COSTA MESA, Calif. ? Student leaders at a community college voted to drop the Pledge of Allegiance after a tense meeting in which one flag-waving pledge supporter berated them as anti-American radicals.Orange Coast College’s student trustees voted Wednesday not to recognize the pledge, with three of the five board members saying it should be dropped from their meetings.Board member Jason Ball argued that the pledge inspires nationalism, violates the separation between church and state with the phrase “under God,” and is irrelevant to the business of student government. He cited a 2002 San Francisco federal appeals court ruling ? later dismissed by the Supreme Court on a technicality ? that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.Sophomore Chris Belanger, one of several students who attended the meeting to support keeping the pledge, waved an American flag and accused the board of “radical views and anti-Americanism.”
Dangerman,
(although I didn’t say that part hehehehe bitches)
….(laughs loudly) that was wonderful! Almost as funny as when I heard a little kid call another one a bitch after he made fun of my beard!
What legal document says that you can’t talk about religion or God because it violates church and state??
This is what Thomas Jefferson said, when he talked about the “Separation between church and state” that SO MANY people misconstrue-What he MEANT was that the government has no power to create a religion or regulate its activities in the country…
“Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State (Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802).
I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must rest with the States, as far as it can be in any human authority (letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808). “
sassenach,
maybe it’s late or maybe I’m just not that smart, but can you clarify where you’re falling on this issue. To me it seems that you’re making the argument that the government shall not create a religion, but should also not interfere with the freedom to worship. I’m getting the sense from your comment that having the freedom to worship includes the liberty to acknowledge god in the pledge or even on our currency. Am I correct?
A couple of questions come up then. By acknowledging god in our pledge, do we not interfere in the freedom of atheists to not be proselytized to in form of national pledge or have on their currency an acknowledgment of god? Are you making the argument that it’s freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion? By extension, should there be freedom of religion to display the 10 commandments in public places and school prayer? Going further, is it only Christian prayer, Abrahamic religions or all religions? Do we make room for the Wicca? Scientologists?
Sorry, just a lot of baggage comes with sep of church and state issues and I like to figure out where people are coming from.
for those of you interested and those of you who remember the discusion of hunger in America, here is an article about a report released by the USDA
http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/11/16/americans-lack-food-but-usda-wont-call-them-hungry/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-dyn%2Fcontent%2Farticle%2F2006%2F11%2F15%2FAR2006111501621.html&frame=true
This latecomer asks sheepishly… Ellen WHO represented atheism on O’Reilly’s show?
From phreedm: “…he pointed out that atheists views towards those that are believers is a form of bigotry. She was stunned and had no response.”
Stepping onto my soapbox regarding that word… “bigotry” implies blind devotion to a creed or party. Regardless of Ellen’s “stunned” silence, O’Reilly misuses the term by applying it to a group of people whose *reasoned* opposition is to religion’s reliance on *blind* faith.
From DVanWechel: “I’ve been under the impression that a citizen in the U.K. cannot directly own property because England is still technically a monarchy, the queen owns all of the land and only ?rents? property to her citizens.”
Americans “rent” their property too — try not paying your taxes on it and see what the landlord does. (Churches, of course, get their property “rent”-free.)
O’Reilly’s show is bullshit! He is pathetic and a disgrace upon all mankind.
“Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions,[...]“
But by putting undergod in the pledge and in god we trust on the money, it is making an oppinion for the entire country that we all believe in god, when that is not the case. How am I suppose to “trust in god” when I don’t even believe in god. Maybe if the dollar said in god some of us trust? Just replace the words on the dollar to in god we don’t believe, and in the pledge under no god, how would people feel about that? I am agaist that, because it gives the oppinion that we all believe in that, and that is not the case.