<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>Exactly!</div><div><br></div><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>Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .</div><div><br></div><div>"Moscow Cares"</div><div><a href="http://www.MoscowCares.com">http://www.MoscowCares.com</a></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">philosopher.joe@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Great article! Thanks for posting it. <br><br>It makes a nice case for the sense in which "status quo" 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="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 4:54 AM, Art Deco <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/" target="_blank"><img src="cid:" alt="The New York Times" align="left" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a>
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<div>December 10, 2012</div>
<h1>The God Glut</h1>
<h6>By
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<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/frank_bruni/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by FRANK BRUNI" target="_blank"><span>FRANK BRUNI</span></a></span></h6>
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<p>
Bob Kerrey’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.” </p>
<p>
That was deliberate. </p>
<p>
“It seems a little presumptuous, when you’ve got the land mass and the
talent that we do, to ask for more,” he told me recently. </p>
<p>
But there was an additional reason he didn’t mention God, so commonly
praised in the halls of government, so prevalent a fixture in public
discourse. </p>
<p>
“I think you have to be very, very careful about keeping religion and politics separate,” Kerrey said. </p>
<p>
We Americans aren’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 exceptionalism. </p>
<p>
And it suffuses arenas in which its place should be carefully measured. A
recent example of this prompted my conversation with Kerrey. 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. </p>
<p>
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" target="_blank">for The Huffington Post</a>, accusing officers at the academy of “unconstitutional proselytism,” specifically of an evangelical Christian variety. </p>
<p>
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. Boykin, was slated to speak. Boykin 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" 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" target="_blank">ultimately had to be canceled</a>. </p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
Mikey Weinstein, 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. </p>
<p>
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 doesn’t respect all faiths. </p>
<p>
Is the rest of society so different? </p>
<p>
Every year around this time, many conservatives rail against the “war on
Christmas,” using a few dismantled nativities to suggest that America
muffles worship. </p>
<p>
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" 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.” </p>
<p>
We have God in our public schools, a few of which cling to creationism,
and we have major presidential candidates — Rick Perry, Michele
Bachmann, Rick Santorum — 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" 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. </p>
<p>
God’s wishes are cited in efforts to deny abortions to raped women and
civil marriages to same-sex couples. In our country God doesn’t merely
have a place at the table. He or She is the host of the prayer-heavy
dinner party. </p>
<p>
And there’s too little acknowledgment that God isn’t just a potent
engine of altruism, mercy and solace, but also, in instances, a
divisive, repressive instrument; that godliness isn’t any prerequisite
for patriotism; and that someone like Page deserves as much respect as
any true believer. </p>
<p>
Kerrey labels himself agnostic, but said that an active politician could
get away with that only if he or she didn’t “engage in a conversation
about the danger of religion” or advertise any spiritual qualms and
questions. </p>
<p>
“If you talk openly about your doubts,” he said, “you can get in trouble.” </p>
<p>
To me that doesn’t sound like religious freedom at all. </p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
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<br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="cid:"><br><br>
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