefs."
- President George W. Bush -

I'm not necessarily on the ACLU's side; I don't know their platform. But when you see stuff like this, it's hard to take any side but the opposite one.

No offense, but I'm not sure I believe this. Maybe you misunderstood the filing. Do you have a reference link on this?

i just heard a 30 sec statement on the news , give me a day or two ,i'm sure i can find a reference for you.

kflux, I am interested in finding out more about this. Could this be it:



http://www.gogomag.com/cgi-bin/eboard30/index2.cgi?frames=no&board=talkingheads&mode=Current&message=58533

There is no mention of the ACLU in this article (as I suspected would be the case when kflux originally mentioned it). The only mention of ACLU came from GARYP, who posted his own interpretation of the situation, complete with his own personal bias against the ACLU.

In my experience, the ACLU is in the business of defending freedom and liberty. Sometimes it defends the rights of those we disagree with, which causes some people to hate the ACLU, but their mandate is clearly stated on their web site, and they are very consistent in defending freedom and liberty, even if they sometimes defend the right of minority groups to say things which many of us don't agree with.