HAHAHAHAHAHA - Bush won't push for gay marriage ban in Senate

[alonzomourning23]

[quote name='alonzomourning23']

I think the role of christianity is overstated in the founding of this nation. Look how few of the 10 commandments have any legal status, and consider how most of the founding fathers were deists. But religion is religion, be it yours or someone elses, and there is supposed to be a seperation of church and state. Religious matters are deciding who I can and cannot marry, not legal and civil rights issues, but religion. I don't care if every religion opposed it, it's religion and when that is the reasoning used in creating laws, then that law has no place in the u.s. Obviously religion will affect people opinion, but it should not be used as the actual reason to oppose or support a law. Also, if your religious values are so weak that they change based on secular laws, then you need to do some serious re-evaluating of your beliefs.

First of all, I don't see any of the Framers as being "deists." Could you expound upon that? But you are right in that the constitution sets up a separation of church and state. But that is the constitution of the federal government. It also reserves the regulation of religion as a state power, which is what I've been trying to say the whole time, but it seems you are misunderstanding me. The federal government is supposed to avoid unnecessary entanglement in religion (establishment clause). But it reserves those powers to the individual states.

And I hope you were joking about that last sentence. I think it's pretty clear what I meant. I was saying that it is like someone trying to change my religious views, not that I am tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. There is quite a difference.


P.S. Thanks for everyone discussing this calmly so far (well except for that Friday guy). I think everyone has had quite good input.

BTW, is there a topic on the State of the Union yet? *goes and checks*[/quote]

I wasn't joking on that last sentence. You're saying that someone changing secular government laws is like trying to change your religious views, why those two have any connection is beyond me. Why my rights are dependent on what your religion says is beyond me. You keep god in your own way, let me keep, or not keep, god in my own way. By using religion as the reasoning against a law, in this case gay marriage, you are infringing on my religious rights, since your religion is dictating what I can legally do. The fact that you clearly see it as a religious matter, and an opinion coming directly from you religion is where I have the problem. I would still not agree with you if you based it on family, children etc., and would likely refute evidence that you presented. But at least in that case it would not be as clearly in conflict with the u.s. constitution. The amount of religion that has been a part of state law is irrelevent, it has been deemed unconstitutional and is not legal in the present day. States do not have the right to enact any law in support of a particular religion, and if they do will be declared unconstitutional if challenged.

Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are perhaps the most well-known of the American founding Deists. Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a tract that popularized Deism throughout America and Europe.

lwikipedia

Early Deism was a logical outgrowth of the great advances in astronomy, physics, and chemistry that had been made by Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, etc. It was a small leap from rational study of nature to the application of the same techniques in religion. Early Deists believed that the Bible contained important truths, but they rejected the concept that it was divinely inspired or inerrant. They were leaders in the study of the Bible as a historical (rather than an inspired, revealed) document.............

Many of the leaders of the French and American revolutions followed this belief system, including John Quincy Adams, Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison Thomas Paine, and George Washington. Deists played a major role in creating the principle of separation of church and state, and the religious freedom clauses of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.

link

Some interesting jefferson quotes:

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825

 

[MorPhiend]

I guess I'm not able to explain myself adequately, because that is still not what I'm trying to say. Sorry about that. But when did it become unconstitutional for states to have anything to do with religion, because as far as I understand, that is a reserved power.

Thanks for the quotes, they are very interesting, although confusing. This is because I know that many of these men believed in and exercised prayer in their own lives. And that would not follow the tenets of deism, being that prayer consists of (among other things) receiving personal revelation and often asking God to intervene in some way. k

Thanx. You've given me yet more homework I need to do this weekend.

 

[Drocket]

[quote name='MorPhiend']But when did it become unconstitutional for states to have anything to do with religion, because as far as I understand, that is a reserved power.[/quote]
Since around the Civil War. Before the Civil War, the US was basically a collection of mini-countries that banded together to fight off outsiders. The Civil War solidified the idea of the US being an actual country in and of itself, to which the states were merely subservient sub-entities. Once that shift in thinking happened, the inherent result was that rules binding the federal government also bound state governments.

That's probably something more of a philisophical answer than you're looking for, though, but its been the guiding principle on which decisions have been made for a bit more than 50% of the US's lifespan. In a lot of ways, the country that came out of the Civil War was a completely different one than the one that went into it. There's probably a really good debate in there about which US was/is the better one, but that's a completely different topic.

Anyway, the 'real' answer to your question would be a long string of Supreme Court decisions stretching back 100 years that I'm far too lazy to look up

 

[alonzomourning23]

[quote name='MorPhiend']I guess I'm not able to explain myself adequately, because that is still not what I'm trying to say. Sorry about that. But when did it become unconstitutional for states to have anything to do with religion, because as far as I understand, that is a reserved power.

Thanks for the quotes, they are very interesting, although confusing. This is because I know that many of these men believed in and exercised prayer in their own lives. And that would not follow the tenets of deism, being that prayer consists of (among other things) receiving personal revelation and often asking God to intervene in some way. k

Thanx. You've given me yet more homework I need to do this weekend.[/quote]

States are not even allowed to have the 10 commandments in a public place, I don't think that is considered a reserved power. Considering the interperetation of the constitution is based on the wording and not the intent (which is a good thing, usually), maybe you could argue that that is what the constitution technically says. But the supreme court does not agree with you. The separation of church and state is, ideally, at all levels when public issues are concerned, at least in the present.

Though deists do believe in god, and people can pray without hoping for a personal revelation and without asking god to intervene. That's your definition of prayer, not the only one. Buddhists, for example, pray even though they do not believe in a god. Christianity being so woven into life in the 18th century that, christian or not, you carried yourself and acted as a christian without even thinking about it. There is a difference between that and consciously putting christianity into the constitution. Also, if you read the constitution, nowhere does it refer to god or any such being. In the declaration of indepence there are references to a god, but god is refered to as "nature's god" and "creator", these are the ways that a deist would refer to god.

 

[MorPhiend]

[quote name='Drocket'][quote name='MorPhiend']But when did it become unconstitutional for states to have anything to do with religion, because as far as I understand, that is a reserved power.[/quote]
Since around the Civil War. Before the Civil War, the US was basically a collection of mini-countries that banded together to fight off outsiders. The Civil War solidified the idea of the US being an actual country in and of itself, to which the states were merely subservient sub-entities. Once that shift in thinking happened, the inherent result was that rules binding the federal government also bound state governments.

That's probably something more of a philisophical answer than you're looking for, though, but its been the guiding principle on which decisions have been made for a bit more than 50% of the US's lifespan. In a lot of ways, the country that came out of the Civil War was a completely different one than the one that went into it. There's probably a really good debate in there about which US was/is the better one, but that's a completely different topic.

Anyway, the 'real' answer to your question would be a long string of Supreme Court decisions stretching back 100 years that I'm far too lazy to look up [/quote]

Your right I am looking for what your last statement said. But I don't know that they even exist. I've never heard of a case restricting a state. The Federal Government has shifted from Dual Federalism to a layered Federalism and now what they call marble-cake federalism, but that doesn't change the reserved powers. I want to see something that says that religion is no longer a reserved power. Thanx anyway.

Well, I'm out y'all. I have to be in class in eight hours and I still have to study for my Arabic speaking exam. G'nite.

 

[alonzomourning23]

[quote name='MorPhiend'][quote name='Drocket'][quote name='MorPhiend']But when did it become unconstitutional for states to have anything to do with religion, because as far as I understand, that is a reserved power.[/quote]
Since around the Civil War. Before the Civil War, the US was basically a collection of mini-countries that banded together to fight off outsiders. The Civil War solidified the idea of the US being an actual country in and of itself, to which the states were merely subservient sub-entities. Once that shift in thinking happened, the inherent result was that rules binding the federal government also bound state governments.

That's probably something more of a philisophical answer than you're looking for, though, but its been the guiding principle on which decisions have been made for a bit more than 50% of the US's lifespan. In a lot of ways, the country that came out of the Civil War was a completely different one than the one that went into it. There's probably a really good debate in there about which US was/is the better one, but that's a completely different topic.

Anyway, the 'real' answer to your question would be a long string of Supreme Court decisions stretching back 100 years that I'm far too lazy to look up [/quote]

Your right I am looking for what your last statement said. But I don't know that they even exist. I've never heard of a case restricting a state. The Federal Government has shifted from Dual Federalism to a layered Federalism and now what they call marble-cake federalism, but that doesn't change the reserved powers. I want to see something that says that religion is no longer a reserved power. Thanx anyway.

Well, I'm out y'all. I have to be in class in eight hours and I still have to study for my Arabic speaking exam. G'nite.[/quote]

Whatever it technically is, and I've never heard of it referred to as a state power until this point so I have no idea if this is accurate, the rulings issued by the supreme court clearly do not support your interpretation of the constitution.