Sometimes, I am extremely annoyed with the principle of separation of church and state — it leads to absurdities, like this recent court decision that a gay student support group was was using unconstitutional tactics — it was using materials that mentioned that some religions are more tolerant of homosexuality than others. This is, apparently, an endorsement of particular religions and therefore violates church-state separation.
Well, yeah, it is — for specific subjects, like gay rights, science education, and pacifism, some religions clearly are better than others — yet because we have to mindlessly avoid any perception of preference for one over another at any official level, the more enlightened faiths must be lumped with the dumbest, vilest, crudest kinds of religions, and you are not allowed to distinguish between them. I’ve said it before: church-state separation is a principle that protects and privileges religious belief in the United States, and furthermore as we can see here, it isolates pathological, dangerous beliefs from valid criticism.
This decision could be of some concern for future court battles over creationism, too, because science support organizations clearly do have a preference for some kinds of religions over others, and actually do promote certain doctrines over others. This is a fight driven by religious ignorance by the creationists, so of course we’ve got to engage them on the wrongness of their stupid claims about science … but if they wrap those up in the protective mantle of their holy and sacred religious beliefs, this decision says criticism is violating their religious protection. Will we have to worry that someone in the court system will take seriously the claim that teaching that the evidence says the earth is 4½ billion years old amounts to belittling religions that preach that the earth is 6000 years old, and favoring those that are agnostic on the age of the earth?
At least I can take comfort in the fact that the Pharyngula strategy is still safely on the side of the constitution: I don’t favor any religion at all, I despise ’em all equally.
Hang on! Isn’t mention of which religions favour what simply a “review article,” not endorsement?
– Monado in Toronto, home of North America’s first gay Boy Scout troop
Sir — The incident with the gay fellow is an example of some of the unfortunate side effects of the separation of Church and State. However, this is still infinitely better than the alternative. A lack of the separation of Church and State will immediately lead to clericalism. Even as a convinced atheist (perhaps even anti-theist), I can tell you that I’d rather have schools not show any preference to religions at all (including no discrimination on grounds of plausibility), than to break this vital aspect of a Free nation.
Monado I would think so too, but I’m also in Toronto mayhap we have not the same perspective as our southern neighbours.
PZ, shouldn’t you re-phrase, “the more enlightened faiths” to “the less delusional faiths”?
On second thoughts, they all have a good dose of delusion, but it’s the believers that have various levels of delusion, or enlightenment. All of the major religions have their extremist nutjobs, & also some people who are fairly enlightened. And some religions have bigger cohorts of the former, whereas others have bigger cohorts of the latter, & this all changes over time.
But it’s a potentially important point that you make. How much damage might ‘clever’ lawyers do if they run with this? One heck of a lot, I think.
Leonid,
I’m not so sure. Separation of church and state is almost unheard of in Western Europe, and religion seems to be not doing nearly so well over there. It is conceivable that separation of church and state is the very thing that has allowed religion to thrive so well here.
Not that I would want to do away with it, of course. I have hope that reason will win the day, and that we won’t have to descend back into the dark ages before crawling back up again.
PZ, I think it for the first time ever that I disagree with you. Church state separation is the sacred pillar of freedom and it should be protected.
I don’t know. OTOH, strictly speaking the pamphlet didn’t seem to be establishing religion (telling people to become Episcopal, for eg) or prohibiting free exercise thereof (telling people NOT to become LDS/RC, for eg).
But OTOH you have a passage like this:
In saying this they seem to be suggesting that those religious groups which interpret the bible in a homophobic manner are similar to those which used the bible as justification for slavery, sexism, and religious persecution — things we generally accept as immoral. And while not explicit, this is showing favor for one kind of religious belief over another.
This brings up the problem that PZ raised re: religious critique. My solution would be that it can be done, but it must be done as a dialog. If the school had organized a colloquium or panel discussion about religious views on homosexuality, it would have been a very different thing than publishing a written pamphlet for distribution to students. It would have also probably have been more constructive, since people are much more likely to learn and grow by having dialog with one another than by being told something and offered no chance to respond.
On a tangential note, I’d argue with the phrase “out of context” here. The trouble with the bible is that much of it is very ambiguous (open to multiple interpretations, without one being clearly more valid than the other), and much of the book is internally contradictory. So I would say it’s more “taken in the wrong context”, where ‘wrong context’ is defined as the context that allows justification of laws and ethics that are contrary to basic standards of human dignity.
A pre-emptive Kenny strike: If you think the sex of people getting it on with each other is a moral issue, you have bad morals.
“Church state separation is the sacred pillar of freedom and it should be protected.”
When you get actual practical seperation of Church and State it most certainly is… but despite what is written in what ever official documents at first blush of the subject practical seperation of the two is currently being done better by coutnries that actually are legally theist, such as most of the Common Wealth countries.
Wow, this is scary, and I think the wrong legal decision. The government must not promote any particular religion, but, as Monado pointed out, discussing the acceptance of homosexuality by various religions is a meta-activity, not the promotion of one particular view over others. Even critiquing those religions that are intolerant is not in violation, because tolerance is not a distinctively religious value at all, but is rather a historically liberal, political value. Thus, promoting tolerance is not pushing any particular religious doctrine at all.
Leonid Grinberg typed:
Insightful Ape typed:
Both your reasonings come from the perspective of America today in which I think separation of church and state is needed because if removed America would rapidly descend into a theocracy. However, eventually it will be a null concept, as it is in most of Europe. Remember, it is not the same as having no state religion, it goes further. It is a null concept in most of Europe because the governments treats religion like anything else.
Europe being far less religious than America, there doesn’t need to be barrier stopping the governments treating religion frankly because unlike in America there is no fear of Europe becoming theocratic by allowing a frank dealing with religion. The ultimate irony of it from the point of view of the nonreligious is that the thing which they see to protect them from religion also favors it as above government intervention unique to anything else. Amazingly, even less religious countries that have a state religion as an ancestral vestige (along with the monarchy) can still favor other religions over that one in specific issues (btw as a UK resident I think this ancestral vestige needs amputation) so in conclusion I think that America needs it and state now to stop its laws being overrun by religion but I hope it won’t need it forever.
Surely the crazy-ass wingnut sects are deserving of more contempt than the milquetoast mainstream denominations that bustle about trying to do good works and otherwise keep their heads down. (May the tribes of the latter increase at the cost of the former until the whole mess finally fades away!) While religions may be essentially equal in the vacuousness of their underpinnings, they are not equal in their manifestations. I’ll take a Friends meeting house in my neighborhood over a Westboro Baptist enclave any day.
IA @5,
I think it for the first time ever that I disagree with you. Church state separation is the sacred pillar of freedom and it should be protected
I’m not certain PZ disagrees with you, actually. I read him as thinking church state separation of paramount importance (hard to imagine him thinking anything else), but noting that a generally good principle can have the occasional unfortunate side effect.
Though I haven’t read the decision and know of it only from the few details here, I tend to agree with Pete @9. However, that doesn’t matter very much. Law is whatever a competent court says it is (and no, ha ha, “competent” means something else here, so no jokes please.) If the decision has been accurately described here, then a (presumably government-funded) student group noting that some religions are less odious than others to gay people does violate the constitution — at least before this court and others (if any) for which this decision establishes precedent, and at least until a higher court says “Brrzzzt! Bad lower court, no biscuit”. And until that happens, c/s separation really does have an unfortunate side effect.
Hmm… I don’t think that the separation of church and state exists any longer in this nation. At least, it doesn’t seem to exist in the manner for which our founders had hoped and fought and died.
Personally, I think when it comes to the whole separation issue, America is a lost cause, and with every passing day, the screeching herd of gesticulating retards and half-wits drags us closer and closer to the theocratic dystopia our founders really wished to avoid.
I think it’s inevitable that this nation will collapse. And, I admit, a part of me thinks it needs to in order to shake this irrational reliance upon religion. Apparently, as a nation, we are too dim-witted or isolated or just too fucking stupid to actually see what happened to the Middle East before the Muslim theocracies sprung up to destroy science and education in much the same way it’s happening here.
If America is to progress in any way, we’ve got to shake the dead weight of our foolish superstitions.
The UK doesn’t have separation of church and state, and never has. Indeed, it automatically has 26 bishops of the Church of England in the upper chamber.
In 2005, a Eurobarometer poll showed the 38% of people in the UK believed in God.
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf
The Church of England probably counts as one of the least delusional religions around. (Although it is currently divided over the concepts of women bishops and gay bishops).
Lack of separation doesn’t automatically lead to clericalism. Although I favour full separation, I recognise that some believe that it is the separation in the US that encourages a “free market” in religion leading to the current situation. And that it is the establishment of the Church of England that causes it to be relatively benign.
This is not a simple matter! I would like to know just why the US is like it is, so that the UK can avoid the traps (if it isn’t too late).
Nicely said.
Mr. Jeff (#7): Isn’t that precisely a moral issue? Everyone has some set of rules they play by (most of which come from others but not all), and they define themselves and their rules based on what they do (they act based on the rules, but there is some feedback). What I choose to do is an expression of what I believe my morals ought to be – so the choice of who to have sex with, etc. (my wife, another woman, another man, etc.) is a moral decision – in theory, one which ought to be consistent with the way I think I ought to behave.
The problem with Kenny and his ilk is not they have morals, but that they insist that only their morals are correct and that everyone is obliged to act according to their moral system, though it seems in many cases they can’t be bothered to act according to their own rules (either because they can’t, in which case their morals can’t be a useful standard, or because they think that they’re above the law, in which case the morals they proclaim are not those in which they actually believe). In the case of sex between consenting adults, it would seem to be one where they have attempted to force their morals into law without a reasonable cause for them being there (lack of harm to nonparticipants), thus defiling the law as well.
Am I missing something?
Oh sorry… by “Gay Religion” I assumed you meant “shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch” :-)
In my opinion this is an example of the misuse of the principle of separation of church and state.
To state what we observe is not a religious matter.
Let me just mention that the UK is very unusual in Europe in not having separation of church and state.
Hap,
I didn’t say Kenny had no morals, but bad morals. Anti-gay morality is destructive.
to Hap #16:
Personally I don’t think the gender of the people one is attracted to is a matter of morals. Trying to seduce someone who is already in a relationship however is. I threw the second one in there as an example; what you feel and think are not moral or immoral, what you do is where morals and ethics come into play.
This is the difference between bible thumpers and the rational thinkers, they say what you want and think can be immoral and a sin, and the other side says on rare occasions it can be a sickness (the voices telling you to kill people) but the simple fact of it happening is not a reason to place blame.
It really seems to be about the definition of ‘morals’ (possibly of morals vs ethics, one being sociatal and the other personal but if you’ve build a sociaty of individuals can you rightly draw the line?), one side says you should consider everything and their implications (which will alwasy change with the situation), the other side says even thinking about somethings is…. unthinkable.
Wait. How the non-existent-hell is the existence of materials taking a particular view available a violation of non-establishment? Is the LIBRARY allowed books taking a side on religious issues?
@David Marjanovic (#19): Not THAT unusual. Some of the Nordic countries have established (Lutheran) churches. Also there are countries with a stated separation of church and state but laws which seem to obviously violate it. For example Portugal is a secular republic where the Catholic church (and no one else except a registrar) can perform marriages. Not to mention the laws on insulting Islam in “secular, Kemalist” Turkey.
@#22 Matt Heath —
Actually it’s a bit of a different issue, because these are materials being put out by the a branch of the administration (the “Safe Space” program at Georgia Tech, a part of the institute’s diversity office designed to support gay and lesbian students) rather than a library, where the context of the information provided is much different. If I get materials about the economics department from the administration, I will think I am getting a statement that the administration supports. If I check out The Communist Manifesto from the library, I won’t think that my school’s administration is Marxist.
In fact, the lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund made this distinction:
This was also the basis of the judge’s ruling:
And based on this passage from the article, I think it seems reasonable to say that they are implicitly supporting one religion over another:
Of course, without access to the material itself, one can’t be sure, but based on the article, I think the ruling was constitutional.
Yes, but the purpose of the books is clearly informational, while the pamphlet is equally clearly instructional in nature.
My university takes what might appear to be extreme measures to prevent these problems. There is a campus-funded LGBT group, a number of student-run religious organizations, and a free-thinkers group… and great pains are taken to make sure that the money that funds them is never in the same pot as the state’s money. There’s even a mechanism by which students can “opt out” of their tuition money going to fund a particular group… which means that their tuition goes to fund other groups and other students’ money goes to fund the group they opted out of, but I suppose it makes people feel better.
Everything that might be perceived as endorsing any viewpoint (including viewpoints like ‘we like anime,’ amusingly enough) has to bear a legend to the effect of “No state money was used in the creation and printing of this document.” It’s sometimes very funny, but it’s legally necessary and very effective ass-covering; it also leaves student groups free to express just about any idea that isn’t actually espousing violence.
Insightful Ape writes:
Church state separation is the sacred pillar of freedom and it should be protected.
Boggling at the irony of using “sacred” in that sentence.
I agree with those who find fault in this ruling. Ironically, if it is upheld on appeal (to the SCOTUS?), it would be as bad, or worse, for the right-wing religios. That assumes it is applied fairly and evenly – a big assumption indeed.
What makes it illogical is that, from the information given, this was not preferring one religion over another. It was merely stating facts ABOUT various religions. Applied to history, we’d have to treat Hitler’s desire to eliminate Jews as equally valuable as those who opposed him. It should not be unconstitutional to point out that one outcome is more desirable or that, as in this case, some religious groups have treated gays more favorably.
Religious groups are ALWAYS expressing a preference. Heck, Christianity is obnoxious about it when they remind folks that “No one comes to the Father but through me.” Preferential? Absolutely! They say they are the only TRUE religion, theirs the only TRUE god. Denigrating? In spades! Everybody else is an infidel, heathen, unclean, immoral, etc.
Regarding the “out of context” remark – it looks to me like that was an attempt to soften any Biblical “criticism.” Those bad parts of the Bible are completely “in context.” No need to misread them to see the bigotry.
@#26 —
Maybe that was the intent, but to me it was the most damning part. It’s basically saying there’s one true form of biblical interpretation — the one that is against slavery, not sexist, tolerant of other religions & of homosexuality, etc. The other religions are Wrong, by their own book. That I think is in violation of the 1st Amendment.
I would feel a lot more sympathetic towards the administration if they had simply said, “Some religions view the bible this way; some view it that way.” But because they said “The religions that are wrong view the bible this way; the ones that are right do it that way”, I think they did step out of line.
Cue “Michael” to argue:
Public schools shouldn’t teach evolution, geology, astronomy, or any science concepts that contradict certain religious beliefs, because to teach those concepts is to adopt a stance on those religions and is therefore itself a religious stance.
O_o
Just a procedural note: An appeal of this decision would go first to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (as the original decision is from a district court in Georgia).
After a decision by the 11th Circuit (which is required to hear any appeal), a writ of certiorari could be sought from the SCOTUS (which has discretion and would almost certainly refuse to hear it).
At first he was like…
And then he was like…
Contradiction much> It seems to me just as silly to hate on all religions equally as it is to ignore their differences for the purposes of communicating the truth about them.
On a related note, has anyone here read Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials (The Rise of Irrationality and the Perils of Piety)? It specifically addresses separation of church and state issues.
I just started it last night and I’m debating finishing it. The author strikes me as a bit of a cafeteria rationalist, someone who only applies critical thinking when it is convenient. That, of course, doesn’t diminish their arguments when they do bother to make any. But it does make it tedious to wade through the chaff to get to the wheat.
The comment that “Some religions are more tolerant of homosexuality than others” cannot be seen as an endorsement of those relgions unless it is assumed that tolerance of homosexuality is good. Alternatively, a rabid homophobic fundamentalist could also view this as a positive statement, because it would be an endorsement of the “others”.
@#32 Pablo —
Yes, but the statement that “Some religions are more tolerant of homosexuality than others, and those others are taking bible quotes out of context” can be seen as an endorsement of the first (non-out-of-context) religions. That’s basically the state telling the “out-of-context” churches “Religion, ur doing it wrong”, and that’s really not the state’s place.
PZ, I think you just identified the next front in the war. To wit: pick out and marginalize certain subgroups until public measures are taken to prevent those groups from further marginalization, then claim special protection under those very same measures.
It follows (il-)logically from the current battleground, namely to lure legislatures into adopting academic-freedom legislation. When/If the states defeat those measures, the case will be made that particular forms of free thought are in danger of persecution, and therefore require protective measures.
So in practice, test-cases will suddenly arise in potentially friendly jurisdictions which will argue that the teaching of evolution creates a hostile environment for adherents of particular life-style choices, from which they require special protection.
Then, anticipate some sub-group of those adherents to demand separate-but-equal status in public classrooms, to be shortly followed by another sub-group which will argue, a la Brown v. Topeka BOE, that such is unconstitutional.
Finally, someone will come along pretending to restore peace and build consensus by suggesting that evolution is so divisive an issue as to require removal from public school curricula entirely.
No one wants to lose their job (e.g., at DI) by premature victory, so expect this to be at least a ten-year process, with the goons milking their donors for continued funding through the judicious application of marginal defeats.
In my opinion, the problem is that any religion that condemns homosexuality (or takes a similar political position) stops being a religion and becomes a political organization. If an organization wishes to retain religious status, it must refrain from taking political positions. The spirit of the separation of church and state is that the powers of each must be separated from the other. The church must not favour one political position over another and the state must not favour one religion over another. Once a church has taken a political position, all benefits and protections extended to religious organizations should be revoked.
#27,
The issue is not whether one sentence “did step out of line” when it comes to judicial review. The courts have to take the issue as a whole. I use the comparison of banners that have hung over our city’s streets. These are authorized by the city government, city workers are paid to put them up and maintain them, though individuals or organizations pay for them. The messages can be, and have been, very sectarian – much worse than the pamphlet in terms of showing preference to one religion.
In reviewing the constitutionality of this, however, a court would not (should not) look at one particular banner. It would/should look at the policy/regulation/law that authorized placing banners over the city streets. As long as that policy/regulation/law is religiously neutral (not advancing or inhibiting religion), then it would/should pass constitutional scrutiny.
Similarly with the pamphlet, if the policy that allowed their creation is religiously neutral, then it’s more of a free speech and equal access issue. If the policy is neutral, yet only Christians or LGBT people are allowed to use it, then there’s constitutional issues because a forum, once created, has to be open to all viewpoints. So my big question here would be whether only the LGBT side was allowed to be heard, not whether their speech was preferential.
As always, the answer to unpopular speech, no matter which side is saying it, is more speech, not censoring one side’s views.
And no, I don’t think that means the 10 Cs should go up on courthouse walls with other religious codes, nor should ID be allowed in science classrooms. Why the difference? The last two are not public forums.
I agree with PZ, the separation principal can cause great frustration like with the equal access rulings regarding organizations that can meet on school property if other groups are allowed. I cringe at the idea of THEM getting more access to impressionable young minds, but grudginhgly agree that it must be equal access if any access is granted. The problem is greatest in bringing about equality because Xians tend to see themselves as “more equal” than others, thus they try to refuse gay/straight clubs at schools where Bible clubs meet. Lack of hypocrisy is something I’ll never accuse them of.
I’m pretty sure this case will bring similar hypocrisy. They’ll use religion as a sword AND a shield. They’ll try to silence all criticism of their religious ideas while demanding “religious freedom” to denigrate others. That “Christian privilege” has been around a long time and losing it is their greatest fear, so now they’ve gone back on the offensive. Equality is fine, but their privilege(s) must end.
Etha Williams #27 wrote:
I agree — this is the crux of the matter, and the reason I also think the court ruling is correct. I actually side with the (gaak) Alliance Defense Fund on this one — as does the gay rights group, Human Rights Campaign.
PZ wrote:
On the contrary, I think the principle that government funded schools must be neutral on religion, and act as an advocate for none of them, is a benefit to both pro-evolution AND atheism. It doesn’t protect religion from criticism — it allows it. Not as the official stance of the state, but elsewhere.
When public schools respond to the the question “does evolution conflict with the Christian religion?” the administration can answer “it conflicts with some religious interpretations, but not with many others.” This is true.
But they can’t say “not at all — a proper understanding of Christianity will allow a Christian to accept both the Bible and evolution.” In other words, they can’t whitewash Christianity as being science-friendly, in true essence.
Which means that when atheists critique religion and Christianity as being in conflict with modern science, we can make our case without the government in effect ruling in advance that “religion has no conflict with science.” The last thing we need is an official, tax-payer supported stance that “atheists cherry-pick unrepresentative views and deliberately misinterpret Christianity in order to attack it.” There is no problem with faith. Faith loves science.
If the government could do that, then they’d be protecting and privileging the religious view that says dangerous, pathological, irrational Christians aren’t really Christian.
I can’t believe I just wasted a couple of hours of my life reading Judge Forrester’s opinion. It’s Saturday! Internetz eated mai brain.
Anyway, I don’t have a problem with the decision. The Safe Space was handing out literature clearly favoring certain religious groups over others. The dean’s involvement and her oversight of the literature created the state entanglement provoking the establishment clause challenge.
The Safe Space literature does not impress this atheist. Why bother with questions about whether homosexuality is a sin or whether the Bible has a few verses that gays can use in their own defense?
Getting rid of those wooly-headed handouts was a gay friendly thing to do.
Well, the Unitarian-Universalist Church is rather friendly to both gay people and Evolution (and science in general).
I forgot to say: the literature implied a theologically defensible basis for prefering certain Christian sects. It’s not okay for the government to do that.
If the handouts simply said, “Unitarians are more accepting of homosexuals than Baptists” I don’t see how the establishment clause would apply.
Freedom of religion doesn’t trump ALL other rights. It’s not inappropriate for the state (or anyone else) to point out that some sects seek to undermine the civil rights of some minority. Doing so is not an endorsement of the RELIGION of the sects that don’t.
I know you don’t like it, but that’s what happens when the government is in charge of educating the children. You don’t get that bullshit in private schools.
@#40 Dr Benway —
I would add, also, that this hinders religious critique by giving preference to a certain theological claim; in this case, it gives governmental authority and, thus, widespread public credence to the claim that anything you see in the bible that seems out-dated, unethical, or immoral is “out of context”.
@#41 Kseniya —
No, nor is it even a condemnation of sects that do; they may say that they are being moral in a sinful society. However, claiming that sects that do are misinterpreting the bible (or any other book or set of religious beliefs) IS making a theologically-based condemnation of one religion, if not a whole-hearted endorsement of the others.
@#38 Dr Benway —
Could you post the URL? I’d be interested in
wasting some more timeeducating myself about current events too.Kseniya #41 wrote:
Yes and no. It is inappropriate for the state to claim that the sects which are not supportive of gay rights are misinterpreting the Bible. As atheists point out again and again, it’s not necessarily a misinterpretation of the Bible at all. Making the Bible all nice and humanist may be the misinterpretation. The government shouldn’t be into Biblical exegesis.
But the more interesting question is whether it’s okay for the government to support statements to the effect that being against gay marriage, say, is being against “civil rights for homosexuals.” The conservative religious sects see the issue as “protecting marriage” and standing behind civil rights. They don’t want their tax dollars supporting statements that say otherwise.
While I agree that this latter argument is bogus, I can see where it’s trying to go. And it’s similar to — but slightly different than — their argument that the government can’t come down and say that creationism is “bad science.” Yes it can. Science isn’t a matter of political whim. And it’s a secular pursuit.
When it gets down to it, human rights must also be justified on secular ground. You can’t allow laws to be made against groups of people who are “abominations against God” if they’ve done nothing criminal or illegal. So I would not think it endorsing one religion over another to say that some religions are “anti-gay” or “against civil liberties for homosexuals.” From a secular, neutral, worldly standpoint, they are.
The only argument they have to the contrary is specifically religious in nature. Not only religious in nature, but sectarian. They want their particular religion to have the right to stand outside secular reasoning, and still be considered part of the common ground. No can do.
The religions which have no problem with gay rights may justify their stance using the Bible – or they may say that the Bible supports or even suggests evolution — but it still comes down to a religious view happening to stand on secular ground. And that’s what counts.
re: my #44 — never mind, I just realized that the opinion is linked to in the first sentence of the article.
Okay, I’m seriously going to stop soon, but I thought people might be interested to hear the following excerpt from the Safe Space Training Manual, as quoted in the judge’s ruling:
As a side note, it very much bothers me that their entire answer to the question of the *morality* of homosexuality is based on religious (and biblical) interpretations. Reinforces the Morals IFF Religion (often biblical) argument and is also, IMO, unconstitutional.
Ummm…ok…let me just add that the passage cited in the article (and in my #47) is NOT an isolated incident. In the full ruling, there is this gem from the Training Manual (which, as it turns out, was distributed to all participants of the Safe Space program, was read in conjunction with the training, and was also available on the Safe Space website):
While I appreciate the “there seems to be little point in arguing with people who still believe the earth was created in 4,004 B.C.” sentiment, I cannot possibly think of a way this could be construed as constitutionally supported behavior on the part of a public school’s diversity office program.
I guarantee this wouldn’t have been the same issue, or the same ruling, if the materials had been talking about some Christian Identity sects. Discrimination is not commensurate with preference ‐ simply making note of extant differences, some of which happen to be ethically repugnant, is not establishment as far as I can tell (though I’m obviously no legal scholar).
We don’t feel the need to extend this sort of hyperallergic consideration to religious groups that pick on other religious groups, or to religious groups that pick on certain ethnicities. Where do homophobic groups get off the hook with their reprehensible bullshit simply because more people happen to be homophobic?
I suspect that this ruling, if it isn’t overturned, will show itself to have been a blow against religious establishment, as well as a blow against egalitarianism. We’re forgetting what it means to be impartial ‐ by conflating genuine preferentialism with impartial discrimination we’re opening the window a little bit wider for people who unabashedly embrace discriminatory preferentialism to break in and claim an absurd amount of protection from criticism for all the stupid crap that they pull.
I just have to say I despise religion also Mr. Myers. -It is utterly vile.
Etha Williams #48:
Egads. I had not read that particular passage, but I agree it makes the ruling a slam dunk. Government-endorsed speech? No way.
They’re giving instructions on how to argue against a particular view of the Bible by using the Bible, for crying out loud. I’d have no problems if it were put out by a gay rights group. Or any group. But a public university’s training manual?
If I don’t argue against this, I can’t consistently argue against the official motto of the United States being “In God We Trust.”
I have to also disagree, there is definitely a time and place for these comparisons between religions to be made, especially on a college campus, but university funded pamphlets shouldn’t do that. If they had simply giving information, simply hard data as to each religion’s official stance on homosexuality, it’d be fine. They were making moral statements in those pamphlets, and while I think that religions should modernize or die, this was overstepping.
JMK Inc #49 wrote:
Yes we do.
I would have the same sort of objection to a government-funded manual which stated:
“Some Protestant sects argue that Catholics are not really Christians, but this is a misunderstanding of the Bible.”
“Christians who claim that Jesus is the only way to salvation, and that non-christians will roast in hellfire, are ignoring the true message of Jesus, which was to bring all people together in love.”
“During the Civil War, Christians came down on both sides of the slavery issue. Those Christians who justified the inferiority of the black race by citing the “curse of Ham” should have realized that this is not how to read the Bible.”
“The Christian Identity Movement seeks to establish an all-white Christian theocracy in the United States. This is anti-Christian, and these people are heretics.”
Keep government out of getting into deciding who the “true Christians” are. The next step is the State deciding who really understands what God is.
And we’re not going to make the right side of the cut.
I wonder if this pamphlet would pass legal muster if it just listed or quoted various church doctrines regarding homosexuality without the editorial tone. Seems like a “Denomination/Statement of Belief” table would be more useful anyway. The validity of the various interpretations of the Bible can’t and shouldn’t be addressed in government publications. Much better to do it in places like Pharyngula where I can freely suggest that the Bible should be considered irrelevant to sex and pretty much everything else.
The establishment clause is exactly the strategy I would use, were I among a politically weak group of non-believers negotiating with a politically strong group of theocrats.
When you don’t have much power you attack your enemy indirectly. One indirect strategy involves inviting your enemy to take a position that limits his options against you. Of course he isn’t going to take the new position if he appreciates those limits. So you direct his attention to the advantages of the new position while distracting him from the disadvantages.
The establishment clause can be sold as a means to protect religion from government interference. Friendly words to a believer’s ears, no? A good salesman would make some respect noises to seal the deal. Only later and only if absolutely necessary would the seller direct attention to the fine print.
The fine print says: “The state remains mute regarding supernatural matters, as per our agreement. Please note that by implication, this agreement has also rendered the state blind and deaf to any and all supernatural claims you might make. In other words, from the state’s perspective, supernaturalism does not exist. Have a nice day.”
@#53 Sastra —
And it seems like this document was already starting to do so, what with its heavy focus on Judeo-Christian beliefs (I think I found one brief mention of Buddhism in the quoted materials) and its instruction to “Remember: these people are not homophobic because of the Bible; they hurl these passages at gays and lesbians because they were homophobic to begin with.” Implicit is: 1) to address the morality of homosexuality, we must consult religion; 2) the Bible is the most worthwhile thing to consult; 3) the correct interpretation of the Bible is that homosexuality is moral, and anyone who denies this does not understand God correctly.
The article linked to is called “Gay Rights vs Religious Rights”, but I don’t see how this is about this at all. It’s protecting freedom from religion every bit as much as it’s protecting of religion.
Exactly. It is never right for the government to say which is the correct reading of a religious text. Period, full stop, end of sentence. It would be perfectly ok for the group in question to list what different religions believe, and what has historically been justified with certain bible passages, but the moment you claim they were wrong because that’s not really what Christianity is supposed to be, or because that’s not really what the bible means, you have crossed a line.
Hermeneutics is just not the business of government.
Etha #56 wrote:
Note its similarity to:
1.) to address the truth of evolution, we must consult religion;
2.) the Bible is the most worthwhile thing to consult;
3.) the correct interpretation of the Bible is that one should use modern science to understand nature, and anyone who denies this does not understand God correctly;
4.) so atheists should just sit down and shut up about science and religion being in conflict, already.
Gay religion? I suppose I do spend a lot of time on my knees…
There is one important issue here to remember: state action. You said Pharyngula is on the right side of the Constitution because it hates all religions equally. Well, even if you preferred one religion over the other (I know, a stretch, but bear with me), it wouldn’t matter. Pharyngula and PZ as its author are not state actors. You can take any position you want.
PZ, you said that you were concerned that “science support organizations” might not be able to criticize religion as strongly in light of this operation of the Establishment Clause. Well, so long as the organization is not a “state actor,” it doesn’t matter. What constitutes whether or not a certain person or entity is a state actor is a bit trickier than seeing whether or not the person works for or the entity is part of the government. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that the clause only applies to such “state actors,” just like many of the other amendments, the Fifth and the Fourteenth most notably.
get off your dead ass jesus and send me a text message on this one. oh i forgot jesus is computer illiterate. ie: no can do.
Implicit is: 1) to address the morality of homosexuality, we must consult religion; 2) the Bible is the most worthwhile thing to consult; 3) the correct interpretation of the Bible is that homosexuality is moral, and anyone who denies this does not understand God correctly.
……………..while you are at it. address the morality of human heterosexual reproduction on this planet as it relates to its carrying capacity and suffering it causes.
From the OP:
A publically funded biology department has every right, and indeed the responsibility, to say that ID/Creationism is not science. However, they have no right to say that it is theologically right OR wrong, nor that evolutionary theory is theologically supported OR unsupported.
When the government makes theological claims — that’s when religious belief is protected, privileged, and isolated from criticism. Because even if the government supported the “ID wrong, evolution supported” theological position, it would still be privileging that particular theology and protecting it from critique (as described by Sastra in #58).
I haven’t read the previous comments, but after reading the blog do have this to say:
The separation of Church and State should mean that the state’s actions should not be influenced by church doctrine.
The Judgment in this case presumes that it is the state’s responsibility to constantly review various religious attitudes and alter policy to avoid preferring on religion to any others. Clearly this judgment is not inline with the separation of church and state given that the state should not be concerned with religion at all when issuing policy, and therefore cannot be expected to constantly review various religious positions. This was the first judgment of its kind, and I expect it will be appealed and not used as precedent.
So, PZ, I agree with you about the counterproductivity of the separation of church and state policy if and it is being abused, as was clearly done here. But the reality is that if judges can avoid being bamboozled by questionable arguments and/or personal biases, and remain committed to the primary purpose of the law, then the separation of church and state would remain a useful pillar in our government.
And just to clarify, even though the documents in question in the case did discuss the views of various religions on a particular topic, this was done to provide information, not promote an agenda. Anyone could come and decide which religion had it right on their own, the pamphlets were not propaganda, just information.
I have to say that the pamphlets were definitely in violation of the establishment clause, as Etha Williams and others have noted above, because of the blatant value judgments made as to what real Christianity and the correct interpretation of the Bible are.
But I sympathize with the feeling that the separation of church and state privileges religion. I think it’s worthwhile to make a distinction here between the establishment clause and the free exercise clause. The establishment clause pretty much purely helps us, and the establishment clause is what was violated in this case. And I have zero problem with this court ruling–a state actor has no business handing down quasi-official exegesis. But I do believe the free exercise clause overprivileges religion. That is what were get things like churches being exempted from zoning laws for no good reason, and pharmacists thinking they don’t have to sell contraceptives. For some reason if you are a member of a major religious sect it is believable to say, “If we can’t build a megachurch here that violates our right to free exercise,” and yet somehow the claim is rejected when it’s a Native American wanting to use peyote. And of course the nonreligious can make no free exercise claims at all. We would be better served if free exercise was just wrapped up in freedom of speech and assembly, rather than giving religious belief a special status above all other types of ideologies and activities.
Forgive me if this has been explained already – I’m pressed for time and haven’t read the thread – but how is a gay student support group “the state”? I’m not aware of any gay student support groups that wield the power of fire and sword. I can see how the teachers in a public school are an emanation of the state – since teachers do have some limited delegated power to punish their students under state authority – but … a gay student support group? Wtf? How was it in a position to use state power to coerce?
Go back to fundamentals, everyone (including the appellate court that will review this case if it’s being appealed). Read John Locke again.
The separation of church and state fundamentally means that no religious (or anti-religious) viewpoint will be imposed on non-adherents by fire and sword, i.e. by the coercive power of the state. (These days, of course, the state prefers to use 9 mm pistols, police batons, and penitentiaries.)
The separation of church and state is often breached when criminal laws are enacted to impose a specifically religious morality on citizens. E.g., the doctrine should be used to strike down laws against homosexual acts (which, of course, are already unconstitutional in the US under Lawrence v. Texas). But I can’t see how it has happened here. How, exactly, has the gay student group imposed its viewpoint by means of fire and sword?
If the claim is that they somehow received public funds, I can only say that the idea that no one who is in receipt of public funds can ever express an opinion on matters of religion is a ridiculous over-extension of the doctrine.
@#65 DC Tucker —
Although one somewhat gets this impression from the article, in fact the literature was quite explicit in saying that at least so far as Judeo-Xian belief went, the tolerant sects are theologically correct while the intolerant ones are not. This is reflected in the excerpts I quoted in comment 47 and, most strongly, in comment 48. Further, the “homosexuality is a sin” is listed under “myths”. Sin is, by definition, something relating to God, and thus to pass judgment on whether something is a sin is to make a religious claim. As the judge put it:
To allow government involvement in religious matters is just as bad as to allow religious involvement in government matters. In both cases, we have religion (theo-) and government (-cracy) combined — and that is what leads to theocracy.
@#67 Russel Blackford —
This was being run by the campus’ “Safe Space”, a branch of their campus Diversity Office working in conjunction with the student group. While this in itself is somewhat ambiguous (and the court ruling goes on for a number of pages discussing it), the court decided (rightly, I would say) that it counts as “state” for three primary reasons:
1) Location — it is physically located in the school administration’s diversity office
2) Privilege — of the 350 student groups, among them a number of minority groups, only the campus gay student support group was affiliated with the diversity office. Thus, this is not just some ordinary “student group”
3) Association with the Assistant Dean — the assistant dean of students was heavily involved in starting the Safe Space, responding to critical e-mails, training people, etc.
In fact, it is interesting that you should mention teachers as being agents of the state; the lawyer for the group pressing charges would not agree:
So really, it’s just about this being purported to be representative of the whole institution.
Er, likely enough completely OT, but when I opened your blog I got an alert asking me about a cookie for some shite called ‘godtube.com’. Is this a bad thing, or some super-sophisticated Landover Baptist-style pisstake? I can’t tell.
[Sorry about the odd method of approach. Not too clever with all this interwebs malarkey, what with being european and working class, and five days older than yourself, guv’nor. Couldn’t think of any other way of raising the issue]
Since some southern fundamentalist churches used to claim that blacks were inferior to whites, and that blacks and whites should not intermarry, then I guess that teachers or politicians or anyone representing of funded by the state would be violating separation if they said that such racist and bigoted ideas were intolerant, immoral, or unethical.
I guess its a good thing that we don’t have any public officials violating the separation of church and state by saying that Islam advocates violence, complaining about “Islamists,” etc.
dustbubble, another post has a video embedded, like blogs do with youtube videos, only this video is from godtube.
Safe, more or less.
When I went to public school in Ontario back in the 80’s, there was school prayer every single morning. I survived it and most people I grew up with did as well. It’s probably why I hate religion so much in the first place.
Well, indeed if the documents in question were as blatant as you say, which I assume given that you’ve probably read them and I have not, then you are absolutely right. What that means though, is that this case was not an example of separation of church and state gone wrong, and that it will be of little interest to most situations in which information is given without judgment on the religious principles.
In other words, this may be an unexpected example of gay rights advocates overplaying the significance of a decision. Indeed, the fact that the pamphlets were removed before the case had even ended supports this theory. So, my original argument stands, that this is not an case against the separation of church and state, the only danger would be in the possible use of this as a precedent in a case of less ridiculousness.
No, because no one is bothering the gay group for saying that being gay is perfectly all right.
It is a problem, yes, that organized religious groups receive a kind of protection from non-profit or educational groups being able to criticize them, while, of course the religious student groups can rail away at “Darwinists” and atheists all they want.
But I don’t know how one could accommodate the establishment clause except by keeping gov’t-associated groups from favoring or disfavoring organized religions.
The last thing we’d want to do is to prevent these protections, because the majorities would be using gov’t funds (and official stamp of approval) to attack the minority opinions and beliefs. Yes, it’s not perfect now, but above all, if favoring or disfavoring certain religions by a gay group were allowed using gov’t money, then ID and a host of other religious apologetics would logically be allowable in the school systems.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com2/kxyc7
“I despise ’em all [religions] equally.”
I don’t think you really mean this.
Now if I were the one writing that pamphlet, I would rewrite it so it said, sarcastically: “All religions love gay people equally. No religion has ever discriminated against gays or condemned homosexuality. Yay religion!”
I say let the religious asshats have their bigotry. It’s just a little more rope around the necks of their dogmas. As more people come out of the closets and people realize we’re not a bunch of evil baby-eating devil-worshippers, they will become more and more alienated with hateful religious ideologies.
Thanks craig (@72). Just rolled down and found it. Must check in more often, I’m still wheezing a bit from laughing too hard.
Best day’s work we ever did, packing all those religious freaks into a few old leaky boats and dispatching them west-over-sea.
(Native Peoples of America, we’re so sorry. Really. We didn’t know. They were supposed to fall off the edge …)
I’d been wondering if something like this could happen ever since that lawsuit over (excuse my vague memory here) some school’s website talking about evolution-friendly forms of Christianity, in the name of trying to placate Christian students who were scared of evolution. Seemed like a similar case: endorsing a “preferred” version of religion.
(As I recall, in that case the challenge failed, though I don’t remember why).
Me too, only in the 60s & 70s. I went through both heathen and religious phases during my school years, and in neither state did I like the morning Lord’s Prayer.
Etha – thanks for that useful answer.
Just to clarify, I mentioned teachers in public schools (as opposed to academics in state-funded universities), for a reason. I was actually thinking of the prayer in schools issue. I actually agree with the words you quoted from the lawyer acting for the plaintiffs.
Academics and university students have academic freedom, and it’s usually assumed that academics will not punish students who disagree with them on genuinely contentious issues such as religion. Certainly, when I teach classes I make a big thing of the fact that no one will ever be marked (at least by me) on whether or not I agree with their philosophical conclusions. Academics in state-funded universities are actually expected to express all sorts of views, with no implication that those views are endorsed by the administration or, beyond it, the state, and this principle is well understood by all. (Actually, this may vary from country to country; things might, for all I know, be different under, say, the German university system, but I’d be confident that it would be the case in the US as well as here.)
But students are in a quite different power relationship to teachers in schools. The imposition of school prayer in a public school really does seem analogous to bringing fire and sword against non-believing students; we may not literally burn them at the stake, but no one should have her educational success jeopardised by her unwillingness to engage in public prayer.
Anyway, in this case, it might come down to whether, on the facts, the relationship between the particular campus group and the administration of the institution was so close that students might feel intimidated about disagreeing with the student organisation’s views, thinking they might be punished in some way by the administration if they did so. If that really was the situation, I might consider the judgment correct.
It sounds to me as if giving special status to one student group over others in the first place was a mistake, and where it all started to go wrong. The gay group should have been given no more support by the adminstration than the local fundamentalist Christian group on campus, or the chess club, or the cat lover’s association, or the let’s-all-screw-each-other society, or any other student group. Campus administrators should keep at arm’s length from student groups and any religious, moral, or political views that they advocate.
But again I’m talking pretty speculatively without knowing more facts. I’ll have to read the judgment later.
Sastra,
Exactly the point I was going for; thank you.
Maybe I should stop trying to say intelligent things for the next two of weeks… lol… I’m toasted. Classes end next week, and I have to finish my work, then take final exams, and then… Holy Crumbling Shortcake! I’ll be done. Six years to a BA – and a long hard road it was.
[*thousand.yard.stare*]
Wow, congratulations. Or, rather, early congratulations.
Where do all these brilliant youngsters come from?
@#81 Russel Blackford —
Ah, ok. I was under the mistaken impression that you were including public colleges/universities (which Georgia Tech is) under the umbrella of “public schools”.
In case you don’t want to wade through all 84 pages, here is the excerpt in which the judge discusses this particular issue:
While religions may be essentially equal in the vacuousness of their underpinnings, they are not equal in their manifestations. I’ll take a Friends meeting house in my neighborhood over a Westboro Baptist enclave any day.
Vacuous Hatfield here.
Look, Zeno and others able to distinguish betwixt brands of delusion, as a theist I am appreciative, obviously.
However….I am concerned about this decision, and I would like to get people to chime in on the constitutional question of whether or not the allusion to the fact that some brands of religion are not inimically opposed to something which may be controversial within the culture.
Here the discussion has focused on homosexuality, but I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that the Discovery Institute and their minions have argued that where evolution is concerned, they feel public school teachers should be constrained from pointing out that some religions don’t have a problem with evolution as it is taught.
That admirable chipmunk Casey Luskin, for example, has argued that a study guide to the PBS series ‘Evolution’ that takes this tack is unconstitutional, and suggested that someone ought to litigate them.
Me, I take a dim view of this claim, as I’ve posted about here and here.
Rather, it’s been my consistent position that the DI and others are making an empty claim, and that I’m on good constitutional grounds in offering the fact of the diversity of religious views where evolution is concerned as long as I don’t advocate any particular view. I’m particular happy to use the PBS series, as it shows one of the author’s of my state-approved biology text (Ken Miller) as a believer without making any explicit theological claims.
So, to any legal eagles out there or other interested commenters: am I still on solid constitutional ground, or should I abandon an effective pedagogical strategy until the impact of this particular ruling is understood?
I look forward to comments.
Re: #79
I’d been wondering if something like this could happen ever since that lawsuit over (excuse my vague memory here) some school’s website talking about evolution-friendly forms of Christianity, in the name of trying to placate Christian students who were scared of evolution. Seemed like a similar case: endorsing a “preferred” version of religion.
(As I recall, in that case the challenge failed, though I don’t remember why).
I think you’re thinking of a nuisance lawsuit filed by Larry Caldwell in California against the UC Museum of Paleontology website ‘Understanding Evolution.’ This was thrown out on procedural grounds.
Scott Hatfield #85 wrote:
I don’t know if you’ve read the whole thread, but the general consensus seems to be that the legal issue wasn’t about the school manual pointing out that some religions have a problem with homosexuality and others don’t. The public university was coming out and saying that the religions which have a problem with homosexuality are interpreting the Bible the wrong way. Official Government Hermeneutics.
I think that’s already where you have to make the cut on evolution. You can discuss the fact that many Christians accept it with no problem — and why. But you can’t preach that they do so because they know how God thinks, and the creationists don’t.
Hi, Scott! *waves*
IANAL. But. IMO you’re fine. I see it the way you see it.
Re: the DI, it’s interesting how narrow “the controversy” gets when it’s not their controversy taught their way…
Uhm…this has nothing to do with the separation between church and state. This is most likely some bigoted asshole misusing what should be a protection from people who want to push their beliefs onto others. This was a gay student club – the people who went to whatever function it was this happened in either wanted to be there or had the right to leave if it didn’t pertain to their beliefs.
Besides which, I don’t see how stating the facts about certain religions could be shown as endorsement. “Endorsement” of a religion, in legal terms, would involve giving unequal benefit to people who follow that religion over others. Stating how a certain religion tends to not harm a group of people does not fill that bill.
Seriously, PZ. Separation between church and state doesn’t seem to be what you think it is.
@#90 Ryan Egesdahl —
Well, not quite. See comments 69 and 84 for why these actions are considered representative of a state institution rather than of a mere student group; it was one of the key reasons why the judge ruled as he did.
Assuming the aforementioned argument for this as a state action rather than a student group action holds up (and I think it does), this is somewhat irrelevant. It’s similar to the argument that optional school prayer should be allowed — even though the students are free not to participate, the role of the state in this voluntary exercise of religious belief still goes too far into the realm of religion.
What I’m getting out of this discussion – and thanks again to Ella for the factual detail – is that the judgment may be correct on a peculiar set of facts. The institutional administration had acted in an asinine manner in allowing itself too close a relationship to a particular student organisation.
More generally, the lesson for all you folks in the US may be this. If you (or your organisation) want to comment on theological matters, make sure that you and the state (or its agencies) are at arm’s length from each other. Individual academics shouldn’t have much trouble doing this. I expect that professional bodies of academics in particular disciplines, such as the American Philosophical Association, will also be fine; no one could reasonably mistake them for the state.
Er, I mean Etha.
>The problem with Kenny and his ilk is not they have
>morals, but that they insist that only their morals are
>correct and that everyone is obliged to act according to
>their moral system.
This is not true at all. I have morals that I try to follow from the Bible yes and I believe them to be correct. I can’t help what you do though. If you don’t want to follow the Bible it is your choice.
Nothing is forced on anyone. You have free choice and free will and all of that.
I just see a terrible amount of misinformation on here and it is a travesty.
You can do anything you want and believe anything you want, but according to what I have read there are prices to pay for that in our world and in the next.
Nothing is forced on anyone
were your parents religious, Kenny?
are your kids?
your neighbors?
your dog?
I just see a terrible amount of misinformation on here and it is a travesty.
then stop posting.
>I didn’t say Kenny had no morals, but bad morals. Anti-gay
>morality is destructive.
I am not homophobic. I am not threatened by Gay people. I just feel that the Bible points out that it is a sin and that is all. I have no desire to do any harm to anyone including a gay person. God wants us to love and care about people no matter if they are Gay or not.
According to the Bible cheating on your wife is a sin and homosexuality is a sin. You can take both sins and make them into a sinfull lifestyle. God wants us to ask forgiveness to him for our sins and to turn away from our sins. That and he wants to have a relationship with us.
There is no hate in that. There are no bad morals in that.
>were your parents religious, Kenny?
Yes, but that is not why I believe. :)
Unlike what Dawkin’s says, I believe but not because
my parents brainwashed me.
I believe because of many reasons, but the biggest
is that I read about people who have died and have comeback
and said that there is God over on the other side and it’s filled with love, joy, and peace for them. While the doctors said that they were brain dead.
There is proof there that is the largest kind that I cannot overlook. Eyewitnesses are huge.
If there was no evdience on TV, Radio, Internet (all media) and also no physical evidence at all of 9/11 I would still believe it just based on people who saw it happen. Eyewitnesses. :)
Eyewitness testimony in the Bible even of Jesus alive after his death and what happened to cause it. Jesus had to die for all the people who are sinners on this planet and it is a free choice for those who want to accept him or reject him.
Well, I don’t know about everyone else on this planet, but I accept him. That is all I can really do.
Russell Blackford (#67):
It may seem ridiculous, but it is very important. If religious commentary is allowed by state organisations it provides a channel for privileged endorsement of a particular religion. Open-membership organisations, such as campus support groups, could be easily subverted and churn out biased commentary such as that in PZ’s post. The group would then have the defence of ‘merely commenting on religion as it relates to [our nominal purpose]’.
From interest, do you think that the case PZ mentions is overstepping the bounds of appropriate commentary? In light of the excerpt Etha quotes in #48?
I believe but not because
my parents brainwashed me.
and you would be able to tell… how?
Eyewitnesses
ah, your parents saw everything in the babble and were able to thus verify it all for you.
got it.
whee!
Scott (#86):
I left a longer comment at your blog but, yes, I think you’re okay. Etha seems to have gotten the decision’s import correctly. This case does not support the DI’s contention that, if schools merely give a list of statements by sects that accept evolution, they are demonstrating an unconstitutional preference of one denomination over the other … though the DI is likely to argue that it does. But we know how much to trust them, don’t we?
[Standard caveat: legal advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.]
Kenny
Nothing is forced on anyone. You have free choice and free will and all of that.
Then I would assume that you’re pro-choice, and pro-gay marriage (in that you might morally disagree, but acknowledge the right that others have to do these things.).
Right?
If there was no evdience on TV, Radio, Internet (all media) and also no physical evidence at all of 9/11 I would still believe it just based on people who saw it happen
then there were all those dead bodies, downed buildings, crashed airplanes…
got anything like that?
no?
Kenny; I don’t know what the specifics of your faith are, but your belief in the infallibility of the Bible is not going to get you anywhere around here. I don’t think you’ll budge on it, and you won’t convince anyone around here arguments based on it. If you’re genuinely trying to make an argument you need to pick another angle.
..oh wait, you DID say you would still believe without any physical evidence whatsoever.
do you know what the word “credulous”, means?
the analogy is gullible, if that helps.
Hematite
If you’re genuinely trying to make an argument you need to pick another angle.
I guess the obtuse angle wasn’t working…
*groan*
the
analogysynonym is gullible, if that helps.meh, it’s late.
Well, yes, but only because I was under the mistaken impression that this was a club event. And on that note I stand corrected. However…
The point I wanted to make is that stating fact does not constitute endorsement. There were certain churches that, through slavery and pre-civil rights movement, were far more accepting of blacks that other churches. There are also some religions today for which the issue was either not relevant or in conflict with their dogmas.
Imagine now that you replace “gay” with “black” or “African American” in the situation. Suddenly, we are talking history or current events. The problem is that people are reacting to “gay” and associating it with religion in a negative context.
The real issue, to my mind, is replacing racism with homophobia in the public mindset and somehow saying it’s not as bad as some school endorsing a conversation about religion and some of its real effects. The fact that the school is a willing participant comes with the fact that the school wants to start a conversation and identify social issues.
I’ll just repeat this once more: this whole case, on its face, doesn’t seem to be about separation of church and state (and no, I haven’t read the whole judgment). If there’s more to it, like examples of how a public school has favored a religion in its degree plans or has required students to pray in order to interact normally in school, there’s an issue here. And if this is indeed the case, someone out there needs to clarify it damn quick before this takes on a life of its own.
Ichthyic
meh, it’s late.
This seems appropriate.
http://blogs.technet.com/photos/gray_knowlton/images/2998979/original.aspx
” If there was no evdience on TV, Radio, Internet (all media) and also no physical evidence at all of 9/11 I would still believe it just based on people who saw it happen. Eyewitnesses. :)”
Weak. Totally weak.
Hey, perhaps now you can explain why you keep mentioning homosexuality alongside infidelity. Why are they equal sins?
This seems appropriate.
heh.
you’d think so…
but you’d be wrong.
:p
Hematite, the discussion has moved on from the passage you quote from my opening comment. I do actually still think that a principle as broad as the one I mentioned would be ridiculously broad, but that is probably not relevant to the actual case.
To be clearer, I said it is ridiculous to postulate the following as a good principle:
A principle that broad would, among other effects, destroy the academic freedom of a philosophy professor working in a state-funded university and paid against the recurrent grant. She could never express a view, either in class or a philosophy journal, on such matters as the existence or otherwise of the Abrahamic God. Such a principle would destroy an entire (important) sub-discipline.
So, we have to be a bit more nuanced than that and consider questions of substance.
However, I’ve expressed my views on the actual case in post 92. As I said, based on the peculiar (indeed, extraordinary) facts that Etha has been setting out, and without having read the whole judgment, I now think that the case may have been correctly decided.
The reason for that is that it looks as if the university administration itself has, in effect, expressed an official theological opinion by which it expects its students to abide. If this particular university is an agency of the state, as I expect it is, then it looks like this is indeed a case that crossed the line, i.e. the judge made a good call.
I searched deep within myself to find the ability to care about this one, but failed. Sorry.
More squid!!
These myths of America really need to be revisited and evaluated for what they are: myths. Church and State in the most churchy of Western democracies; classless society in a country riven with entrenched class divisions and poor class mobility, etc. etc.
I can understand an atheist being hostile to the delusions of religion crowding out rational thought, but as we see, it leads to a constant conflict between an irrational belief that the pluralistic State is fundamentally Godless unless there are sufficient displays of Christian piety (Prayer Breakfasts, anyone?) and another irrational belief that the Nation is fundamentally Godly.
None of that represents reality, and that’s where the incoherence creeps in. Moreover, the idea that America will move soon into a post-theist society is utopic (which is also irrational); there are at least two generations (and a large demographic) of clearly irrational fundamentalist Christians who will have to overcome their false-consciousness before there will be any evolution in that respect.
homosexuality is a sin.
This is bad morality.
Just passing through,
Who is talking about “soon” ? Have you ever heard someone on this blog or otherwhere maintain that soon, America will become a post-theist society ?
If you look at the rest of the developped world (yes, because America IS really the odd man out) it took about two generations to evolve into a post-theist society, from the equivallent position of where America is today.
But one thing is for sure, if you release the pressure now, it’s not going to happen any sooner.
Is Kenny just copying and pasting from stuff he posted on other threads or am I imagining things?
I’m with Etha and Sastra on this one. Kseniya, good luck with your exams!
I thought all except Norway abolished them recently?
Oh.
Counting Turkey as “Europe” is a very, very recent development, though.
<style voice=”Last Action Hero”>Mighty big mistake.</style>
So you didn’t even know that other clinically dead people have seen the Muslim paradise with the four rivers and all?
Eyewitnesses are much less reliable than you think. Read up about it.
If there really were no physical evidence of it — no hole in the ground, no survivors, no families that lament dead members, no dust, no receipt for the scrap metal sold to China –, you wouldn’t believe it.
No. Second-, third-, or tenth-hand testimony of eyewitness testimony of Jesus.
What if the eyewitnesses are made up, or if the stories are entirely ripped off from Mithras and/or Apollonius of Tyana? If that were the case, you couldn’t find that out.
You have never thought these things through, it seems.
If there were no physical evidence, the Twin Towers would be standing where the pile of rubble is supposed to be. The eyewitness testimony that aircraft struck them and they fell into a heap would be demonstrably false. If, then, you still believed that 9/11 happened, you’d be an idiot.
Oh, and there were no eyewitness to the Resurrection: if the “accounts” are to be believed, it happened in a sealed tomb; there’s no reliable historical evidence that a) Jesus existed at all or b) if he did, that he was dead, rather than merely unconscious or comatose, when laid in the tomb: resuscitation is no big deal. In any case, the “accounts” weren’t codified until three centuries later, by which time there were literally hundreds of such stories, four of which were chosen rather arbitrarily in much the same way as the “Holy Sites” were picked at random.
Sorry Russell, I didn’t spot your #92 on my first skim through the discussion. I didn’t mean to misrepresent you.
I’m looking for a discussion of what statements should be allowable by state agents and I thought you might want to argue a different position from mine. I only have an amateur interest in this, and I certainly wouldn’t hold it against you or take it as confirmation of my position if you didn’t want to engage in discussion.
I consider the problem to be that a value judgement was expressed, not the particulars of whether it was imposed on students.
It seems to me that state employees should be able to make any statement they like as a private individual, including publishing opinion (as PZ does regularly). Materials distributed by their office or any work for course credit should not make value judgements about religion (this was breached in the case under discussion), but could make factual statements (charley #54 suggests this).
I’m just looking for someone to argue an opposing opinion, or provide interesting grey areas to ponder.
Yes, Kenny is going on and on about eyewitnesses, baloney that’s been debunked a thousand times.
Funny thing about people who are closed-minded and unwilling to look at reality – they’re often confused and delusional. Funny coincidence.
Hematite: If you’re genuinely trying to make an argument you need to pick another angle.
JCG: I guess the obtuse angle wasn’t working…
An acute observation, but will he pick the right one? I shouldn’t pun, but it’s a reflex.
This is the same person who informed that I was never a christian, I went to church because my parents did. My parents did not.
Kenny, as for your near death experience twaddle, it seems you are confusing clinical death and brain death. A person can recover from clinical death if the heart can made to work again in a timely manner. If it takes too long, brain injury and then brain death can occur. And there is no coming back from brain death.
Funny thing about NDE, with the brain being deprived of oxygen, it starts to malfunction in many ways. An other funny thing, people tend to interpret the experiences according to what they believe. In other words, their are muslim kennys who see NDE as proving the existence of allah and hindu kennys who see it proving the existence of their legions of deities.
By the way, Kenny, all MAJeff did was point out what you would say. And Kenny, you did not disappoint. You did not say anything that most of us did not encounter hundreds of times before. Please say sometime about homosexuality that does not resort to calling a sin and comparing it to adultery.
As a final note, you claim have nothing against gays and lesbians yet you follow a deity that condemns them to hell. Nice way to pass the buck on that. You do not hate us but your big sky daddy is sure going to punish us.
Parties on all sides will use whatever clubs they have to advance their agenda. If it works to wield a “State-Church” argument it will be used.
The pitfall is that every club one decides to wield, will at some point be picked up by the opposition and swung back.
The anti-establishment clause is actually quite limited; and best kept there. It is middle of the road and keeps a great big public square in which competing ideas/cultures/rituals/faiths/behaviors/traditions will both thrive and push against each other.
It is in everyone’s interest, in the long run, to keep the ‘separation’ a murky line instead of a clear wall. Those who want to pick the club up at every point of murkiness to push the line out–will find a club being increasingly turned against them and a resulting cascade of silly, insane court rulings.
Funny thing about NDE, with the brain being deprived of oxygen, it starts to malfunction in many ways. An other funny thing, people tend to interpret the experiences according to what they believe.
Another thing – people experience the glowing tunnels and whatnot about as often when they are under anaesthesia. They just don’t chalk it up to a “near death experience” they chalk it up to “tripped out on nitrous oxide or demerol”
I had 4 wisdom teeth out under a general, back in the 80’s and I was put under with a shot of valium/demerol and nitrous and I had the whole glowing tunnel experience that so many creos rant about, including the auditory hallucinations of voices singing. Very nice. But it was not eternal salvation, that awaited me – merely a huge dentist bill for 4 impacted extractions, and a sore mouth.
I had an NDE (do we really need an acronym for this?) once. I was approached by a very confident Alex Trebek wearing a white sequence gown. He said unto me, “Jams, hold this ladle” and he handed me a silver ladle, and I held it, and it was good.
I said, “thanks Alex. Stainless steel?”
“Of course” he replied, “I don’t peddle in shoddy goods. I have one just like it at home.”
“Nice. Hey,” I said, beginning to suspect something was amiss, “I didn’t know you were dead?”
“What? Oh! Oh. Yeah. Everyone makes that mistake. You see Jams, everyone here looks Alex Trebek.”
He pointed into the ladle so that I could see my slightly warped reflection alive with sparkling sequence and Trebekian features. All my fears, and questions, and suspicions ran out of me like water from a pitcher laid on its side.
This experience changed my life, and if you can’t handle that, then I just feel sorry for you.
Hematite, I’m pressed for time so this will have to be my last post for now, and it will be a bit simplistic, despite its excessive length. But the way I see it, the fundamental reason for a separation of church and state is to further the aims of religious tolerance (which for Locke was really only tolerance of the range of protestant sects; back then, he thought there were special reasons to exclude Catholics and atheists).
The idea, roughly, is that religious matters are so contentious, intractable, and provocative that it’s good policy for the state to confine itself to secular matters such as protecting our lives and property, while refusing to make laws that are based on a view about the right path to spiritual salvation. On this approach, the state should stop threatening people with “fire and sword” if they decline to conform to what the state regards as the true faith. Hence, the state should not declare one religion to be the correct one or stop people from worshipping within whatever religion they want (and, these days, we’d add that it should not stop them from declining to worship).
Ultimately, the doctrine is all about the state not coercing people on matters to do with religion. Coercion doesn’t mean you literally have to burn people at the stake or send soldiers with swords after them, though of course there’s been plenty of that in history. It includes anything that might intimidate them.
You’re probably right that the doctrine precludes an agency of the state from expressing an official opinion about the truth of a theological viewpoint. But the reason for that is that, in principle, any such expression puts the state on the path to the establishing an official religion and thence to state coercion on religious matters.
As with all other aspects of the law, there’s room for the various unforeseen complexities to be dealt with on a case by case basis, and the precedents established may shape a body of law that has dealt with all sorts of borderline situations. In the end it may not entirely resemble what you or I would dream up, thinking about it in our rooms without the benefit of the historical record in the case law.
But at the same time, we shouldn’t be quick to apply any legal doctrine in a mechanical way that is remote from its original purpose. In this case, it does matter to me (even if it doesn’t strictly matter in American law) that a state university is in a position to exercise state power in a manner that could intimidate at least some citizens. If it didn’t have any power over anyone, and was clearly acting on its own initiative rather than on direction from some agency that is more part of the administrative machinery of the state, it might not matter so much.
At the same time, it’s important that individual academics have constraints on their ability to deny the academic freedom of their students so that they may safely be allowed to exercise their own academic freedom. E.g. philosophers of religion, even in state universities, must be free to have opinions on the issues that arise in their discipline, such as the existence of God, the problem of evil and so on. But a philosopher of religion in a state university should not mark an essay about, say, the Five Ways on the basis of whether the student has the same view as the academic on the existence of God. It’s difficult to police this in practice – since, after all, academics must be able to make judgments about whether an essay presents good arguments, and this opens a large can of worms in subjects like philosophy – but then again academics can and often do maintain a good collegial ethos in which all this is understood and the hazards are navigated reasonably well.
As I like to say at this point whenever a legal debate comes up, my analysis may not match a judge’s. For one thing, I have done only limited study of American law, being Australian. More importantly, I’m looking at this more as a philosopher than a lawyer (although I do think that I have a good legal mind and there’s some independent evidence of this in my past). In deciding whether the case law is developing in a way that I approve of, I’ll always be looking for whether it seems to match what I take to be the in-principle concerns that underlie the legal doctrines versus how much a legal doctrine is simply being employed mindlessly.
Kenny:
Perhaps not in your experience, though I expect Ichthyic is right. Your literal reading of sin alone is enough to suggest that you have been in some way forced. Regardless of your own experience, though, for many others’ religious belief really is forced, often in vile and despicable ways. First-person accounts are readily available and Google is your friend.
You need to argue for this. We have plenty of evidence that suggests that we don’t have free will — at least not on the libertarian conception that I suspect you buy into.
Examples, with your corrections, please.
What was that you were saying about not being forced? Hate to break it to you, mate, but if you believe because you’re afraid of the consequences (in this life and the next) of believing otherwise — or even being open to or seriously considering the alternatives — then you’ve been forced.
MAJeff:
I agree. Any ethical system that takes homophobia to be a virtue (or the equivalent in other ethical systems) is itself an immoral system. Building on one of your earlier points, I’d say that any ethical system that even takes homosexuality to be a moral matter is pretty darn questionable.
(A sidenote to Kenny on this one: You needn’t have violent reactions toward gay and lesbian folks in order to be a homophobe — considering homosexuality to be a sin suffices.)
[blockquote]Let me just mention that the UK is very unusual in Europe in not having separation of church and state.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM
[/blockquote]
I don’t know about this; here in Germany, there are state-sponsored religion classes in every Gymnasium, and people who had the misfortune of being identified as a member of an organized religion have to pay between 8-9% of their income by law to the church. Church taxes are also collected in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Countries like the United States, France, and Turkey, which have a formal church-state separation are the exception, rather than the rule.
Since religion is the most Balkanized facet of American life (workplaces are, for the most part, racially, ethnically, and religiously integrated, but there are black churches, “southern” churches, and the like), I propose the founding of a genuine gay church. The African Methodist Episcopal church was founded as an antidote to white oppression, the Southern Baptist Convention was founded by pro-slavery advocates to contravene Emancipation propenents in the Baptist Church, why not a gay church as an antidote to anti-homosexual oppression? Instead of The Church of Christ, Scientist, how about The Church of Christ, Top?
Take that wispy loincloth of the crucifix, so J.C. can be “hung” on the cross, throw away the folksy guitars, and get some techno hymns, embrace the identity of John as the “disciple Jesus loved”, come to terms to the implications that, when Jesus had a woman of questionable virtue kneeling before him, all he really wanted her to do was to massage his feet with expensive oils… could you imagine the apoplexy of Bills Donohue and O’Reilly as they described this?
A lot of gay folks who still feel a connection with Catholicism have embraced Father Mychal Judge-the FDNY chaplain whose Pieta-like death photo was an iconic 9/11 image- as an unofficial “patron saint” of GLBT people (think the Vatican would ever consider THAT?), but they’d be better served by breaking away. Ditto for all of those gay music directors on the down-low in homophobic black congregations.
Finally, would anybody deny the fact that John the Baptist was a “bear”?
Actually, such congregations exist.
Is Kenny just copying and pasting from stuff he posted on other threads or am I imagining things?
It’s obvious, and you know it.
;)
I propose the founding of a genuine gay church.
Google the Metropolitan Community Church (and its founder, Troy Perry).
Gay people should stop trying to conform to religions. Either stop being religios or stop being gay (yeah right). As long as you keep trying to mix fire and water, you will keep getting burned by the hot steam. Well, I guess that works too, if you’re the right kind of masochist.
Yes, but:
— Church tax is something that only members pay. Leaving the church is nothing but a bureaucratic act. Many do it just to avoid the church tax, and thousands of others do it after each decision of their church that they disagree with, even if they don’t lose their faith at all.
— Is it that much in Germany? In Austria it’s a bit over 1 %.
— Similarly, you or (if you’re below a certain age) your parents can opt out of the religion classes without having to state a reason.
— The way the religion classes are actually done is really a good thing. I never opted out because it was interesting: more than half of it was comparative religion, and part of one year was the 2nd Vatican Council. (And the teacher I had said a god who could be proved would be “poor”, and personally believed that hell was empty. That still made him more traditionally religious than my classmates: once he mentioned he had long had trouble with the Book of Revelation and had in the end decided to consider its take-home message to be “in the end, all will be well”; after class some of my classmates asked each other why he hadn’t just simply skipped the whole book, and nobody said he shouldn’t have. And that was at a school connected to the conservative party — all public institutions are “black” or “red” in Austria.)
So, in sum, a separation as strict as in France is rare in Europe, but de facto most of the EU (and then some) approaches it much, much, much more closely than the USA does in real life.
GayPeople who wear cotton/polyester blend clothing should stop trying to conform to religions. Either stop being religios or stopbeing gaywearing mixed-material clothing (yeah right). As long as you keep trying to mix fire and water, you will keep getting burned by the hot steam of the iron. Well, I guess that works too, if you’re the right kind of masochist.Fixed it.
if you’re the right kind of masochist
you mean like the pastor who died while wearing a wetsuit and having a dildo shoved up his ass?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/isnt_this_beginning_to_get_a_l.php
the “right” kind of masochist…
like Ted Haggard, head of the largest evangelican xian group in the country, who prefered to snort crack and have sex with male prostitutes while doing so?
seems like your religion produces enough of its own masochists quite readily, eh?
while wearing a wetsuit
sorry, make that TWO wetsuits.
I learn how to make a brand new blag on teh internets! And I make a post on this very topic!
And hi mom!
Joining the Church is typically decided by a child’s parents when they’re still an infant, but leaving the Church is much more than “a bureaucratic act” here in Germany; its a deliberately difficult, multi-step process that takes a lot of time and effort. Still, hundreds of thousands of people are leaving, and I’ve heard that the CDU is considering transforming the sect-specific “Church tax” into a compulsory “culture tax”.
I have to agree with you about the generally greater degree of secularism in society — coming from Midwestern America to the former East Germany, this godlessness has been a breath of fresh air. Here in tech-heavy, post-communist Jena, where atheists make up 85% of the population, scientific literacy is something that takes pride of place in the general public, and organized religion is a hobby that people are polite enough not to clobber strangers with.
Russell Blackford (#127):
I would phrase it as being to prevent religious coercion, but I can’t see where we’d actually differ.
*snip snip* Agree, agree, agree.
Agree strongly, though I didn’t want to muddy the waters by mentioning it before.
Hmm, I might disagree depending on what kind of actions you’re thinking of. I would argue that any positive statements about a religion would effectively be advertising for the religion using state funds, and I think we agree on where that leads. I think we also agree that there is a line between trivial or factual statements and clear favouritism, the specifics of which must be judged case-by-case. I think we’d even draw the line in the same place, we’re just approacing it from opposite directions.
How disappointing! To paraphrase House, if you already think the same things as me, you’re no use to me. You’re fired!
But seriously, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Aha! Now we disagree!
That caused me to emit a snort so loud and abrupt it not only startled me, but the poor girl I share an office with. Just absolutely classic puneing right there.
In 1835, the Maori arrived on what is now the Chatham Islands, informed the local Moriori population that they were all now slaves and property of the Maori, and proceeded to kill and cannibalize a large portion of them.
A warlike people met up with a people completely unfamiliar with the concept, and the result was mayhem.
The religious have been waging war on all opposition for millennia.
The truth does not matter to the religious, since the truth is whatever they decide to believe in. You can’t win with these people except to shore up the legal system, drive them out of public office, and make them as mindful of proclaiming their faith in a room full of strangers as an Atheist is… and the only way to do that is to go to war with them and fight as dirty as they do.
Which means giving up in what we believe- that freedom, liberty, justice, and truth are here for all of us, not just those of us who believe a certain way- and that slow, steady, Gandhi-like persistence will win the battle.
Perhaps.
That makes me think of a line from a song in Sweeney Todd: “…have a little priest.”
The introduction of guns by Europeans gave an advantage to tribes who were warlike and willing to adopt new technology. I think the same thing happened in the Americas. Michael King’s The Penguin History of New Zealand states that 10% of the population were killed and the rest enslaved. Ritual cannibalism after battle was common to attain the abilities of slain opponents, but I’m not aware of it being regular practice in any tribes. The Moriori were indeed particularly peaceful and the invading tribes particularly warlike but I’m not aware of any religious dimension to the conflict. In fact, given how frequently religion is used as an excuse for conquest this may be a notably unreligious example.
Sorry, New Zealander nitpicking.
Michael King’s The Penguin History of New Zealand
next on my book list.