Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
You can never be sure.
I hate April Fools Day. I'm cynical and skeptical enough as it is, and when 4/1 rolls around, I tend to dismiss almost *everything* I hear or read in the news.
Combine that with never quite being sure when some religion is real or some kind of elaborate hoax (I mean, Scientology? Mormonism? Raelism? It's a joke, right?), and when someone sends me something like this, I really wonder:
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to step into two free speech cases, one involving a church that wants to place a religious monument in a park and the other on payroll deductions for labor union political activity.
Officials in Pleasant Grove City, Utah, asked the court to step into the lawsuit brought by the religious group known as Summum, saying that if the group prevails, governments would be inundated with demands to display donated monuments.
The dispute stems from Pleasant Grove City's refusal to allow the display of a "Seven Aphorisms of Summum" monument in the same park that is the home for a Ten Commandments monument donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles 47 years ago.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in favor of the church, saying the monument remains the private speech of the donor and that the park is a public forum.
OK, this could be a prank on a lot of levels. The notion that the city can privilege one religion over another is certainly absurd, but read the article and you'll see how ridiculous their argument is. Why the Supreme Court would do anything other than just affirm the lower court's ruling is beyond me, so I find *that* hard to believe. Then there's 'Summum' itself, which sounds suspiciously like an early version of the FSM (no, not in the specifics - in the mocking of conventional religion).
Gah - we live in an insane world. And today is not helping matters.
Jim Downey
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Prank?
You seriously mean you haven't heard of the Aphorisms case?
Religion Clause has this: http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2008/03/supreme-court-grants-review-i...
Scotusblog has this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scotusblog/pFXs/~3/261296449/
Richard Dakins Net: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2419,n,n
Dispatches from the Culture Wars: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/04/seven_aphorisms_monuments.php
and http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/05/seven_aphorisms_case_update.p...
an older Religion Clause post: http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2007/11/cert-petition-filed-in-summum...
And the Summun Web Site (linked to this because it is a bit...odd - http://www.summum.us/philosophy/principles.shtml (read the first Principle - it's a hoot, to use an old expression)
Phelps monument
This same issue came up in 2003 when the odious Phelps clan wanted to put up a monument on public land in Casper, Wyoming commemorating the day that Matthew Shepard was killed and went to Hell for being gay. The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled they could, because once you start allowing religious monuments you can't discriminate based on the message. It makes me think that we ought to demand that the Treaty of Tripoli be posted on every courthouse wall which has a "historical display" which includes the 10 Commandments!
My own opinions on monuments
are far from crystalized.
The fact that the issue is about the use of public space and public money(if only for maintenance) automatically brings free speech and establishment clause issues into play. A court could rule that communities have the right to decide for themselves, by a popular or representative vote, what monuments to allow, but then minorities will always get the shaft. A court could use the establishment clause to ban all religious monuments that involve public space or money, but that is often seen as an unnecessary limitation on free speech. The pattern I see emerging is slowly trending towards fairness.
There are still issues though, no matter how fair the law. Putting up one religious monument opens the door for many more requests. I don't see local governments getting swamped with donated monuments-that is just a shitty excuse put forward by an obvious christian favoritist. But there is still the unanswered question of where to draw the line. If it is taken as an establishment clause issue, then what standards can a local government enforce? Local governments have the power to refuse any other donation if it is deemed inappropriate. Could religious groups donate their propaganda art to communities outside their own and force them to take it? Can minority groups within the community be refused if officials can demonstrate a conflict of values? What if the local satanist group donates a beautiful piece of marble with some Anton LaVey quotes on it? Where do humanists and atheists fall in all this? Even if every religion is protected equally, the non-religious are not being treated fairly.
A community could probably legally ban all religious messages on public land, but the question still has untidy threads dangling. What is religious? Would a Lao Tzu quote next to a babbling brook be too religious? Would a city be seen as discriminatory for allowing vague philosophy, but not religion?
The bummer to me, is that I am totally screwed either way. An atheist monument would probably be refused anywhere in America. I bet even Thomas Jefferson quotes would be disallowed if they were at all critical of religion.
At the heart of it, I am a bit offended that ANY religious group would complain about their current status in America.
The closest thing I have to prayer and religion is called "getting high and fucking." No community will accept my monument, no matter how true or beautiful, even if I leave out the "fucking." My sacraments involve small amounts of marijuana and quality beer, along with a godless appreciation of nature. Not only am I disallowed from spreading my gospel with public land or public money, I will be arrested if I try to peacefully practice my meditations anywhere in public. I might even be harrassed, searched, or followed home if I even talk about it too loudly in public! I try to sympathize with well-meaning groups who want to give of themselves to the community. But most of it is just pissing contest bullshit and chrisitan dominance displays. They already have much more freedom of speech and of association than I do, for no real reason but conservative moralist bigotry. When it comes down to it, nobody needs their silly plaques and totems taking up park space anyway.
A word of caution
Neil, if your monument stands for more than 4 hours, consult your doctor.
D'oh!
"Honey, take a look at this!"
Create your own religion
Neil, all you have to do is make up your own religion (L. Ron Hubbard did!), in which you partake in the holy sacrament of weed and worship "Mother Nature" (or whatever) by fucking, then hire an ACLU lawyer to sue whatever municipality refuses to accept your monument to stand next to the 10 Commandments monument. The representation will be free, because the municipality will have to pay your lawyer after you win the suit! (which you will, because they can't pick and choose between the religious messages they like or dislike). Is this a great country or what?
It worked for peyote, sorta...
but weed enthusiasts have been shot down in the courts before. Smoking weed and being nude in public are already illegal, and universally feared and hated by social conservatives. This gives me an uphill battle the whole way, no matter how sincere I am and how harmless the activities may be. Of course, being a lying bigot that intentionally inflicts emotional distress on grieving families is "freedom of religion." Claiming to speak for god and leading hate marches is "freedom of speech." Making the claim that I own my own body, and harmlessly tokin' a joint in the park with some friends is godless heresy and a grave threat to public safety.
If you read my comments regularly, you will notice that I trot out the weed pony every chance I get. I know I sound like a bitter old hippie, but it is one of the best examples of hypocrisy in our "free" society today.
No court, no matter how liberal, will even consider overturning a drug law for constitutional reasons(the one exception being peyote for one tribe's centuries-old religion, only during ceremony, not for sale and only on the reservation.) There are states that have passed rico-like laws where they can treat simple possession as organized crime, steal your car, steal your house, steal your money and charge anyone in the room with a felony or three. Not a peep from our "liberal courts." Racist crack cocaine vs. "white people" cocaine laws, not a peep. So I bring it up anytime I can squeeze it in, just as a reminder of how free we are. Free to do what we're told.
I guess in today's society, with some states finally daring to minimally decriminalize, I should give it a go.
"Church of the Burning Bush!" That phrase has even more delicious connotations now, ten years after a friend and I coined it.
Back on the main topic, I finally realized how christian loudmouths have everyone backed into a corner on this issue, for reasons I touched on in my earlier post. If chrisitans are allowed to slap their religious slogans across any old tax-supported location, as has been policy, eventually a minority religion or just a fair minded person will eventually ask "What about the others?" However, many Americans seem to love freedom only insofar as it privileges them. The choices
are limited to taxpayer supported free speech for christians only, running the risk of letting "others"
have their say as well, or censoring everyone equally. There are now enough "others" to make the christians-only position look as bigoted as it is, but how many people of any faith really want to let everyone under the tent? So often the choice becomes all or nothing. In the eyes of even a fairly moderate conservative christian, dissenters are seen either as pain-in-the-ass liberals who would let any old kook waste our time and tax money, or as angry atheists who wants to tear down our fondly remembered cultural monuments. On the christian side, fairness and equality don't even enter into the picture. I'm not sure how I missed that before-I guess I have too much faith in my fellow Americans.
I've never felt particularly privileged in society, but I never felt like a member of an oppressed minority until I realized that I too was a godless heathen, and dared to talk about it.
Of course, you can always
Of course, you can always remind the good Christian marijuana-haters that the book of Genesis said that God made ALL plants for our use, except the forbidden tree of knowledge. Since marijuana isn't a tree, it can't be the forbidden tree of knowledge. Therefore, by the most simple and direct logic possible, God made marijuana for our use! It's in the Bible! And good Christians should graciously accept God's gift, shouldn't they?
Everybody must get stoned...
Too bad their God didn't invent Doritos. We had to do that ourselves in response to the gift of weed.
Not everywhere
Not everywhere:
Nudity in Vermont in Battleboro
Not to mention quite a number of other places. And then there are events at which nudity is tolerated. Whether the combination of "smoking weed and public nudity" is tolerates is a different question, but the way drug laws are I think you get penalized more for the former than the latter.
After all: Nude Policeman Confronts Thief
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