Supreme Court ruling on Christian group

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Michael

The Supreme Court has made one of its seemingly rare decisions that isn’t a load of crap.

The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a San Francisco law school did not violate the First Amendment when it refused official recognition of a Christian student group that restricted its membership to those who shared a belief that homosexuality is immoral.

In a 5-to-4 decision, the high court said the University of California’s Hastings College of Law was under no constitutional obligation to recognize the Christian Legal Society (CLS) as an official student group.

Basically, every student group at this law school had to comply with a non-discrimination policy in order to receive any activity funds or other benefits from being an organized group. But, being arrogantly religious, the CLS group thought it ought to be exempt from this policy. One reason was to prevent those icky gays from obtaining leadership roles. Another was the forced promotion of the sexually immature position of abstaining from sex until marriage (students who didn’t adhere to that position were excluded from certain rules, possibly membership). Clearly not the brightest group.

This is a no-brainer. If a group wants funds, it needs to follow the same rules as everyone else; no special rules for religion. Don’t want to be remotely fair to someone because you’re sexually immature? Fine and dandy. But no funds.

Other analysts praised the high court decision. “Religious discrimination is wrong, and a public school should be able to take steps to eradicate it,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“Simply stated, the Christian Legal Society sought to ignore rules that every other group complied with,” he said. “The organization sought preferential treatment simply because it is religious. I am pleased that the court said no to that.”

The whole basis of the massive anti-science, anti-equality, anti-sexual maturity, anti-rationality, anti-common sense movement is the Christian religion. (Not that any religion is innocent in most of these matters.) Any steps which help to eradicate its corrosive ability is a good thing.

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National Day of Prayer struck down

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Michael

The National Day of Prayer is a purely religious statute endorsed by the government. It is unconstitutional – and obviously so.

“[I]ts sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function,” a Wisconsin judge wrote in the ruling, referring to the 1952 law that created the National Day of Prayer.

“In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience,” wrote the judge, Barbara B. Crabb.

This is an obviously reasonable ruling. Unlike Christmas, there is no secular function or secular need for such a day. Of course, not everyone is so clear-headed.

Conservative religious groups called on the White House to appeal the decision.

“The National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith and does not promote any particular religion or form of religious observance,” said Joel Oster, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

This makes no sense. It’s the same nonsensical crap religidiots are always peddling. “It’s freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion!” All these Joel Osters of the world are doing is demonstrating their poor grasp on prepositions and how they pertain to the First Amendment.

The promotion of any religion is a violation of the First Amendment, even if that promotion includes all religions – the constitution does not somehow exclude atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers (or even those whose religions exclude prayer).

This really shouldn’t be that hard to grasp.

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