the secular state
i recently had a long involved discussion with someone over the “secularisation” of the holidays, and the knee-jerk reaction of christians to what they perceive as a threat to their celebration of christmas. his point was, essentially, that freedom of religious expression is protected by the first amendment, and that “banning” public nativity displays and the like is evangelism by secularists, since it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.
he’s missing the point, big time.
see, rulings by the supreme court have reaffirmed time and again that (other than the historical use of religious symbols, such as “in god we trust” on the coinage) the government cannot be seen to be implicitly endorsing any one religion over another. avoiding the appearance of promotion/favouritism/endorsement is not the same thing as “banning” religious expression. therefore, displays which exhibit a variety of symbols or religions are fine. However, once you open it up to Christians, Jews and Muslims, you also have to allow for zoroastrians, satanists, scientologists, etc. Everyone’s all for inclusive displays, until people want to start putting up satanic symbols – suddenly it’s not quite so okay any more. So really, it’s an impossible situation for the state.
and my argument is that you can’t possibly please everyone and their religion, so why try to please anyone? Just do away with it altogether. No muss, no fuss. What does the gov’t. care about religion anyway? Why get involved in such a personal matter?
private organisations and their property are free to do whatever they want, and i can’t stop them. but don’t force me to look at your creche on my town common (which I pay taxes to help upkeep), as if it somehow represents my beliefs as well. Otherwise, I’d rather have nothing. As my mom used to say, “If you can’t play nice and share, I’ll take it away, and no one can have it.”
And if it matters to you enogh to fight for your right to a nativity, then I am also going to fight for my right to have *MY* religious symbols displayed – which you shouldn’t feel threatened by, because it’s just my expression of religious freedom. So where’s the beef?
Secularism of public life is the wave of the future – hop on for the ride.
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Comment by Jonno (aka - Da Man)
6.12.2005 @ 10:53 am
See I do read your blogs.
Interesting subject the seperation of church and state. In my mind though, its an ideal and not an actuality. Perhaps at some time in the distant future, if at all, it may happen. We need only look at human history (i’m talking like yesterday to as far back as 6000 years ago) to see how race, religion and ethnicity are tied into politics. Not the way things should work, but like it or not, it’s the way things do work.
We only need to look at examples like the Romans, the Egyptian Empire, the Khmer Rouge, Rwanda, Iran, Palestine, Isreal….. the list goes on. I don’t believe (as much as I’d like to) that in World Politics the state will ever completely seperate from religion, race, ethnicity and the most feasible solution is to firstly accept the reality of the situation and secondly try to make the best of the situation by working to make it as fair to all as it can be.
When the leaders of the *free world* elect a black woman president or a woman can choose to walk down a street in Iran without covering her head, or a chinese person is legally allowed to own a bible…. then we’ll be starting to make some progress on what human rights and equality really mean.
In about 40AD or so, on a small greek island named Patmos, a man named John had an vision in which he said he saw the Great Harlot of Babylon (Religion) riding on the back a great wild beast (government). Now belief aside, it applied then and still applies now.
Will we ever see a dismount? Dunno, I have my reservations, but moving towards maybe side saddle would be a good step in the right direction.
:)