I agree, the secular argument seems trite to me as well. I used it once in a discussion about this very topic and then felt stupid.
Congress should not make laws about religion ever. not for or against. if a community wants to put a giant minaret in their city and legally vote to build it on top of city hall, as Free Americans, they should be able to. People will just leave who dislike it. Thats the beauty of America. No one is forcing you to live in a place you dont like. You can leave, move to a place that has like minded people and build your own monuments to your ideals.
You could say the same "like it or get out, it's a free country" line about any law, ever.
Part of freedom of religion means that religion should not affect your life if you don't want it to. This means freedom from the government acting in any sense that favors any religion, or religion in general, or prevents you from exercising your religion in your own life.
You said that the government shouldn't make laws about religion, but then give an example of why you think it's okay if local governments endorse religion. I don't really follow.
The whole american experiment was for this reason. People have gone crazy in their need to regulate everyone elses actions to the point that the land of freedom is now the land of "do nothing for fear of offending someone". its gotten silly.
Seriously? Look at what common sensibilities were like back then. You had people getting arrested for sodomy (such laws not even being struck down by the Supreme Court until 2003). You couldn't directly vote for senators. Equal rights under the constitution wasn't guaranteed as such until the 14th amendment. And if you weren't white, well, you were basically screwed in all respects. Poll taxes existed and were used to disenfranchise certain groups in the late 19th century, as well.
People aren't more easily offended these days; a hundred years ago, try being black, or non-Christian, or Chinese, or hell, even Irish. Or homosexual, or any number of things. Hell, Alabama's very constitution outlaws mixed-race marriage (or childbearing, I forget), Texas has an enforceable law on the books (or in their constitution) related to needing certain religious qualities to hold public office, and most sex acts I can think of were considered illegal in most states.
The reason it seems like people are more easily-offended these days is because the rights of more groups are getting represented in the first place. It's easy to think people are getting more offended by religious display when, a hundred years ago, the only reason people weren't was because people didn't have a broad range of "legitimate" ideology to choose from in the first place; you could put a giant cross on the state house and have people swear that they're Christians in order to take public office, not because nobody should get offended, but because anybody who would get offended was so marginalized that they either didn't exist or weren't heard.
The whole point of state rights vs fed rights was to keep the feds from forcing states towards or away from whatever religion they wanted. it was the entire reason only CONGRESS is specifically mentioned in the constitution.
There's also a reason why the 14th amendment exists: So that states have to give people the same basic rights that the federal government does.
The United States was never meant to be a religion-based country in any form, and the fact that it is intended to stay completely away from religious law is part of what makes it so free in the first place; it keeps religion as a private matter. Freedom of religion doesn't mean "my state can enforce any religion upon you it wants"; it means "the state doesn't care what religion you practice in your own life and won't enforce one upon you".
I cant believe that China allows this but the Land of Freedom doesnt, its insane.
If "freedom" meant "do whatever you want, no matter what" then freedom doesn't actually exist, because your right to do something has to stop somewhere, or else nobody has a right to do anything. After all, if you have a right to do anything, you have a right to prevent anybody else from doing whatever you want to prevent them from doing. For example: Your right to swing a fist ends at my right to not have your fist hit me in the face.
I know an easy argument is that if everyone in the US just went to some place and everyone did whatever the local majority wanted life would be bad. I disagree. The idea was that everyone in america could find a place to live that suited there own moral and ethical beliefs.
You cannot have this all in the same country, as a country needs an ethical and legislative basis in the first place, and will consider some rights important enough that EVERYONE in the country deserves them. I wouldn't want to have grown up in a state where my race couldn't vote, or where I would be hanged or taxed for having the wrong religion.
The point of the federal-state separation is that some things are fundamental enough to enforce for everyone, and some things are regional enough to leave up to the states or local governments. Something like freedom of religion IS one of those most fundamental things, and I've not seen any evidence that the founding fathers intended it otherwise, being religious freethinkers themselves and going by what I've read of theirs.
As long as they upheld the common law and paid their tax to the Fed for mutual defense, they would be left alone to a degree that allowed them to express their particular brand of "pursuit of happiness".
What is "common law"? Like I said, it includes everything that's important and fundamental enough to enforce similarly for the entire nation.
Also, things change. The world and the nation are getting less regional; people move around more often and there's more freedom of information and culture. You cannot expect two states to have law and customs as widely varying now as they did 300 years ago.
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Topic: Switzerland, the christian-conservative shithole (Read 13765 times)