jmm@bonnie.UUCP (Joe Mcghee) (08/16/84)
???????????????????????? Gee Trisha, I don't recall anyone mentioning religion. The discussion was really revolving around human rights. Religion isn't even mentioned in the Special Powers Act. But since you've opened up that can of worms, here goes: My grandmother was Protestant and my grandfather was Catholic. Since that time we've had a hard time keeping track of who is what. And anyway, who cares?!!! My cousins are "kissin' cousins" and when we get together, it seems I always get grabbed for some SLOOOW Dancin'. They like to get thisclose. Interfaith relations in my family are languid, warm, soft and moist. Some of them are also excellent horsewomen. I've seen them come dripping wet out of the swimming pool; wearing only a bikini, jump on a horse without saddle or bridle, grab the horses mane and take off at full gallop. God, I love stong women! Ahem. What were we talking about? Oh, yes: religion and politics. I can see Trisha, that you are obviously a follower of George Seawright. For anyone on the net who is not familiar with this gentleman, he is a prominent politician in Northern Ireland who several weeks ago said "All Catholics should be incinerated." Note that he did not specify only IRISH Catholics. Since that time no loyalist political leaders in the UK have called for an apology, a retraction or a resignation. Reverand Farakhan, you've been outdone!!! But this problem has not been confined to Northern Ireland. Thomas Jefferson wrote of his own state of Virginia: "The first settlers of this colony were Englishmen, loyal subjects to their king and church, and the grant to Sir Walter Raleigh contained an express proviso that their laws 'should not be against the true Christian faith, now professed in the Church of England.' As soon as the state of the colony admitted, it was divided into parishes, in each of which was established a minister of the Anglican Church endowed with a fixed salary, in tobacco, a glebe house and land with the other necessary appendages. To meet these expenses all the inhabitants of the parishes were assessed whether they were or not members of the established church... By the time of the Revolution a majority of the inhabitants had become dissenters from the established church but were still obliged to pay contributions to support the pastors of the minority. This unrighteous compulsion to maintain teachers of what they deemed religious errors was grievously felt during the regal government, and without a hope of relief. But the first republican legislature which met in '76 was crowded with petitions to abolish this spiritual tyranny. These brought on the severest contests in which I have ever been engaged. Statutory oppressions in religion being thus wiped away, we are at present (1781) under those only imposed by the common law or by our own acts of assembly. At the common law, heresy was a capital offense, punishable by burning... But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely. Religion is well supported; of various kinds indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order; or if a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the state to be troubled with it... They have made the happy discovery that the way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them." bonnie!jmm J. M. McGhee
garret@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Trisha O Tuama) (08/18/84)
***** Hi jmm, Gee, I was so blown (pun!!) away by your description of your interfamily relations that I could hardly finish reading your article. No, I have nothing against Catholics -- I became a member of the Church on Holy Saturday, 1951, made my First Communion six years later, and became a Soldier of Christ while in the third grade at St. Mary's Elementary School in downtown Albuquerque. What I don't like is the interfamily relation between Church and State that exists in Eire today. Faced with the very real possibility of living in Dublin (especially if the INS doesn't act soon on approving my husband's residency status) I am distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of living in a country guided by the hand of Holy Mother Church. I have, therefore, great deal of sympathy for the Protestants of Northern Ireland, especially as the majority of that country's population favors the British Parliament to the Irish Dail. Mary Patricia Teresa O Tuama