Friday, October 21, 2005
Things That Make You Go Hmm...
The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has been involved in a brouhaha recently over Christians who actively evangelize other cadets. A former cadet, Micky Weinstein, filed a lawsuit against the Academy alledging the Air Force forces Christianity upon others and favors evangelical Christianity over other religions. Weinstein, a Jew, is demanding that "No member of the USAF, including a chaplain, is permitted to evangelize, proselytize, or in any way attempt to involuntarily convert, pressure, exert, or persuade a fellow member of the USAF to accept their own religious beliefs while on duty [and that the Air Force] is not permitted to establish or advance any one religion over another religion, nor one religion over no religion." Hmmmn....so Weinstein doesn't want non-Christians to have their religion infringed upon, so he's wants to infringe/criminalize another religion? I don't think I can accept that, and thankfully the Air Force isn't either. While the Air Force should not favor Christianity over other religions, there is no reason that believers of any religion ought to be told they can't practice their faith. Another example of the lunacy of secularism.
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3 comments:
coming next week - things that go bump in the night...
Brian, unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made the interpretation of those simple words much more difficult in the past. Which means that they don't necessarily mean what they seem to mean. I'm quite curious as to Roberts and Miers views on it and how they might change the religion clause jurisprudence. (after all, when interpreting the Constitution, we must keep in mind that it is a 'living document,' right? Of course, I don't remember reading that in any of the founders' memoirs or notes.)
Ineresting. I don't think that it will ever be illegal to witness in America (I could be wrong, it's been known to happen) because it actually falls under two different clauses in the First Amendment - the free exercise clause and the free speech clause. Knowing that we value free speech over almost all other 'rights' in this country, I don't foresee it becoming illegal anytime soon - unless there is a radical shift in the way that our government is structured. Really what it comes down to, whic is why this happened in the air force academy, is that the government is restricted from proselytizing. The entire debate at the air force academy centers around whether the witnessing is done by the government (since it is at an air force academy, apparently some people think that there is an argument to be made that it is the government speaking) or by an individual. If, as it appears, it is an individual, they can't stop it because it is a free exercise issue. If, on the other hand, it is actually the government speaking, that's when we may have an establishment clause problem. Fortunately or unfortunately, the First Amendment does restrict some actions that we as Christians might think are good things. Completely fortunately, it really only restricts the government from doing those things, not the individual. Take prayer in school for example. A lot of peole say, we should allow prayer in school. Well, I completely agree with that. Unfortunately, what most of those people are thinking is that we should have the administration pray before classes (or something like that) and when that gets removed from a school, people get up in arms about it. Now, I am not advocating taking all religion, either from the teachers or from the administration, out of the schools; however, people can still pray in school whenever and wherever they want to (at least the last time I checked). The only thing that has been removed is the administration of prayer. Now, I will completely agree that Michael Newdow has gone completely off in la-la land by trying to get the Pledge out of the schools because the words 'under God' are in it. But, the Ninth Circuit is crazy anyway. My point, however, is that the government is not soon likely to restrict the individual's right to witness, even though it may continue to restict the government's 'right' to witness. Sorry for the length of this comment, but I really didn't even get as deep into the issue as I'd like to have :).
Ian,
Thank you for that very humorous post...that was funny!
Teresa,
Very good post on some of the mechanics of the first amendment. While the government should not proselytize, ministers should not be hindered from doing their job.
And I'm with you on the school prayer thing. People can pray in school. I think it is a good thing that the administration does lead prayer every morning. I mean, what would happen if a Buddhist or Mormon or any other non-Christian was the administrator of a school system. Would they then be required to lead a prayer...wow, that would be a pretty deep prayer. No, it would instead be the type of prayer that God hates (see Matthew 6:5-14). Someone please tell me why it is important to have state-instituted, state-led prayer. So long as it is not outlawed for students to pray, then I think there is no problem.
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