| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
08 Dec 2004 09:49:18 AM |
| Object: |
Virginia church/state |
To: Me
From: [Deleted]
Subject: Referred Link from roanoke.com
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:29:23 -0500
Mike Newdow thought you might enjoy the following on roanoke.com!
The 'religious right' began with the founders
Please visit: http://www.roanoke.com/editorials%5C14967.html
Comments: Jim, In your neck of the woods - Virginia - the following was given in a commentary: "To make matters worse, even the early U.S. Supreme Court was infiltrated by the religious right. The first chief justice, John Jay, wrote, 'It is the duty... of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.'" Is this true? - Mike
This link will be valid until Friday, December 17, 2004
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The series as I discovered it to date:
(does anyone on the other side know history at all )
RELIGION LOOMED TOO LARGE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Date: November 12, 2004 Section: EDITORIAL Page: B7
By Darla Schumm
There are many aspects of the recent presidential election that distress me
greatly, but at the top of my list of concerns is the role religion played
in the campaign and election.
For a country that claims the separation of church and state as one of its
founding principles, the United States is looking more and more like a
religious state. The candidates frequently sprinkled religious and faith
language throughout their stump speeches, campaign promises and debates. As
we all are now hearing in the days following the election, morality was
cited as one of the most important factors that influenced how and why
voters made their decisions about who to vote for.
As a religious ethicist, I agree that morality and questions of ethics
should be aspects of our public discourse. What I cannot abide, however, is
when a particular moral position held by one powerful faction of society
dictates how important questions of public policy are resolved.
Sen. John Kerry said it best in one of the presidential debates when he
proclaimed that he was a Catholic and that as a Catholic he had particular
moral convictions, but that as president his personal moral convictions
would not and should not dictate public policy.
What Kerry recognizes is that the character of a president is important,
and that it is increasingly more important to many citizens of the United
States to have a president who is not afraid to state his or her moral
convictions.
But he also recognizes that as an elected official charged with the
responsibility of representing the interests of all U.S. citizens (and make
no mistake, the United States is one of the most diverse countries), when
making policy decisions he should not submit to one religious or moral
perspective.
Kerry understands that the president must represent all people, not just
one group such as the religious right.
I am deeply troubled by the apparent influence and power that the religious
right has over President George W. Bush and the Republican Party. I am
equally concerned, however, that as the Democratic Party attempts to put
the pieces back together and recover from the election, it, too, will fall
prey to the influence of the religious right by commingling personal
religious convictions with public policy decisions.
In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic
leader in the House of Representatives, stated that one of the failures on
the part of Democrats in the 2004 campaign was that they did not
communicate their faith effectively enough to the electorate.
Pelosi emphatically proclaimed that Democrats have as much faith as
Republicans, and that many Democrats draw from the Gospel of Matthew found
in the Christian Scriptures, for example, in their lives and public
service.
Why does the Democratic Party in a country where Islam is one of the
fastest-growing religions feel it needs to assert an overtly Christian
identity? Why does Pelosi believe that the way to get elected today must
include explicit faith statements?
Does our nation want to travel down a road where the values and morals of
one religious group dominate public discourse and public policy? I, for
one, believe that this is the wrong direction.
And, if President Bush is serious about mending the current partisan
divide, he must not allow himself to be swayed by the agenda of the
religious right when making policy and legislative decisions.
A truly great president will recognize and respect the vast religious
diversity of our nation, and will uphold that most important founding
principle that insists on the separation of church and state.
Schumm is assistant professor of religion at Hollins University.
Caption: Photo-1 President Bush participates in an Iftaar
dinner Wednesday with ambasadors and Muslim leaders in observance of
Ramadan in the State Room of the White House.
All content herein is © 1997 Times-World Corp. and may not be republished
without permission.
The Roanoke Times Online is a service of The Roanoke Times.
The Roanoke Times archives are stored on a SAVE (tm) newspaper library
system from NewsBank Media Services.
********************************************************************************
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:3gMI0xR5X1wJ:www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary%255C14335.html+darla+schumm+++Religion+loomed+too+large&hl=en
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R5E1137F9
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
A nation now closer to God
Fred Weber
±
Weber, of Stuart, is a retired Virginia state employee with 30 years'
service as a social worker and a probation officer.
In response to Darla Schumm's Nov. 12 commentary, "Religion loomed too
large in the presidential election":
I would respectfully disagree with that assumption. The principle of
separation of church and state wasn't, in my opinion, breached in this
election.
I would remind those who hold this view of the words of Thomas Jefferson
that are engraved on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., which
state: "The God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of
a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a
conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of
God?"
The real issue in this past election wasn't religion in general, or even
moral values. The real issue was, and is, God and whether this nation will
continue to hold to its Creator as declared in the Scriptures and to the
blessings that have flowed down to this nation so graciously over the past
200-plus years, or will this nation follow a path away from the one true
God whom most of the founders of this nation strongly believed in -
including Jefferson, the third U.S. president.
Yes, Jefferson did advocate a separation of church and state but not a
"segregation of church and state." He believed in freedom of religion, not
freedom from religion. His primary concern was to protect and promote
religious speech, not to censor it, especially as has been and is being
done in public places such as education.
I wonder whether, if God and prayer had not been removed from the schools
several years ago, we would ever have had the Columbine massacre and other
public school murders.
I think this nation has moved too far away from God, but I'm glad to see in
this past election some movement back toward Him.
When we remove God from the schools, why are we so shocked when people
behave as if there is no God? And so, likewise, in all other areas of our
society and nation as a whole.
© Copyright 2004
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http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary%5C14888.html
Post-election anti-Bush virulence is wearisome
Joe Painter
±
Painter is a lawyer in Blacksburg.
I grow weary of the virulence found in the letters to the editor and
commentaries since the Nov. 2 election. The animus by those who cannot
accept the outcome of the presidential election is more telling by the day.
The lionization of Wayne St. Clair's Nov. 8 commentary, "Bush's re-election
is a tragedy for the country," was a reminder of the fringe element that
exists among us.
The Nov. 12 commentary by Darla Schumm ("Religion loomed too large in the
presidential election") completely missed the mark. Religion has always
been a part of American political life.
The abolitionist movement was led by Christians and Jews. Women's suffrage
and child labor laws were championed by Christians and Jews. At the
forefront of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were
Christians and Jews.
Schumm assumes that the separation of church and state was a founding
principle of the United States. I defy her to show me the phrase "the
separation of church and state" in the Constitution. The two religious
freedom clauses of the First Amendment have to do with the prohibition of a
national church and the right to freely exercise one's religion.
Also on Nov. 12, Chris Burgoyne went into a diatribe about the election
("Fooled again by Bush"). He claimed that we have institutionalized
bigotry. He repeats the phrase "Way to go, America" over and over again. He
even referred to his tirade as an insult to the people who voted for
President Bush.
I voted for Bush and don't feel insulted. I only feel sorrow for yet
another Kool-Aid drinker.
There was a reader from Blacksburg who is trying to learn the words to "O
Canada." Apparently, he feels that our neighbors to the north would offer
solace to his paranoia. The only solace I can offer is that planes leave
every day.
Then there was the lady from Blacksburg who used new math to prove that
only 30 percent of the electorate voted for President Bush. Perhaps she
should use the same voodoo mathematics for the 43 percent of the vote that
President Clinton received in 1992. Her gyrations do little to help unity
in the country.
I hope we can put this election of 2004 behind us and move on. Sadly, there
are many citizens who cannot do so. I bear them no ill will and can only
look forward to brighter times.
America's strength was demonstated by a peaceful election that the world
can only envy. Our constitutional government will survive, and we will
continue to be a "shining city on the hill" for all the world to see.
© Copyright 2004
******************************************************************************************
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials%5C14967.html
The 'religious right' began with the founders
The Roanoke Times
Tom Taylor
±
Taylor lives in Roanoke.
According to Darla Schumm, assistant professor of religion at Hollins
University, America is facing a sinister danger ("Religion loomed too large
in the presidential election," Nov. 12 Commentary page).
She is "deeply troubled" by the "influence and power" of the religious
right over President Bush and the Republican Party. She fears that even the
Democratic Party may "fall prey" to the influence of the religious right.
"If President Bush is serious about mending the current partisan divide,"
she wrote, "he must not allow himself to be swayed by the agenda of the
religious right...."
Wow! Someone new to America would be justified in wondering just who or
what is this sinister, powerful thing called the "religious right."
Fortunately, the answer to that question can be found in American history.
One of the earliest well-known religious right-wingers was a man named
George Washington. He openly expressed his conviction that "it is
impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." He
believed America could be a happy nation only if its citizens lived by the
example of "the Divine Author of our blessed religion," Jesus Christ.
Washington even instructed the soldiers of the Continental Army, "to the
distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add
the more distinguished character of Christian." How our first president
escaped impeachment, I'll never know.
Another such radical was Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that our liberties
were given not by human government but by our Creator God. Imagine! I mean,
didn't Jefferson realize he might offend people who didn't believe in God?
But it seems early America was just a hotbed of religious-right sentiment.
Our fourth president, James Madison, wrote, "We have staked the whole of
all our political institutions upon the capacity... of all of us to govern
ourselves... according to the Ten Commandments of God."
And John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, wrote, "The highest glory of
the American Revolution was this; it connected... the principles of civil
government with the principles of Christianity."
To make matters worse, even the early U.S. Supreme Court was infiltrated by
the religious right. The first chief justice, John Jay, wrote, "It is the
duty... of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their
rulers."
And in an 1892 ruling, the court said, "Our laws and our institutions must
necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of
mankind.... In this sense and to this extent our civilization and our
institutions are emphatically Christian."
And so these dangerous right-wing ideas infiltrated America for nearly 200
years: the idea that all men are created equal and given their rights and
liberties by God; the idea that we could govern ourselves in a democracy
based upon law, which in turn was based upon the law of God.
Funny thing; as a result, we became the most free, prosperous, stable and
powerful nation in the world. Those ideas were still around in the early
1950s, when I was in grade school. Each day we had Bible reading and
prayer, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
When Eisenhower added "under God" to the pledge, it was accepted as right
and true by nearly everyone. Nearly every day, my fourth-grade teacher told
wonderful Bible stories with character lessons I remember to this day. At
Christmas, in public schools we sang Christmas carols about the birth of
Jesus.
In America at that time, divorce was very rare. Nearly every child knew the
security of having a mother and father together at home. Abortion was a
crime punishable by prison because it was considered killing.
Pornography was out of sight in the back alley. Venereal disease among
young people was very rare, and AIDS wasn't even on the radar.
Nearly everybody, Republicans and Democrats both, held beliefs that today
would brand them as right-wing conservatives. But we didn't know that's
what we were. We thought we were just Americans.
So what about that sinister "religious right agenda"?
Well, if the secular-humanist liberal leftists and their judicial cohorts
had not thrown prayer and Bible reading out of the schools; if they had not
turned America into an alien place where prayer is restricted by
dictatorial judges and my fourth-grade teacher with her Bible stories would
be fired or dragged into court; if they had not twisted the Constitution to
legalize abortion, pornography and sodomy; if they had not saddled America
with the guilt of 40 million aborted babies since Roe v. Wade; if they were
not now attempting to destroy the institution of marriage just so
homosexuals can feel more comfortable in their, shall we say, innovative
lifeÂstyle - there would be no need of the Moral Majority, or Focus on the
Family, or the religious right agenda.
We on the "religious right" would also love to see our nation reunited and
healed. But we are not the ones who troubled America and created the
"partisan divide." We would have no "agenda" to reclaim America's heritage
if the liberal left had not stolen it.
© Copyright 2004
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