Now, it's not that I like Wiccans any more than I like Christians, but this is just plain ridiculous. Perhaps someone on the right would care to comment about 'activist judges'?
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posted
Of course it's utterly ridiculous, especially given that neither parent desired such a restriction.
Perhaps someone on the left would care to drop the pissy little questions. And maybe look into all the "right-wing" organizations who went to bat for Native Americans who wished to consume peyote as part of their religious rituals.
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posted
>>Perhaps someone on the right would care to comment about 'activist judges'?<<
Sure. It's not right in this case any more than any of the other cases I've heard people squeal about it.
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posted
The ICLU (Indiana branch of the ACLU) is already on it, I bet it will be overturned with rapidity.
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posted
That's absolutely nuts and I can't imagine it will stand up. Yeah, I'm Christian and I would love to see the boy raised in a Christian home but guess what? It's not my kid. And the rights that I have to raise my children Christian are the same ones this family has to raise their child Wiccan, if they so choose.
Religious freedom is the issue here, you may not like the parent's choices, but they do have the right to choose their own religious beliefs and practices.
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posted
Annie, Christianity as a whole has done quite a bit to discredit itself at times, too, but an awful lot of people take it very seriously. And since (I believe) we have a couple Wiccans here, your words might be a little harsher than you may have intended.
<Reads link.>
Yeah, it's ridiculous and offensive and a judge should know better.
quote:Originally posted by Annie: I think Wicca does enough to discredit itself; I'm not particularly worried that a child would grow up to honestly take it seriously.
This could also be said of any religion, mainstream or otherwise, that members of this board practice.
This coming from an agnostic without much stake in any religion, but a sort of awed respect for people who manage to believe in anything. It's insulting to distill any religion to its most ridiculous stereotypes. I'm sure everyone on this board has been the brunt of that sort of thing at one time or another, but I may be wrong in assuming that it would make us less quick to judge.
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posted
I've got agree with Pop on this one Annie. Clearly, I don't believe Wicca to be true. But then there's a whole lot of us on the board who don't consider each other's religion (if any) to be true. If we wish to maintain a collegial atmosphere, mutual respect of others' beliefs even while firmly believing them to be untrue is necessary.
Implications of dishonesty amongst those who take a particular belief seriously don't seem particularly respectful to me.
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posted
Dag, I guess you might know, is there a disciplinary process for judges who just out and out violate their responsibilities this way? Like when the higher court rules that there is no way anyone could think that this was constituional, does something bad happen to the judge or is his decision just overturned?
edit: Pops, for clarification, are Annie's words (and porter's laughter, which he's apparently since deleted instead of appologizing for - nice) actually worse because we have Wiccan members? I figured that it would be just as bad if she mocked Sikhs or some other religion that I don't think we have members of here.
posted
That's a complete violation of the Constitution. It will be overturned, but will anything happen to the judge I wonder?
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quote:Originally posted by Annie: I think Wicca does enough to discredit itself; I'm not particularly worried that a child would grow up to honestly take it seriously.
There are tens of thousands of practicing Wicca and Pagens in the US alone. Someone grows up to take it seriously it would seem. Posts: 339 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Dag, I guess you might know, is there a disciplinary process for judges who just out and out violate their responsibilities this way? Like when the higher court rules that there is no way anyone could think that this was constituional, does something bad happen to the judge or is his decision just overturned?
Not really. Impeachment isn't suitable as a response to bad legal reasoning, as much as I might wish it to be in my weaker moments. Strong language in the appellate decision can be used in against the judge future elections or appointments. Future violations of an explicit override might be subject to sanction, but we're a long ways from there. Incompetence in general would have to be shown by a pattern, and technically that's not even a reason for removal in the federal courts.
Where a judge can get in trouble is where a clear outside influence prevailed. Bribery is the obvious and easy example. Failing to disclose a relationship with one of the parties is another. Overt racism or religious bigotry becomes harder to prove. Although clearly outrageous decisions will be given more weight in such an analysis, they will not in and of themselves provide enough proof to take action.
In this case, a pattern of anti-Wiccan decisions or a public record of a lot of anti-Wiccan speech (far more than merely refuting their beliefs) would be necessary to move against the judge, I think.
quote:There are tens of thousands of practicing Wicca and Pagens in the US alone. Someone grows up to take it seriously it would seem.
I wonder how much the children of Wiccans tend to carry on in their parent's religion. Is the percentage higher or lower than for more mainstream religions?
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posted
Squick -- I don't necessarily think they're worse, but they have an even greater chance of offending someone here.
To try to illustrate -- I believe telling racist jokes is inappropriate no matter who is present, but telling them in the presence of someone of the race in question is perhaps more likely to result in offense rather than simply distaste.
posted
Most of the people I know do not practice their parent's religion in any significant way. Even the UberBaptists next door have heathens for parents, not other Baptists.
Which is kinda funny, if you think about it.
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posted
So, unless he does some really big stuff, it comes down mostly to public opinion, where, I think it's likely having a history of trying to unconstitutionally force "mainstream" religions on people isn't exactly going to hurt you. Ah well.
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posted
This is craziness. Hasn't this judge ever heard of freedom of religion? What right does he have to ban parents from teaching their son any religion they want to?
One question is how did the judge find out the parents practice Wicca if neither one brought it up?
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posted
This fanatic judge is what those of us on the left and many in the middle fear from the right. When you have evangelical groups running ads a gavel and a bible and saying "Judges shouldn't have to choose" you get many people nervous.
Howver those nerves could be soothed over, and a moderate main-stream concensous could be reached. Then a fool like this judge just scares everyone all over again.
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quote:There are tens of thousands of practicing Wicca and Pagens in the US alone. Someone grows up to take it seriously it would seem.
I wonder how much the children of Wiccans tend to carry on in their parent's religion. Is the percentage higher or lower than for more mainstream religions?
A good question. I bet there is no hard data though because most Wicca practice by themselves. There is no central "church" per se, and the individual covens normally do not interact with other covens except during festivals as far as I know. I have been doing some research on Wicca and Paganism. If I come across any hard data on that I'll let you all know.
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quote:So, unless he does some really big stuff, it comes down mostly to public opinion, where, I think it's likely having a history of trying to unconstitutionally force "mainstream" religions on people is exactly going to hurt you. Ah well.
Historically, attempts to force parents to not expose their children to the parents' religion has been met with enormous hostility by people most commonly associated with the religious right. Again, check out who filed briefs in the Smith case. As another example, the Christian Legal Society filed an amicus brief to support the right to use Hoasco Tea in a religious ceremony.
These types of groups will usually be at the forefront of a pure free exercise case, while they will typically split widely on establishment clause cases. So your fear of widespread support of having mainstream religions forced on others isn't applicable in this case, I don't think.
quote:This fanatic judge is what those of us on the left and many in the middle fear from the right.
Funny, this is exactly parallel to what those of us on the right fear from the left with respect to judges.
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posted
Hmmm...that's interesting Dag. I didn't know that. I hope that this is true.
On the other comment, you fear that judges will legally bind parents to not teach their children Christianity? From my perspective, I don't think you have anything to worry about on that score.
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posted
I think this is something that the right and the left can unite on, though perhaps for different motivations (or perhaps not): the judge is clearly in the wrong here.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I think this is something that the right and the left can unite on, though perhaps for different motivations (or perhaps not): the judge is clearly in the wrong here.
posted
I don't see why the right and left would have different motivations -- none of us want anybody else to tell us what to do concerning religion.
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quote:On the other comment, you fear that judges will legally bind parents to not teach their children Christianity? From my perspective, I don't think you have anything to worry about on that score.
Not now, perhaps. But it has happened in the past, and there's really nothing preventing it from happening in the future. Civilizations come and go...and we really don't know what's going to happen. I know that a lot of us believe that the "end times" will have quite a lot of religious persecution--though we might disagree on which group we believe will be persecuted. But even if you don't believe that, you can look at history and the way nations rise and fall and understand that religions have been persecuted over and over throughout the history of the world and it can and probably will happen again in whole or in part to Christianity.
And when it happens, we'll have no justification to complain about it if we stood idly by and let the same thing happen to other religions--simply because we didn't agree with them.
posted
There's people on both sides who don't want anyone to tell them what to do concerning religion. There are also people on both sides who don't want anyone to tell other people what to do concerning religion. At some point, I hope we could have a country where most people were in the second group.
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quote:you fear that judges will legally bind parents to not teach their children Christianity? From my perspective, I don't think you have anything to worry about on that score.
Not precisely - I said it was parallel. Although I have seen several cases of orders preventing one parent from taking another to a particular church where the "winning" side was non-Christian and the "losing" side was Christian. But I don't fear those in the current situation any more than I fear that this order here will stand.
I was really getting at prohibitions that limit the ability of a person to act on their conscience or religious beliefs. For example, many Catholic organizations must cover birth control in California if they cover prescriptions for their employees.
posted
This is just nuts. I wish that a judge could be impeached for this. It is a clear misuse of power. It is like he forgot what country he was in...and that we have a constitution.
The reason that people on the right are so against this...is many of us have been saying all along, that the constitution is not meant to protect the government from the religion of its citizens (or to allow the government to protect others from being exposed to the religion of other citizens), but to protect people's right to practice their own religion without interference from the government. An insane ruling like this violates that right that those of us on the right value. What religion that the courts are oppressing is irrelevant, it is still the government oppressing a religion.
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quote:Originally posted by Portabello: I don't see why the right and left would have different motivations -- none of us want anybody else to tell us what to do concerning religion.
I think a lot of the left's concerns arise, Porter, when it seems as if right-wing political leaders are trying to do exactly that--making laws based on religion, which is where the whole right and left thing comes into this particular mess.
I do agree, though, that most people on both sides of the political spectrum are going to view this particular case the same way (unless they believe there should be a state religion--and there are people out there that do).
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posted
Katarain, From what I see, thre are plenty of people in the religious majority who are blithely willing to force their religion on others in ways that would have them screaming bloodly murder if it were done to them. So I don't really buy that argument.
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(I originally said Welcome, and then realized you'd been here a while, and I'd just never seen you before. )
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posted
Squicky, I believe a large number of folk would disagree with how you likely define "force their religion on others." That said, I think, sadly, that I agree with you. And I wonder at times if I'm one of those to whom you refer, despite my trying not to be.
posted
Indeed MrSquicky. I have been screamed at to my face by a Quaker, a Christian, and several Catholics. All claimed I was going to burn in hell because I am an agnostic.
The Quaker was hilarious. The Chrsitian would hear no one's views but her own. The group of Catholics came pretty close to getting knocked out by me. The were so violent that they were almost spitting in my face.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Katarain, From what I see, thre are plenty of people in the religious majority who are blithely willing to force their religion on others in ways that would have them screaming bloodly murder if it were done to them. So I don't really buy that argument.
Um.... yeah.... I agree with that. I never said otherwise. There is a disturbingly large amount of so-called Christians who want to trample all over the religious freedom of others and call it the good and right thing to do. I never argued against that. I argued that it definitely IS possible, even likely, that at some point in the future, whether it be 10 years or a 1000 years, Christians will be persecuted for their religious beliefs--and that if they have continued to ignore or inflict religious persecution on others then they have no justification for whining about it. So what about that argument don't you buy...because your comment didn't really seem to address mine.
quote:I think a lot of the left's concerns arise, Porter, when it seems as if right-wing political leaders are trying to do exactly that--making laws based on religion, which is where the whole right and left thing comes into this particular mess.
Um, that is not exactly the same. Making laws that are influenced on people's religion is not the same as making laws (or judgments) about somebody's religion.
To me, those are completely different things.
You might find them both equally objectionable, but don't just lump them together and expect me to go along with it.
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quote:Originally posted by Megan: No problem, Mr. Monkey. Nice to meet you!
(I originally said Welcome, and then realized you'd been here a while, and I'd just never seen you before. )
I haven't been here all that long. I lurked for a while and then went off on OSC the other day. He replied back to me in a cool headed manner and it made me reconcider how I looked at things.
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posted
Yeah Pop, it's like the bigotry thing from the other side. People often aren't aware of why things are wrong unless they actually get the perspective of having them turned on them. Some (I'd argue a lot) of them know that they are forcing their religion on people, but quite a few don't realize it because they lack the perspective. Not having others' religion forced on them, they don't realize that they are actually doing this to others.
Although, of course there are examples like Dag provided where you could argue that people are being forced to act against their own beliefs (although I feel ambigiously about that example).
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quote:I haven't been here all that long. I lurked for a while and then went off on OSC the other day. He replied back to me in a cool headed manner and it made me reconcider how I looked at things.
Heh... yeah.. and you called Dagonee (and ScottR--but I'm not familiar with his posting style--although he seemed fine in that thread) a spammer... flamer... etc., which I found so shocking...and completely absurd. You've been blessed to not meet a real spammer or flamer, obviously...
But welcome anyway.. with your rapidity of posting, you'll soon overtake those with low post counts like mine.
quote:I have been screamed at to my face by a Quaker, a Christian, and several Catholics. All claimed I was going to burn in hell because I am an agnostic.
1) Quakers and Catholics are Christian.
2) I really, really doubt that a Quaker screamed that you were going to "burn in hell."
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