What religious rights, if any, are currently being eroded in the USA?

Crashfrog:Please remove my name from the topic title so I can participate absent a veiled and perceived threat of blackmail.

Wj quote:
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It only raises the question of why he would not if he has expressed an opinion on the issue previously.
______________________________________________________________________Therein is the blackmail.Crashfrog would have everyone believe that creating this topic/title to be innocent, as if I am stupid/naieve to believe this.Everyone knows why he has done this.He got bested in a previous exchange and he cannot tolerate that fact.This is the third/fourth time my name was used in a title and each time the topic creator hid behind the same reasoning; trying to convince me of the favor being done. Crashfrog got rung up by Admin/Percy recently and then had the shameless response of making light of it in another arena. He is on a rant binge and I am in his crosshairs. Whatvever position he represents me to have should not be trusted unless it is an exact quote - cut and pasted.I could of just as easily responded by creating my own topic with his name in it - a title communicating the real reason for this present dispute. But, I decided not to.Crashfrog : If you want a piece of me then approach like a man and stop the intelligence-insulting excuses.

Dan Carroll quote:
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Willowtree, that question was already raised on the previous thread, when you not only refused repeated requests to support your statement, but refused to even clarify what you were talking about.
______________________________________________________________________This statement is completely untrue.I did respond - the problem was that you did not like my answers, so like now you just lie and claim I did not respond.I supported my statement which was an analysis of why you said what you said. This infuriated you and the only thing you could do was violate forum guidelines and repeat your points.

Paulk quote:
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If you are prepared to back up your assertions then there is no room for blackmail. By invoking "blackmail" I can only conclude that you know that what you said was not true and you are deeply ashamed of it - yet you lack the integrity to issue an honest retraction.
______________________________________________________________________This statement perfectly supports my accusation of blackmail.If I don't participate then I am deeply ashamed/without integrity.
Paulk has declared the "truth" and the only way to prove myself in possession of honesty and integrity is to take this bait and debate.If I do participate then the original and obvious sucker punch by Crashfrog was successful.Crashfrog and Dan Carroll want to ignore the exact context of the previous exchange that ignited this dispute. To proceed in this arena/title topic is to sacrifice the high ground that ended that previous exchange. The truth hurts and they were bested fair and square.This is the m.o. of Crashfrog and his amen section, the placement of my name in this topic title was/is hostile and extortion against my reputation. Paulk continues the assault on my intelligence by whitewashing blackmail to be an innocent favor of informing me that my integrity is on the line so you better debate.The issue here is Crashfrog's bruised ego and the total lack of opportunity to save face.Frog also wants to claim that when Mike the Wiz placed his name in title that this is the exact same thing he did here.No it is not. By calling you "Crash" and the way it was phrased clearly carried a friendly good natured tone - just the opposite here.Tell you what, I honestly believe that EvC member Sylas is a remarkably fair and objective person. I call on him to mediate this dispute and make a ruling. Whatever he decides I will abide by without hesitation - even if he makes a three word decision "you lose Willowtree".I would do the same with Admin/Percy but I do not want to put him on the spot. Both of these persons I would choose to make a ruling.Agree and take the offer Crashfrog or what Paulk says in the post I am responding to applies to you.[edit was minor two letter word addition][This message has been edited by WILLOWTREE, 04-24-2004]

This entire reply is in violation of Forum guidelines - repeating what was said in previous post.This reply also completely ignores my response, because, just like in the original dispute, this "debater" doesn't like my answers/arguments.Round and round - at least I can admit it.Paulk is attempting an invulnerable tactic of blackmail: Debate or remain defeated.You are defining defeat as refusing to participate under the duress of blackmail to ones reputation, either way I lose, so the choice now becomes which defeat is the lessor/most honorable for me.Originally, I made a simple request of Crashfrog, I said "please...."I am insisting on a little respect this time, with 500 or so posts under my belt, and the topic being right up my known alleys, no honest observer could possibly buy into your blackmail bait that I am refusing to debate because of a pair of deuces in my hand.[This message has been edited by WILLOWTREE, 04-24-2004]

I take no pleasure in seeing you very angry.I commend you for showing your anger and I would have to say that your anger in this context does evidence truthfulness to a certain degree.But I am not without valid points - I am not naieve.I appeal to Sylas or his equivalent.

Once again I did say "please" originally.

What person who knows anything about the nature of government could possibly imply that the State protects rights ?The State, by nature, exists to strip rights under various well intentioned reasons. The only barrier to prevent the loss of rights is the Constitution and its enforcing entity the Judicial Branch.The topic title implies that the State somehow exempts religious rights from being chipped away at. The title also implies that religious rights are not being eroded. It is not a matter of opinion: All rights are the target of erosion by the State.The Constitution is a CONTRACT and it was created to place the State on a very short leash, a leash that the Judicial Branch keeps making longer, and the longer the leash - the more rights are eroded.Crashfrog quote:
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What WT won't clarify to me and Dan Carroll is exactly what rights he feels are threatened, specifically by gay rights groups, which he seems to associate with the phenomenon.
______________________________________________________________________What I said that evoked this comment was that gays will not fight for religious rights and in so doing, inadvertedly, their rights are affected. I could of inserted the media in place of gays and the generic truth remains.Personally, I do not blame gays for not being so enthusiastic in defending religious rights. The fundementalists have relentlessly persecuted gays without question.Religious rights are being ajudicated out of the Constituition by the religion of atheism and its congregants in the public and private sectors. This country was founded by deists/theists, of whom all owned Bibles with the New Testament in it, and these Founding Fathers never intended their efforts to be interpreted as anti-christian.
Government was never intended to be hostile to the Divine/God, yet the collective efforts of God senseless persons have MADE the contract say what they want it to say and thus have changed the terms of the contract under the guise of rightly interpreting the Constitution.Separation of Church and State is nowhere to be found in the Contract, it is an invention of atheists who robbed a theist (Thomas Jefferson) of his words and twisted their meaning to suit their objectives.This country is experiencing total betrayal by the Judicial Branch.
God-hating judges are interpreting the Constitution to say a Bible, or a Cross on public lands, or a generic prayer to be an EDORSEMENT of religion and thus a violation of Church and State.Pure bullshit. There is no endorsement to Christianity, that is the subjective personal animosities of atheism being embraced by hijacking the Constitution and making it say that these expressions are unconstitutional.Atheism is a religion, it is against theism. It seeks to force its philosophy and morals onto a christian nation via this ridiculous changing of the contract. I could reference thousands of examples of Founding Fathers and government papers that are strewn with references to the Divine which proves that this current pro-atheist judicial favoring is outlawness.As in scientism, and in the media, and in Higher Education, Law is populated with God/christianity hatred, which is the state of those who have had their God sense removed for premeditated rejection of God.As a theist/christian it boils my blood to see the light that produced this country (theist light) be used to quench light under the guise of what the Constitution "really" says thanks to "enlightened atheists".I take comfort though, knowing, that this anti-God success is actually, and inadvertedly caused by God when He removes God sense and delivers those who oppose Him into the hands of demons who hate the freedom that the Constitution makes possible.The United States is the only country in the history of the world to have a system where the Rulers and the ruled must bow to the contents of a piece of paper instead of a capricious king/monarchy. Demons hate this fact, and as we move towards Armageddon and Anti-christ the Constitution must go.The war on terror has Congress crafting laws to get Islamic religious organizations who funnell money to terrorists. These laws will eventually be used to go after the Church. Idiot John Ashcroft, a theist, is too stupid to envision the damage he is doing in his zeal to nail terrorists.My introduction is over.

Dan Carroll quote:______________________________________________________________________
I think the Taliban are the new Nazis
______________________________________________________________________Prior to World War 2 New Orthodox theologians and their philosophical friends in the secular world believed that sin was ignorance and education was the cure.Post World War 2 these theologians abandoned this belief wholesale. They witnessed the most educated nation on Earth commit the unspeakable Holocaust - 6 million Jews slaughtered.Nazi Germany was propelled and equipped by highly educated men, yet this education/knowledge did not cure sin, it is a fact that the intelligence of these men was used to perfect sin via the atrocities committed against the Jewish race.New Orthodoxy returned to the spring/source/Bible for answers. They re-discovered that which was already there. Man has a "bent" in his nature, a proclivity to want to do evil/sin. They were re-awakened
to the Biblical truth of original sin.The Doctrine of Original Sin says: Because of Adam/Eve sin, we are born separated from God with a sinning nature. We are not sinners because we commit sins, rather, we commit sin because we are sinners.Yet, most importantly, the truth of what God said about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good ad Evil is apparent: There is NO POWER in the knowledge of good and evil to CHOOSE the good over the evil APART from God.I urge you to understand the above statement.What it says is that you can know right and wrong/good and evil BUT man will still choose the evil and not the good because he is separated from God.The most educated nation on Earth, Nazi Germany demonstrates this truth/fact.Knowledge and education is not the cure for sin.Conclusion/Point of Post:Every American and European university professor who provides the justification and rationale and excuses for the murdercide of defenseless Israeli civilians are adopting the mantle of the Nazi's, using their ultra educational status/credentials as a tool to sin/murder Jews. They are the New Neo-Nazi's.When is the morality of the highly educated going to reach the Jews and condemn their murders by Palestinian suicide cowards ?

Excerpt from "Why Religion Matters" by Professor Huston Smith (2001)"Employment Division v. Smith sent shockwaves through the churches of the land, for while the Native American Church was its direct target, its ramifications did not impact that Church alone. Watchdogs for the major churches had been following the Smith case closely, seeing consequences in it for religious freedom in general: "If it's them today, tomorrow it could be us." So it was that, the day after the Supreme Court's decision, the largest coalition of religious bodies ever to unite in a common cause - some sevnty five in all - entered a brief asking the Court to reconsider its decision, which it refused to do.The churches had reason to be concerned, for no one had expected the provisions of Smith to be so far reaching. Through hundreds of federal and state cases relating to American religious freedom in the last two hundred years, the phrase "compelling state interest" had emerged as the test for state intervention. Unless the state could prove that there was a compelling need to intervene, it was not entitled to do so. Smith lowered that threshold to a "rational basis".To support this retreat from the established threshold, Justice Scalia (who wrote the decision) argued that America's religious diversity had proliferated to the point where religious freedom was a "luxury" that a pluralistic society could no longer "afford." In withdrawing the "compelling interest" standard, the court also removed from First Amendment protection the entire body of criminal law. This, in effect, rewrote the First Amendment to read, "Congress shall make no laws except criminal laws that prohibit the free exercise of religion." (Put more simply, Smith mandated Congress to disregard the First Amendment if the law being considered is classed as a criminal law.) Finally, the court suggested that the First Amendment does not protect the free exercise of religion unless some other First Amendment right, such as speech or association, is involved. This, of course, makes religious freedom irrelevant, for those other rights are independently protected. Milner Ball, professor of constitutional law at the university of Georgia, said at the time that "after Smith, there is a real and troublesome question about whether the free exercise clause has any real practical meaning in the law at all. When you need the First Amendment, it won't be there. Or at least, that is the way the Smith case has left the law."I have already referred to the consternation that the Smith decision awakened in the religious community, and it sprang into action immediately. With the strong support of President Clinton, the coalition of churches succeeded in getting Congress to pass the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which restored the "compelling interest" phrase as the standard that government agencies needed to meet before they could interfere in religious affairs. The churches breathed easier, but only for three years, for in 1997 the Supreme Court struck down that act on grounds that Congress had overstepped its constitutional authority in passing it." END EXCERPT.
______________________________________________________________________Forget about party affiliation, that is a smoke screen you cannot trust. The Supreme Court, and its pseudo-republican justices reflect the nature of government perfectly. Constitutional rights for mainstream powerful churches is in a position to be eliminated. The State views ANYONE with power to be a threat, they butcher the Contract/Constitution by circumvention, if not straight out eviscerating its strength via lowering established threshholds for State intervention.The hypocrisy of the Supreme Court is to give the freak show called the Amish, constitutional protection under the First Amendment from having to send their kids to secular schools. They point to this and say, "See, the First Amendment in action." The Amish pose no perceived threat, but they will not ever rule in favor of intelligent mainstream churches. Yet the Church-hating news media will not cry foul with their powerful resources because their rights are not being threatened. Everyones rights are eligible and will be stripped, just give the government time. The war on terror will do just that.[This message has been edited by WILLOWTREE, 04-26-2004]

Yes.Employment Division v. Smith 494 U.S. 872 (1990)Here we have a non threatening religious practice USED by the State to vacate the high standard of government intrusion (compelling state interest) in favor of a lower standard for no other reason than to provide the State the means to capriciously control ALL churches.Any entity that has power is a target for rights erosion. The Smith decision will become a springboard/has become an entry point to remove the strength of the First Amendement as it pertains to churches.The reality is this: First Amendment is there in effigy, a marquee that has been gutted.It is better that peyote eating wackos be able to ingest drug at religious services, than for the government to use this as precedent/pretext to declaw the First Amendment.The price of freedom is association with nuts/those who will abuse freedom, but who is going to protect us from outlaws like Scalia, Rehnquist, and Ginsburg ?

Cynic1 quote:
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Are you saying that the first amendment should protect churches from criminal law? It should be okay to kill gays and witches, or perform human sacrifice, or whatever people think is mandated by their religion?
______________________________________________________________________Absolutely not.If a crime has been committted and probable cause established, then the police have the right to go after the suspects.Murder ? Of course not !Eating peyote, though, is a long established indigenous religious practice. This is the beast of government using the drop of a hat to obtain the means to be able to control churches in the future without worrying about the First Amendment.

Coragyps quote:
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You're damn right, but I wouldn't characterize the Native American Church folks I knew in Oklahoma as "wackos." Good, solid members of society, and pretty quiet people. And their peyote eating "neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg", to aggrandize some Jefferson.
______________________________________________________________________I agree and I stand corrected and retract "wackos".Whatever you meant by Jefferson is excluded in my retraction.

Cynic1 quote:
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I see where you are coming from now. Would I be correct in assuming that "victimless" crimes should be allowed to religions? I would agree with this, except that I don't think that victimless crimes should be prohibited to anyone.
______________________________________________________________________It really depends on the situation, but, generally, I am against so called "victimless crimes" being labeled as such because there are victims. The issue is how to handle the situation.Drug abusers hurt their loved ones and society at large. Prostitution is considered "victimless" but intelligent people know the potential spreading of disease will create a victim pool. These things are certainly debateable.Churches that are governed by the Bible are required to obey the laws of society unless they clearly violate Biblical principles. The Pastor at our church says "do what I tell you to do unless it is clearly immoral or illegal".Once again, the price of freedom is the association with nuts/those who will abuse the privileges of the Bill of Rights. But, if the nuts are legislated to be outlaws then this gives precedent to make the good suffer because of the bad. It is better that that a hundred guilty go free than one innocent go to prison. This was decided by our Founding Fathers because of their experience in Rex Lex / Lex Rex.
But now idiot outlaws like the current Supreme Court think they are smarter than Jefferson. If they would just enforce the Contract and refrain from changing the terms it would eventually be alright.

Ok Dan.