Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation

    This will be one of those rare times that i make a comment on politics and ' religion '  as far as seperation of church and state is concerned.

    The Supreme Court will soon hear a case on seperation of church and state in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, a case involving the standing (or legal right) of taxpayers to bring a lawsuit challenging federal government expenditures in violation of the Establishment Clause.

From People For The American Way:

The case is a critical one for church-state separation, as the religious right is using it as a vehicle to urge the Court to eliminate taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases, which would significantly undermine the ability of Americans to obtain access to the courts to vindicate their constitutional right to religious liberty.
In fact, Pat Robertson's ACLJ has taken direct aim at taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases, announcing that it has filed its own "friend-of-the-court brief asking the Supreme Court to put an end to federal taxpayer lawsuits by church-state separationists." According to the ACLJ, "separationists enjoy special privileges by being able to file lawsuits simply because they are 'taxpayers' without having to show they were actually injured in some way by a law or government activity." This of course is not true, as a fundamental purpose of the Establishment Clause is to protect Americans from the injury of being coerced or required, financially or otherwise, to support religious beliefs with which they may not agree.
Perhaps even more radical is the position of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who violated the Constitution by placing a huge monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state Judicial Building and was kicked off the bench when he refused to comply with a federal court order to remove it. Moore and the Foundation for Moral Law have filed a brief in Hein taking the extreme—and extremely erroneous—position that the Establishment Clause does not even "protect an individual right and cannot be the basis for an individual lawsuit."

    I have no problem with a government official hanging the ten commandments in their office or on the government building itself. I think that the ' banners ' of Christianity should be displayed in government buildings and all of our schools and the thoughts behind then taught to the students every day.

   I do not need Pat Roberts or any of the rest of those clowns telling me when I can or cannot sue for my ' religious ' rights and beliefs. This group of idiots would have us all bowing down to just one view, theirs.

    I find that the so-called fundamentalist Christians are far worse than any devil could ever hope to be and should basically be sent into their little corner and told to shut up!

 

Technorati tags: Hein, Freedom, Religion, Church, State

 

Edwards Fires Two bloggers At Urging Of Bill Donohue

    Well it looks as if John Edwards has fired the two bloggers that a Catholic group did not like because of their postings about some of the group's views and meddling.

   According to Salon:

The bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, formerly of Pandagon, and Melissa McEwan, of Shakespeare's Sister, had come under fire from right-wing bloggers for statements they had previously made on their respective blogs. A statement by the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, which called Marcotte and McEwan "anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots," and an accompanying article on the controversy in the New York Times this morning, put extra pressure on the campaign.

Speculation from sources that the two bloggers might be rehired was bolstered by Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would "caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired. We will have something to say later."

   I do not see Edwards as ever being the President of the United States because he cannot get his priorities right!

    Bill Donohue isn't a stranger to making lousy public comments himself.

Joan Osborne

In 1996, Donohue took issue with singer Joan Osborne over her song "One of Us", which explores the question of what it would be like if God were a normal person. Donohue questioned the point of the song when viewed in light of her own activism. "It is no wonder that Joan Osborne instructs her fans to donate their time and money to Planned Parenthood. It is of a piece with her politics and her prejudices. Her songs and videos offer a curious mix of both, the effect of which is to dance awfully close to the line of Catholic baiting. If even her admirers see something of the sacrilegious in her work, it is hard to maintain that Osborne doesn't have an agenda. It is our hope that she doesn't let her sentiments regarding Catholicism get in the way of whatever artistic abilities she has."

Marilyn Manson

In 2000, Donohue claimed that heavy metal singer Marilyn Manson hated Christianity, including Catholicism. Donohue said, "It is Christianity that [Manson] hates, and it is Catholicism that he hates most of all. This guy is at war with Christ."

Marilyn Manson then responded to Donohue's claim by saying, "I can't possibly be at war with Christ, because your religion killed him and what he stood for. But if you want to be at war with me, bring it on."

On Scarborough Country on February 9, 2006, while commenting on why mainstream American actors like Billy Zane and Gary Busey would star in an anti-American and anti-Semitic film like Valley of the Wolves Iraq, he went further, proclaiming, "Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn't care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face."    All from Wikipedia

   So these bloggers are toast over something that they wrote that offended Mr. Donohue. So much for free speech and having an opinion, right?

  Bill Donohue:The most common argument that Donohue receives when he is battling the art community is that all of these artists are protected by freedom of speech. The way to respond to that, said Donohue, is to remind them that freedom of speech applies to Catholics too. "Catholics must fight for their right just like Martin Luther King fought for the rights of the blacks. Other groups complain about images portrayed in art and nobody calls them fascist. Nobody criticized Hillary Clinton for condemning the fact that Julia Roberts was smoking in a recent movie."

   I'm not even going to touch that!

    To read more on Bill Donohue and his intimidation tactics and other crap, go here and here.

 

Technorati tags: John Edwards, Bloggers, Bill Donohue