<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">I think it is perfectly appropriate for members of the community that disagree with an <SPAN style="RIGHT: auto" id=misspell-0><SPAN>advertisements</SPAN></SPAN> to complain to their government. Especially if that <SPAN style="RIGHT: auto" id=misspell-1><SPAN>advertisement</SPAN></SPAN> is discriminatory toward people's spiritual and <SPAN style="RIGHT: auto" id=misspell-2><SPAN>cultural</SPAN></SPAN> beliefs. I also believe the government should listen and address those concerns in proportion to the complaints they <SPAN style="RIGHT: auto" id=misspell-3><SPAN>receive</SPAN></SPAN> and within their power.</SPAN></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto"></SPAN> </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 16px; RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">I think a billboard that attacks <SPAN id=misspell-4><SPAN>religious</SPAN></SPAN> and spiritual beliefs of many people should be responded to, otherwise people that drive by, visit, or or even live in Moscow can conclude that Moscow residents are bigots towards people that share their religious and cultural beliefs. </SPAN></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto"></SPAN> </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; FONT-STYLE: normal; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); FONT-SIZE: 16px; RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">Why send your child to a University, take a job, or set up business in a community you feel will reject you and your family because you have a particular <SPAN id=misspell-5><SPAN>religious</SPAN></SPAN> belief others don't share? If people protest, and the government responds, others will know it is just a minority viewpoint that some people in Moscow are bigoted and will ridicule your for your religious and cultural identity. </SPAN></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto"></SPAN> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">If the City Council doesn't listen to the people they are elected to listen to, then the people have no other choice but to take action themselves against their <SPAN style="RIGHT: auto" id=misspell-6><SPAN>transgressors</SPAN></SPAN>. It is much better to express our opposition in a measure and through government then through mob reactions, which c<VAR id=yui-ie-cursor></VAR>onsequently is all that is left when governments ignore the needs and concerns of its people.</SPAN></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto"></SPAN> </div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">Donovan J. Arnold</SPAN></div>
<div style="RIGHT: auto"><BR style="RIGHT: auto"></div>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
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<DIV style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; LINE-HEIGHT: 0; MARGIN: 5px 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; HEIGHT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 0px; BORDER-TOP: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-TOP: 0px" class=hr contentEditable=false readonly="true"></DIV><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Tom Hansen <thansen@moscow.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe@gmail.com> <BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Cc:</SPAN></B> "vision2020@moscow.com" <vision2020@moscow.com> <BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Tuesday, December 11, 2012 9:14 AM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [Vision2020] The God Glut<BR></FONT></DIV><BR>
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<DIV>Exactly!</DIV>
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<DIV>Ya see? Right there is the difference. While Judd Wilson chooses to hold the government (Moscow City Council) accountable for the context of items on public display and the perceived affect that context may have on his offspring, Joe Campbell assumes parental responsibility and guidance for the maturity development of his children and discusses such items with them.<BR><BR>
<DIV><SPAN id=misspell-7 class=mark>Seeya</SPAN> round town, Moscow, because . . .</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>"Moscow Cares"</DIV>
<DIV>http://www.MoscowCares.com</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>Tom Hansen, CPL (Commie Pinko Liberal)</DIV>
<DIV>Moscow, Idaho</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR>On Dec 11, 2012, at 8:55 AM, Joe Campbell <<A href="mailto:philosopher.joe@gmail.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:philosopher.joe@gmail.com">philosopher.joe@gmail.com</A>> wrote:<BR><BR></DIV>
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<DIV>Great article! Thanks for posting it. <BR><BR>It makes a nice case for the sense in which "status <SPAN id=misspell-8 class=mark>quo</SPAN>" beliefs are often oppressive in ways that the believer is unaware. I had a conversation with my son (who has recently adopted a rather conservative world view) and he noted that a particular religious ritual was "bizarre." I noted that all rituals are bizarre to those who don't perform them. He said "Not Christian rituals." In defense of my son, he is just 13 years old. But blindness toward our own view points as being something other than merely a set of opinions -- one set among many -- is pervasive. The first amendment requires that we move beyond that, if not individually at least as a society.<BR><BR>
<DIV class=yiv1278788834gmail_quote>On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 4:54 AM, Art Deco <SPAN dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</A>></SPAN> wrote:<BR>
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<DIV><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/" rel=nofollow target=_blank><IMG border=0 hspace=0 alt="The New York Times" align=left src="cid:"></A> </DIV>
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<DIV>December 10, 2012</DIV>
<H1>The God Glut</H1>
<H6>By <SPAN><A title="More Articles by FRANK BRUNI" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/frank_bruni/index.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank><SPAN>FRANK <SPAN id=misspell-9 class=mark>BRUNI</SPAN></SPAN></A></SPAN></H6>
<DIV>
<div>Bob <SPAN id=misspell-10 class=mark>Kerrey</SPAN>’s political career spanned four years as the governor of Nebraska and another 12 as a United States senator from that state, during which he made a serious bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. In all that time, to the best of his memory, he never uttered what has become a routine postscript to political remarks: “God bless America.” </div>
<div>That was deliberate. </div>
<div>“It seems a little presumptuous, when you’<SPAN id=misspell-11 class=mark>ve</SPAN> got the land mass and the talent that we do, to ask for more,” he told me recently. </div>
<div>But there was an additional reason he <SPAN id=misspell-12 class=mark>didn</SPAN>’t mention God, so commonly praised in the halls of government, so prevalent a fixture in public discourse. </div>
<div>“I think you have to be very, very careful about keeping religion and politics separate,” <SPAN id=misspell-13 class=mark>Kerrey</SPAN> said. </div>
<div>We Americans <SPAN id=misspell-14 class=mark>aren</SPAN>’t careful at all. In a country that supposedly draws a line between church and state, we allow the former to intrude flagrantly on the latter. Religious faith shapes policy debates. It fuels claims of American <SPAN id=misspell-15 class=mark>exceptionalism</SPAN>. </div>
<div>And it suffuses arenas in which its place should be carefully measured. A recent example of this prompted my conversation with <SPAN id=misspell-16 class=mark>Kerrey</SPAN>. Last week, a fourth-year cadet at West Point packed his bags and left, less than six months shy of graduation, in protest of what he portrayed as a bullying, discriminatory religiousness at the military academy, which receives public funding. </div>
<div>The cadet, Blake Page, detailed his complaint in an article <A href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blake-page/west-point-religious-freedom_b_2232279.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>for The <SPAN id=misspell-17 class=mark>Huffington</SPAN> Post</A>, accusing officers at the academy of “unconstitutional proselytism,” specifically of an evangelical Christian variety. </div>
<div>On the phone on Sunday, he explained to me that a few of them urged attendance at religious events in ways that could make a cadet worry about the social and professional consequences of not going. One such event was a prayer breakfast this year at which a retired lieutenant general, William G. <SPAN id=misspell-18 class=mark>Boykin</SPAN>, was slated to speak. <SPAN id=misspell-19 class=mark>Boykin</SPAN> is a born-again Christian, and his past remarks portraying the war on terror in holy and biblical terms were so extreme that he <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/world/bush-says-he-disagrees-with-general-s-remarks-on-religion.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>was rebuked</A> in 2003 by President Bush. In fact his scheduled speech at West Point was so vigorously protested that it <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/us/lt-gen-william-boykin-known-for-anti-muslim-remarks-cancels-west-point-talk.html?ref=williamgboykin" rel=nofollow
target=_blank>ultimately had to be canceled</A>. </div>
<div>Page said that on other occasions, religious events were promoted by superiors with the kind of mass e-mails seldom used for secular gatherings. “It was always Christian, Christian, Christian,” said Page, who is an atheist. </div>
<div>Mikey <SPAN id=misspell-20 class=mark>Weinstein</SPAN>, an Air Force Academy graduate who presides over an advocacy group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told me that more than 30,000 members of the United States military have been in contact with his organization because of concerns about zealotry in their ranks. </div>
<div>More than 150 of them, he said, work or study at West Point. Several cadets told me in telephone interviews that nonbelievers at the academy can indeed be made to feel uncomfortable, and that benedictions at supposedly nonreligious events refer to “God, Our Father” in a way that certainly <SPAN id=misspell-21 class=mark>doesn</SPAN>’t respect all faiths. </div>
<div>Is the rest of society so different? </div>
<div>Every year around this time, many conservatives rail against the “war on Christmas,” using a few dismantled nativities to suggest that America muffles worship. </div>
<div>Hardly. We have God on our dollars, God in our pledge of allegiance, God in our Congress. Last year, the House <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/us/house-of-representatives-affirms-in-god-we-trust-motto.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>took the time to vote</A>, 396 to 9, in favor of a resolution affirming “In God We Trust” as our national motto. How utterly needless, unless I missed some insurrectionist initiative to have that motto changed to “Buck Up, Beelzebub” or “Surrender Dorothy.” </div>
<div>We have God in our public schools, a few of which cling to creationism, and we have major presidential candidates — Rick Perry, Michele <SPAN id=misspell-22 class=mark>Bachmann</SPAN>, Rick <SPAN id=misspell-23 class=mark>Santorum</SPAN> — who use God in general and Christianity in particular as cornerstones of their campaigns. God’s <A href="http://news.yahoo.com/democrats-change-platform-add-god-jerusalem-211928130--election.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>initial absence</A> from the Democratic Party platform last summer stirred more outrage among Americans than the slaughter in Syria will ever provoke. </div>
<div>God’s wishes are cited in efforts to deny abortions to raped women and civil marriages to same-sex couples. In our country God <SPAN id=misspell-24 class=mark>doesn</SPAN>’t merely have a place at the table. He or She is the host of the prayer-heavy dinner party. </div>
<div>And there’s too little acknowledgment that God <SPAN id=misspell-25 class=mark>isn</SPAN>’t just a potent engine of altruism, mercy and solace, but also, in instances, a divisive, repressive instrument; that godliness <SPAN id=misspell-26 class=mark>isn</SPAN>’t any prerequisite for patriotism; and that someone like Page deserves as much respect as any true believer. </div>
<div><SPAN id=misspell-27 class=mark>Kerrey</SPAN> labels himself agnostic, but said that an active politician could get away with that only if he or she <SPAN id=misspell-28 class=mark>didn</SPAN>’t “engage in a conversation about the danger of religion” or advertise any spiritual qualms and questions. </div>
<div>“If you talk openly about your doubts,” he said, “you can get in trouble.” </div>
<div>To me that <SPAN id=misspell-29 class=mark>doesn</SPAN>’t sound like religious freedom at all. </div><SPAN class=yiv1278788834HOEnZb><FONT color=#888888>
<DIV></DIV></FONT></SPAN></DIV><SPAN class=yiv1278788834HOEnZb><FONT color=#888888><BR>-- <BR>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<BR><A href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</A><BR><BR><IMG src="cid:"><BR><BR></FONT></SPAN><BR>=======================================================<BR> List services made available by First Step Internet,<BR> serving the communities of the <SPAN id=misspell-30 class=mark>Palouse</SPAN> since 1994.<BR> <A href="http://www.fsr.net/" rel=nofollow target=_blank>http://www.fsr.net/</A><BR> <SPAN id=misspell-31 class=mark>mailto</SPAN>:<A href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank
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