smb@ulysses.UUCP (10/11/83)
About zoning ordinances -- a case came up recently in, I think, a suburb of Washington, D.C. It seems that a Vietnamese refugee community had set up a Buddhist temple in their neighborhood. The noise and the crowds bothered their neighbors, who complained; the Vietnamese were told that that area just wasn't zoned for temples. Said a community leader, "This wouldn't be happening to us if we were Christians."
bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes ) (10/11/83)
This is a very long article. Most of the issues contained in it have been
discussed in net.religion and net.politics before, but seldom have the
views that Gary expresses been set forth so coherently and succinctly.
Hopefully, I can do justice to them in my rebuttal. I urge Gary to
continue the discussion, though we may want to break the specific issues
up into separate series' of articles.
GS:
I'm not sure that this response is worthwhile, because I think that
Byron Howes missed the purpose for my response to Pamela Troy's article.
I will attempt to explain. Pamela Troy wrote an article describing
what she feared would happen to society if the 'Judeo-Christians'
obtained the power that the 'secular humanists' now have (the terms
'Judeo-Christian' and 'secular humanists' are hers, not mine).
I took it upon myself to attempt to show that Christians do not
enjoy quite as much freedom as she would like us to believe. Thus,
my article dealt only with examples (some specific, and some generic)
where Christians are denied rights under current conditions. Some
of those examples, as Byron notes, could be extended to include
non-Christians. I do not object to that. In fact, it supports my
main contention that life in these United States isn't as wonderful
as she seems to claim.
BCH:
I didn't infer from Pam's article that she thought Christians enjoyed
considerable freedoms. In fact, her article specifically dealt with
the hypothetical situation where the Christian Right had gained control
of the governmental processes in the United States and expressed her
fears of repression under such circumstances. Your response did nothing
in my mind to allay such fears. I thought it permeated with precisely
the "If you aren't a Christian, you are Anti-Christian" mind set that
her original article tried to describe. Even in this paragraph, you
claim "rights" are being denied to Christians. The purpose of my pre-
vious article was to show that no "rights" are being denied to Christians
that aren't denied to other religious and sometimes secular belief
systems. Why? Because the activities you describe are not rights under
current law in the United States.
-----------------------------------
GS:
Yes, the laws in question (zoning ordinances, as I said) are general
in their wording. And they were probably not written for the purpose
of repressing anyone.
BUT, the laws apply to those against whom they are enforced. I know
of cases where such laws have been enforced against Christians; do
you know of cases where such laws have been enforced against any of
the other groups mentioned? I don't (which is not to say that it
hasn't happened), and I am not about to examine the records at every
town hall in America to find out.
BCH:
Gee. The Rostifarians have been thrown of Dade county, Florida, for
one. Assembly permits have been denied to the Jewish Defense League,
the KKK, rock concert promoters, discoteques, the Hari Krishna, the
Moonies, and the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra in Chapel-Hill/
Carrboro N.C., alone. I didn't know of any case where Christians
had been denied re-zoning or special use permits. That *doesn't*
mean I don't believe it has happened. The question is, were they
denied just because they were (insert-belief-system-of-your-choice)
or because they really violated zoning or assembly laws?
----------------------------------------
GS:
The law could no doubt be declared unconstitutional, if someone could
afford the necessary litigation.
BCH:
Yipes! That's all we need. A constitutional decision against zoning
ordinances. Wait till somebody puts a steel mill up next to your house
and see if you still want that! Zoning ordinances are vital to rational
town planning and protection of critical resources (like water supplies.)
Just because in a very few cases you, personally, don't like the results
of the applications of zoning ordinances doesn't mean that the principle
isn't a good one -- more often than not they protect people's property
and rights.
-------------------------------------------
GS:
It is illegal to pray in a public school. (This may be technically
incorrect, but that is the way the general public perceives the law.)
BCH:
Huh? If that is the way the general public perceives the law, then how
come the polls consistantly show a majority of people against the insti-
tution of prayer in public schools?
GS:
Simple, that is the way the public perceives the law, and that is the
way they want it to stay. Why would it require a constitutional
amendment "to restore voluntary prayer", if that were not the case?
BCH:
If it isn't illegal, then you don't need a constitutional amendment to
restore it. While you may believe that the public perceives that it
is illegal to pray in schools, certainly you don't think that legi-
slators see it that way. There is a certain amount of Orwellian Newspeak
in a constitutional amendment to "restore voluntary prayer." Prayer
is already voluntary, right? Nobody is prevented from (non-disruptively)
praying in schools provided it is a voluntary decision. Given that
this is the case, why is the constitutional amendment? My take is that
those in favor want "organized voluntary prayer" which, as has been stated
by many in this forum, is an oxymoron of the first order.
----------------------------------------------
GS:
I consider the following pairs of statements to be mutually exclusive
(in other words, both statements in each pair cannot be true):
1a. Life originated from non-living matter through natural physical
and chemical processes.
1b. Life was created by a supernatural being.
-----
2a. The material universe has always existed.
2b. The material universe was created by a supernatural being.
I think you will find that the ACLU is opposed to statements 1b and
2b being taught in public schools, in favor of statements 1a and 2a.
Refer to recent and current cases in the Arkansas and Louisiana
courts. You shouldn't make promises on behalf of the ACLU.
BCH:
Sorry, I don't see the contradiction. Anything that exists is natural, inclu-
ding a deity. Whether the diety created life directly or caused the physical
and chemical processes involved in creating life to be is largely a matter of
perspective. I, for one, don't see a meaningful difference except from a
purely dogmatic point of view. G-d can be considered as responsible for
the creation of life through physical and chemical processes as well as
through direct intervention.
Your second example is really a philosophical question. I have no problem
with the notion of a being or an impulse operating outside of a material
plane creating something which has always existed within the material plane.
We really don't know enough about the nature of time and space and "uni-
versality" to say that these are contradictory. It is a problem of the
domain of the explanations in each sentence, not of an inherent contradiction.
----------------------------------------
GS:
....HOWEVER, I also believe that along with the
facts, some guidelines for responsible sexual behavior ought to be
taught. If children are not taught some set of guidelines, they will
(it seems to me) assume that there aren't any.
Actually, I must admit that I had no specific case in mind when I
made the original statement.
BCH:
If moral guidelines are to be explicitly given, whose moral guidelines will
they be? I doubt that you and I would agree on the moral guidelines for
sexual activity, not to mention alcohol and (gasp) recreational drugs.
I submit moral guidelines are the province of the family, not the school.
It seems to me also a very short distance from the public preaching of
morality to the public preaching of statist dogma as in the USSR or Nazi
Germany. The purpose of the school is to provide information, not proper
prescriptions for behavior.
--------------------------------------
GS:
The interpretation of the Constitution which says forbids Bible classes
in buildings built with money from federal grants is arbitrary.
Where in the Constituition does it say that the government has the
right to restrict what is taught in a private school?
BCH:
In a completely privately funded private school, there is no restriction.
By your own admission, however, some of the buildings which existed in
your school were publicly funded. It is illegal to teach religion matters
in those buildings. Note that the school had the right to teach (almost)
anything it wished in buildings built with private funds. (The almost in
the above statements refers to things which you can't teach in any building,
such as sedition and treason.) Most recently the supreme court decided
(in the Goldsboro Academy and Bob Jones University cases) that you can't
use public monies to promote anything contrary to federal statute, specif-
ically racial discrimination.) If you use entirely private funds, I guess
that's ok.
------------------------------------
BCH:
Only an offensive few "make fun" of bible quotes in net.religion.
GS:
So where is the public rebuke of those offensive few?
BCH:
You just saw one.
-------------------------------------
BCH:
More often is the case that people object to Bible quotations being
used as exclusive "proof" of some statement of dogma. Has an
evolutionist ever quoted Darwin at you?
GS:
If I am attempting to explain what I believe (in religious questions)
or, in some cases, why I believe it, I will quote the Bible. Is
that unreasonable? Yet that is what it appears is found objectionable.
BCH:
The critical modifier here is "belief." I don't remember anyone making
fun of biblical quotations referred to as justification for a belief.
When biblical quotations are used to provide a sole explanation of what
"is," then there is bound to be a certain amount of bronx cheering.
Perhaps a pseudo example will make my point more clearly:
A. I believe (dogmatic-point-of-your-choice) because (holy-scripture-of-
your-choice) says (quotation-of-your-choice.)
vs.
B. (phenomenon-of-your-choice) is/has happened/will happen because
(holy-scripture-of-your-choice) says (quotation-of-your-choice.)
The former I can accept, deal with, and argue about in meaningful terms.
The latter is largely inarguable if I don't believe in the infallibility
of the holy-scripture-of-your-choice and if you are not willing to
provide evidence of its infallibility beyond quotations from holy-scripture-
of-your-choice.
-------------------------------------
GS:
Now, as for what life will be like if the secular humanists
gain all the power they want, no doubt the first thing they
will do is put all Christians in mental institutions, since
they are obviously irrational and a threat to society.
BCH:
Hmmm. The mythical secular humanists again. I think I've been here
before
GS:
I used the term because Pamela Troy used the term in her article.
I don't think much of it, as a meaningful classification, either.
My point was that I don't want Pamela Troy to have any more power
than she wants me to have, for similar reasons.
BCH:
I didn't infer that Pam wanted power over Christians. Like most of us,
she simply wants to be left alone to pursue her private life and belief
system in the way she sees fit without impinging on anyone else's rights
or being impinged on by other's beliefs as much as is possible.
Note that Pam does not claim the right to teach what she believes in the
public shools, gather in covens in violation of zoning ordinances,
have "voluntary incantations" (Sorry Pam, I don't mean to make fun -- I
just don't know the proper word) in the schools, have her moral
guidelines presented with respect to subjects taught in school or any
of the other "rights" you feel Christians are prevented from exercising.
Byron Howes
UNC - Chapel Hill
decvax!duke!unc!bch