Former President Ronald Reagan’s son and namesake Ron Reagan is literally the poster-person against religion. While the younger Reagan has been doing ads on news channels for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, it will be his father’s words that will hover over the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July.
“We establish no religion in this country… Church and state are, and must remain, separate,” the billboard will read.
[…]
“The RNC needs to be reminded that our nation is predicated on a godless and entirely secular Constitution,” she said. “The fate of our Establishment Clause hangs in the balance of the election. We’re not voting for the next president — we’re voting for the next Supreme Court justice.”
The local chapter director, Marni Huebner-Tiborsky, agreed that the message is an important one for Republican leaders to remember. “This billboard couldn’t be any more timely, and is definitely needed to remind our political leaders and the public that political campaigns should stick to a secular platform, where real change can happen,” she says.
Full Story Here. While I do think this might turn some heads, I doubt it will make a serious impact at this late date in the game. I also think the current crop of repubs is simply too far gone to consider this seriously, although it will hurt to see St. Ronnie going against their constant screed.
The thugs twist, ignore, or simply invent so much what St Ronnie the Magnificent (as Ed Brayton calls the sky faerie the thugs’s worship) said, didn’t say, did, or didn’t do, it won’t be noticed(much) and/or will be dismissed as a commie / mooslin / Obama / &tc “typical lie”.
To be fair, the quote is taken somewhat out of context. It’s from a speech Reagan gave to Jewish community leaders. The quoted section sounds good on its own, but in the original speech preceded a very important “but”.
He goes on to say people “…should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.” He then relates his administration’s position on an upcoming Supreme Court Case, Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc. in which a religious person claimed the right of being able to refuse to work on the Sabbath despite holding a job which required doing so. He thinks businesses should be required to make such accommodations.
The court, thankfully, disagreed and concluded overwhelmingly that such an absolute right was far beyond a reasonable accommodation and rejected that argument.
The quote is, in fact, just half of what he referred to as a “fine line” which Reagan fell firmly on the “let religious people do whatever they like” side. I don’t know where Reagan would have stood on current separation clause issues, but I suspect I would still disagree with him as I did when he was promoting government funded vouchers for religious schools in his first election campaign.
Kengi, the context of the speech is given in the linked article.
Blf:
That’s my expectation. It’s a nice effort and all, I just doubt it will do much good. Especially in the case of Trump supporters.
I would expect the billboard to be vandalized. If not before, then during the convention. The tendency of republicans to try to suppress dissent or opposition outweighs any semblance of tolerance that they pretend to have.
No, I don’t think the context was fully provided without the reference to the Thornton v. Caldor case. The quotes were purely a setup to his official position against the Connecticut court decision which the FFRF would strongly disagree with.
Kengi:
Ah. Okay.
I think of Reagan as being more of an Ascended and Deified ‘Emperor’, than a saint.
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