MontyB
All-Blacks Supporter
drag it out of the 18th and into 21st Century?
Roy Moore's twisted history: Islam and Buddhism don't have First Amendment protection, chief justice says (commentary and live chat)
Print
Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com By Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com
on May 05, 2014 at 12:55 PM, updated May 06, 2014 at 9:53 AM
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore spoke from the pulpit, and make no mistake, it was a sermon.
"Let's get real," he said. "Let's learn our history. Let's stop playing games."
Moore spoke to the Pastors-for-Life in Mississippi in January, but video from that speech only began to make its way around the Internet in the last week. In it, Moore argues that "religion," as defined in the First Amendment, applies only to God the Creator.
"Everybody, to include the United States Supreme Court, has been deceived as to one little word in the first amendment called 'religion,'" he said. "They can't define it."
Moore insisted that freedom of religion applies only the God of the Bible, and therefore the protections of the establishment clause do not extend to other religions, such as Islam and Buddhism.
"They don't want to do that, because that acknowledges the creator God," he said. "Buddha didn't create us. Muhammad didn't create us. It's the God of the Holy Scriptures."
According to Moore, the government and the Supreme Court should define religion as James Madison and George Mason did – "The duties we owe to the Creator and the manner of discharging it."
"They didn't bring a Koran on the pilgrim ship, Mayflower," he said. "Let's get real. Let's learn our history. Let's stop playing games."
OK, Judge. Let's get real, indeed. Let's learn our history and stop playing games.
When Moore quotes Mason in his speech, he takes that little snippet from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Mason wrote with help from Madison. (Section 16, which addresses the relationship of government and religion, is generally agreed to be primarily Madison's work.)
Here's the full text from Section 16: "That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other."
If there's any wonder why Moore would excise what he wanted from the context of the full quote – leaving out all that inconvenient business about forbearance, love, and charity – you haven't been paying much attention to the High Chief's career. You can't talk about love and maintain that quivering sneer -- certainly not Moore, who has argued that the court has the "power of the sword" to prevent homosexuals from perverting the minds of children.
"Buddha didn't create us. Mohamed didn't create us. It's the God of the Holy Scriptures."
The colonies, in which Madison, Mason and their fellow founding father and Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, came of age, were a hodgepodge of competing denominations, many of which were just fine using the power of the government to enforce a particular brand of belief. This was particularly true in Virginia, where all three men witnessed the Anglican Church persecute other denominations, particularly Separate Baptists. And we're not talking about the Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas nonsense TV talking heads today call persecution, but rather, Separate Baptist clergy jailed for sharing their beliefs, as Madison witnessed and decried early in his life. The lesson they learned from what they witnessed was that established religion and government were a toxic mix, and one should not be left in charge of the other.
Moore can argue if he wishes that the founders were comfortable with varying degrees of Christianity and not questioning the God the creator's role in government, and he's right that the pilgrims didn't bring the Koran with them over on the Mayflower. However, Jefferson did keep a copy of it in his library, and it's worth noting that Muslims believe they worship the same deity as Christians and Jews. If Moore wants to cling to his Creator God argument, then he must be willing to make room for Muslims in it, too, which his pulpit pabulum all but shows he is not.
After Patrick Henry proposed a tax to support "Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison wrote the "Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments," in which he revisited the establishment clause in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and emphasized again that there was no need for government to advocate for religion.
"To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world," Madison wrote.
Henry's bill died quietly, and later Madison ushered through the Virginia General Assembly the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Written by Jefferson, it insisted "that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry," and it all but outlawed religious belief as a litmus test for holding office. When government endorses one religion over another, it only corrupts the religion it hopes to support, Jefferson argued.
Jefferson cared so much for the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that he had it listed among the three life accomplishments inscribed on his tombstone, along with authoring the Declaration of Independence and founding the University of Virginia.
When Moore disparages other religions, or when all but snarls as he speaks of same-sex marriage, he spits in the eyes of those founders whose work he claims to cherish, and men like Moore were neither alien nor unimaginable to those three founders. In fact, one paragraph Jefferson wrote in the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom could have been penned, in foresight, with officials like Moore in mind.
"[To] suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own," Jefferson wrote.
Indeed, Judge Moore, let's get real.
Let's learn our history.
Let's stop playing games.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/roy_moores_twisted_hisotry_isl.html
Roy Moore's twisted history: Islam and Buddhism don't have First Amendment protection, chief justice says (commentary and live chat)
Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com By Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com
on May 05, 2014 at 12:55 PM, updated May 06, 2014 at 9:53 AM
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore spoke from the pulpit, and make no mistake, it was a sermon.
"Let's get real," he said. "Let's learn our history. Let's stop playing games."
Moore spoke to the Pastors-for-Life in Mississippi in January, but video from that speech only began to make its way around the Internet in the last week. In it, Moore argues that "religion," as defined in the First Amendment, applies only to God the Creator.
"Everybody, to include the United States Supreme Court, has been deceived as to one little word in the first amendment called 'religion,'" he said. "They can't define it."
Moore insisted that freedom of religion applies only the God of the Bible, and therefore the protections of the establishment clause do not extend to other religions, such as Islam and Buddhism.
"They don't want to do that, because that acknowledges the creator God," he said. "Buddha didn't create us. Muhammad didn't create us. It's the God of the Holy Scriptures."
According to Moore, the government and the Supreme Court should define religion as James Madison and George Mason did – "The duties we owe to the Creator and the manner of discharging it."
"They didn't bring a Koran on the pilgrim ship, Mayflower," he said. "Let's get real. Let's learn our history. Let's stop playing games."
OK, Judge. Let's get real, indeed. Let's learn our history and stop playing games.
When Moore quotes Mason in his speech, he takes that little snippet from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Mason wrote with help from Madison. (Section 16, which addresses the relationship of government and religion, is generally agreed to be primarily Madison's work.)
Here's the full text from Section 16: "That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other."
If there's any wonder why Moore would excise what he wanted from the context of the full quote – leaving out all that inconvenient business about forbearance, love, and charity – you haven't been paying much attention to the High Chief's career. You can't talk about love and maintain that quivering sneer -- certainly not Moore, who has argued that the court has the "power of the sword" to prevent homosexuals from perverting the minds of children.
"Buddha didn't create us. Mohamed didn't create us. It's the God of the Holy Scriptures."
The colonies, in which Madison, Mason and their fellow founding father and Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, came of age, were a hodgepodge of competing denominations, many of which were just fine using the power of the government to enforce a particular brand of belief. This was particularly true in Virginia, where all three men witnessed the Anglican Church persecute other denominations, particularly Separate Baptists. And we're not talking about the Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas nonsense TV talking heads today call persecution, but rather, Separate Baptist clergy jailed for sharing their beliefs, as Madison witnessed and decried early in his life. The lesson they learned from what they witnessed was that established religion and government were a toxic mix, and one should not be left in charge of the other.
Moore can argue if he wishes that the founders were comfortable with varying degrees of Christianity and not questioning the God the creator's role in government, and he's right that the pilgrims didn't bring the Koran with them over on the Mayflower. However, Jefferson did keep a copy of it in his library, and it's worth noting that Muslims believe they worship the same deity as Christians and Jews. If Moore wants to cling to his Creator God argument, then he must be willing to make room for Muslims in it, too, which his pulpit pabulum all but shows he is not.
After Patrick Henry proposed a tax to support "Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison wrote the "Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments," in which he revisited the establishment clause in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and emphasized again that there was no need for government to advocate for religion.
"To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world," Madison wrote.
Henry's bill died quietly, and later Madison ushered through the Virginia General Assembly the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Written by Jefferson, it insisted "that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry," and it all but outlawed religious belief as a litmus test for holding office. When government endorses one religion over another, it only corrupts the religion it hopes to support, Jefferson argued.
Jefferson cared so much for the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that he had it listed among the three life accomplishments inscribed on his tombstone, along with authoring the Declaration of Independence and founding the University of Virginia.
When Moore disparages other religions, or when all but snarls as he speaks of same-sex marriage, he spits in the eyes of those founders whose work he claims to cherish, and men like Moore were neither alien nor unimaginable to those three founders. In fact, one paragraph Jefferson wrote in the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom could have been penned, in foresight, with officials like Moore in mind.
"[To] suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own," Jefferson wrote.
Indeed, Judge Moore, let's get real.
Let's learn our history.
Let's stop playing games.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/roy_moores_twisted_hisotry_isl.html
