by Eric Martin
Yet another example of stark anti-Muslim bigotry from high ranking Republican Party officials. This one from Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, a leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, in response to question surrounding the growing opposition to the addition of a Muslim community center to a mosque already built in that state (via):
…Ramsey proclaimed his support for the Constitution and the whole "Congress shall make no law" thing when it comes to religion. But he also said that Islam, arguably, is less a faith than it is a "cult."
"Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it," Ramsey said. "Now certainly we do protect our religions, but at the same time this is something we are going to have to face."
Again: aside from the sheer ugliness of the bigotry on display here, this cheap demagoguery is actually counterproductive in terms of weakening al-Qaeda and other extremists groups that pervert Islam. Not to mention that such a blithe disregard to a fundamental Constitutional protection is alarming in its own right.
Perhaps we should dispense with the idea that high ranking Republican Party officials care about such things?
See id.
“al Qaeda recruiter Ron Ramsay” has a certain vicious ring to it that I’d like to see in Democratic attack ads this Fall.
That and “John Wilkes Booth Groupie Zach Wamp”.
Crazy, dangerous people.
Send in the drones.
Apparently 22 communities have been established in the United States that operate under sharia law.
Who knew?
Also, while the Constitution proclaims “freedom of speech”, if one is advocating for some Communist idea such as Medicare For Everyone, can such poisonous rhetoric injected into the veins of the body politic truly be called “speech”? Can a search that uncovers child pornography or drugs truly be called “unreasonable” under any circumstances?
I wonder if he’s bright enough to realize that he’s shredding the Constitution. Or, if he does, whether he cares.
Carleton, you lack a proper appreciation of what “reverence for the Constitution” means for Ramsey et al.
It means that you get to cite the Constitution when doing so will support allowing you to do what you want to do anyway. But if it might restrain you from doing what you want, you either reinterpret the words to mean the opposite of what they say, quote the words you like (and ignore the rest of the sentence, even if the word “not” is part of it), or just claim that anyone citing the Constitution against you is evil-intentioned and so should be ignored.
Clear now?
I am really jammed, but a couple of thoughts seem worth mentioning.
First, Islam as practiced in many countries (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, to name a few) isn’t just one religion among many, it is the state religion that informs if not dictates much of the jurisprudence, culture and way of life. Further, Islam does patently treat believers differently from non-believers.
Referring to anyone’s religion as a cult is bad manners (not that bad manners keeps any number of progressives from saying substantively about Christianity what Ramsey said about Islam). That said, raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game. Freedom to believe is virtually unlimited, not so freedom to act on those beliefs. Honor killings, the role of women, polygamy, etc. are all within Islam, or subsets thereof.
As for blithely disregarding constitutional protections, this site, among many on the left, was outraged that corporations have free speech rights and barely batted an eye when HCR mandated that every citizen buy a prescribed insurance policy or pay a fine.
Perhaps one person blithe disregard is another’s careful discernment.
Finally, it’s a bit overwrought to say that what some jack ass from Tennessee says is going to play into Al Qaeda’s hands. I mean, really.
McTex,
I dont know what “Islam as practiced in other countries” has to do with anything. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with a country known as Israel, which has Judaism as it’s state religion. Shall we also regard Judaism as a cult unworthy of 1st Amendment protection? If some country should adopt Christianity as a state religion and enforce it on its populace, what in tarnation would that have to do with how we ought to enforce our Constitution?
“That said, raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game. Freedom to believe is virtually unlimited, not so freedom to act on those beliefs.”
Surely this is true of all religions, so I dont know why you would single out Islam for notice on this point.
As for blithely disregarding constitutional protections, this site, among many on the left, was outraged that corporations have free speech rights and barely batted an eye when HCR mandated that every citizen buy a prescribed insurance policy or pay a fine.
Both arguments were IMO effectively rebutted at the time. Now you may not find those rebuttals effective, but it is nonsensical to advance obviously contested positions such as the free speech rights of corporate “citizens” (which were obviously not envisioned by the authors of the First Amendment) as equivalent to the abridgment of freedom of religion based on a majoritarian view that minority religions are “cults”- a viewpoint profoundly at odds with both the Founders’ clear statements on the subject, modern jurisprudence and precedent, and common &%*#*$ sense.
You may hold views on the Constitutionality of various matters that I disagree with. But I would not accuse you of hypocrisy for holding your own good faith beliefs on the matter, and your accusations that others here do so accomplish nothing but poison the atmosphere.
Belching at the tables is bad manners.
Calling a religion a cult is downright insulting. Especially when it’s followers number 1.5 billion.
As for historical sins of Christianity, I’ll just note that it tolerated slavery for many years. And offshoots have endorsed polygamy.
Mote, meet beam.
I dont know what “Islam as practiced in other countries” has to do with anything.
Well, as Islam is practiced in other countries might be an indicator of how Islam might try to be practiced here, for example, a Muslim run business might try to impose Muslim views on women on its women employees. If this happened, would the free exercise clause trump Title VII? I think not.
Sorry for poisoning the atmosphere. I was just trying to raise some seeming inconsistencies.
“Both arguments were IMO effectively rebutted at the time.”
I few them as ineffectively hand-waved at personally. And the recent death penalty cases and the liberal interpretation of the 2nd amendment are worse.
But that isn’t any reason to embrace patently unconstitutional craziness from Republicans.
Islam is a religion. Religions have some particular level of Constitutional protection. Get over it.
Well, as Islam is practiced in other countries might be an indicator of how Islam might try to be practiced here, for example, a Muslim run business might try to impose Muslim views on women on its women employees. If this happened, would the free exercise clause trump Title VII? I think not.
Im not sure why you think anyone would believe the opposite. As I said, the idea that the Free Exercise clause protects enforcing one’s religion on others is not supportable, regardless of the religion in question.
But that is a general statement. It is certainly not unimaginable that a Christian employer would attempt to enforce his views on his female employees, or that individuals might object to eg contraception use by other individuals on Christian grounds. And yet, we still permit Christianity the freedom to operate as a religion.
You mentioned polygamy as a reason for considering that Islam might not deserve protection under the First Amendment. Surely you’re aware that Mormons historically practiced polygamy and some sects still do so- ergo, by your logic, since some self-proclaimed Christians have followed this illegal doctrine, Christianity may be a cult and not deserving of full First Amendment protection?
First, Islam as practiced in many countries . . . isn’t just one religion among many, it is the state religion that informs if not dictates much of the jurisprudence, culture and way of life.
Irrelevant to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Further, Islam does patently treat believers differently from non-believers.
As do Judaism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and a dozen others that I’m too lazy to think of at the moment. Thus, irrelevant.
Referring to anyone’s religion as a cult is bad manners (not that bad manners keeps any number of progressives from saying substantively about Christianity what Ramsey said about Islam).
Yawn. Irrelevant tu quoque.
That said, raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game. Freedom to believe is virtually unlimited, not so freedom to act on those beliefs.
Native Americans and peyote, Christian Scientists and withholding medical treatment from children, etc., etc., etc. If you’re going in for a dime, here, you’d better be willing to go in for a dollar.
Honor killings, the role of women, polygamy, etc. are all within Islam, or subsets thereof.
And, of course, “the role of women” and “polygamy” aren’t issues in any major American religions at all. No, sir.
As for blithely disregarding constitutional protections,
Another irrelevant tu quoque.
for example, a Muslim run business might try to impose Muslim views on women on its women employees. If this happened, would the free exercise clause trump Title VII? I think not.
Is the Salvation Army or the Catholic Church required to hire homosexuals?
I few them as ineffectively hand-waved at personally.
I dont think we need to rehash the arguments themselves. I would just observe that isolating your position as not merely the best choice among good-faith arguments but as the single possible good-faith interpretation may be comforting, but it is usually inaccurate and promotes isolated thinking.
not that bad manners keeps any number of progressives from saying substantively about Christianity what Ramsey said about Islam
Progressives have said that Christianity doesn’t deserve the protection of the First Amendment? I doubt that very much. Unless “any number” is literal, and the number is “five” or “zero” or somesuch.
Ramsey’s remarks were made in response to a question about the presence of a mosque and a community center for Muslims. So, presumably, he was responding to that: to the issue of public buildings for the practice of Islam. And he appears to be agin it. And thinks that that the Constitution does not provide protection for Muslims who wish to build a mosque or community center.
Which makes him a religious bigot. He’s not just some jackass: he’s and increasingly common kind of Republican politician jackass. He has company: Sarah Palin, for one. And he seems to think his remarks will play well with his base.
McK raised another question altogether: the question of what to do if a religious practice is illegal. Homemade clitorectomies, for example, or the blood sacrifice of goats.That’s a stickier issue and one not raised exclusively by Islam.
It is certainly not unimaginable that a Christian employer would attempt to enforce his views on his female employees, or that individuals might object to eg contraception use by other individuals on Christian grounds.
Indeed. It goes well beyond “not unimaginable,” and well beyond “objecting.” From here:
So in some states pharmacists can in effect force their religious views on customers by refusing to provide them with contraceptives. And personally, I wouldn’t say “only” five states, I would say “fully” five states.
More here.
Similarly in Britain.
IANAL, and I’m sure there’s some complex answer to this question, but it beats me why the employers of pharmacists can’t just say when hiring: “Are you willing to do the job you’re applying for? Because if you’re not, you can go look for work somewhere else. Maybe even in a new profession.”
If a teetotalling Baptist applies for a job in a liquor store and then refuses to sell liquor to other people because drinking liquor is against her religion, can the liquor store fire her for refusing to do her g*d d*mned job?
I was mistaken. He wasn’t responding specifically to a question about the mosque. He was responding to a loaded question from the audience about the US being invaded by Muslims. So he responded more generally by belittling Islam as a cult.
First link corrected.
“Again: aside from the sheer ugliness of the bigotry on display here, this cheap demagoguery is actually counterproductive in terms of weakening al-Qaeda and other extremists groups that pervert Islam.”
Maybe this got the Lt.Gov a wee bit riled up:
Mr. Mosaad Rawash, a suspended board member, allegedly made inflammatory remarks on his MySpace page supporting Hamas and asking members to pledge money to “support violent jihad and martyrdom of Palestinians fighting the Israelis.”
Only someone with zero sense of proportionality could make such a patently misinformed assertion. Or haven’t you heard about the way Baha’is are treated in Islamic countries, Iran for instance.
More HERE
And HERE
This isn’t political persecution, or economic persecution, or racial persecution — it’s religious persecution pure and simple.
Lou Ann Zelenick?
Let’s put her in a two-year competition with Mosaad Rawash and count the dead American bodies at the end.
I say Zelenick, the wanna-be Republican murderer candidate piles dead American bodies higher than the trash-talking Rawash — and that’s if we count only her pledge to deny Americans with pre-existing conditions access to health insurance by repealing every page of Obamacare.
I expect the rest of her white-trash platform to add to the fatalities, but the fact that she plans to kill her victims one at a time instead of by the planeload seems quaintly small-town and free markety.
The Methane detector on her stinking, fascist gob was disabled a long time ago.
The two of them can kiss my ass.
I live out West. I once saw a rodeo clown’s nuts hoisted on the petard of a Brahma bull at a local rodeo.
The funny thing is he had zapped the bull a few seconds earlier with an electric prod to get him started.
I think he quit one of those jobs.
Well, as Islam is practiced in other countries might be an indicator of how Islam might try to be practiced here
Then again, it might not.
Most likely, Islam will be practiced all kinds of different ways in this country. Like every other religion practiced in the USA.
Why do I feel confident in making this prediction? Because Islam *is* practiced all kinds of different ways in this country, right now.
Some of those ways are, no doubt, quite strict.
Ditto Christianity, Judaism, and no doubt Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and whatever else you can think of.
There are, I’m sure, blinkered dogmatic fundmentalist Unitarians running around somewhere.
“You will be tolerant and kindly, or there will be hell to pay!!”
Who cares?
It’s idiotic to speculate in public if Islam is a religion, or a nationality, or a cult. It’s idiotic to speculate about those things in private, too, but when you do it in public your idiocy is on display for all to see.
It’s idiotic because it demonstrates a profound ignorance of any kinds of people other than the ones you’re familiar with and comfortable with.
It’s nice in a kindergarten-y way to not have to encounter or deal with anybody who aren’t familiar or comfortable with, but it’s a luxury that increasingly will only be available at the price of making your world very, very small.
JJ, if I say you are ObWi’s organ grinder monkey, will that become your new nick?
Honor killings, the role of women, polygamy, etc. are all within Islam
Anecdota:
My next door neighbor’s son is a very conservative orthodox Jew. His wife has a lovely singing voice, but she’s not allowed to sing in front of men. His young daughters are not allowed to wear shorts or bathing suits, and wear tights or pants under their dresses.
Lovely people, intelligent, funny, worldly, and accomplished. Just saying.
I know Christians who believe that whatever the husband says, the wife must obey. Period. Some non-trivial subset of those folks find it acceptable for the husband to employ force if needed to convince their wives of their wisdom.
Quite recently we were treated to the spectacle of a splinter Mormon group whose elders married their teenage female relatives off to each other like trading cards.
Muslims hold no monopoly on ill treatment of women.
Terrorism? If you were to arrest every person in this country who contributed money to the IRA *specifically to purchase weapons and other ordinance* you would have to arrest a significant proportion of the NYPD, and close down pretty much every Irish bar in the city of New York.
That’s a cute story until you consider that those dollars put some English family’s son, daughter, husband, or wife six feet under. For real.
We could also talk about Cubans in Miami, or any number of other nationalities in this country who send money back home to support political violence.
Those dollars kill people.
Hate is an equal opportunity employer. Nothing special about Muslims as far as that goes.
c.w. I dont know what “Islam as practiced in other countries” has to do with anything. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with a country known as Israel, which has Judaism as it’s state religion.
There’s no perhaps, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
There is no ‘state religion’ in Israel.
Israel recognizes five religions — Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze, and Baha’i
Perhaps you are confusing “state religion” with “allows no other religion”. Many Muslim countries such as Egypt have both a state religion and recognition of other religions. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a single country that refuses to recognize any religion but the official state-sanctioned one.
and the only advantage for Jews under law is the controversial Law of Return, which gives preferential treatment to Jews who want to immigrate to Israel.
from wikipedia:
Thanks for playing, you’ve been great, really.
If you can produce evidence Judaism is the state religion in Israel, I’ll eat the paper the law is printed on.
From the Israeli Declaration of Independence: This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State. Thus members and representatives of the Jews of Palestine and of the Zionist movement upon the end of the British Mandate, by virtue of “natural and historic right” and based on the United Nations resolution… Hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel to be known as the State of Israel
Is there enough wiggle room for you to say that Israel being a “Jewish state” and ‘having Judaism at the state religion’ aren’t the same? Only if you toss your dignity aside.
Anyway, I doubt they’ll let you eat their founding document.
Only someone with zero sense of proportionality could make such a patently misinformed assertion.
The question was whether various religions discriminate, not to have a beauty contest to see which state treats it’s religious minorities the worst. You see, the original assertion was that Islam didn’t deserve First Amendment protection because its followers treat outsiders differently than they do co-religionists. Your “point”, such as it is, is merely inflammatory without even a meager attempt to speak to the matter being discussed by the adults.
“You will be tolerant and kindly, or there will be hell to pay!!”
I like the motto of the militant agnostics:
“We don’t know, and YOU don’t either!”
I do NOT like this, from McTx:
Referring to anyone’s religion as a cult is bad manners (not that bad manners keeps any number of progressives from saying substantively about Christianity what Ramsey said about Islam).
So McTx is welcome to dislike this, from me: it’s not “progressives” who think Christianity is exactly as much a “cult” as every other religion. It’s atheists. Given that “any number” of conservatives are atheists, and “any number” of progressives are Christians, McTx ought to get his insinuations straight.
–TP
TP: [atheists] think Christianity is exactly as much a “cult” as every other religion.
Hey now. I’m an atheist and I don’t think Christianity as a whole is a cult, in the modern sense. I think certain Christian churches might act in cult-like ways sometimes, but I wouldn’t make that general characterization.
Actually even modern cults mostly aren’t cults in the sense of exhibiting the extreme manifestations of control like the most notorious cults. Mostly they’re pretty harmless and surely similar to every currently-major religion in its earliest days.
“is there enough wiggle room for you to say that Israel being a “Jewish state” and ‘having Judaism at the state religion’ aren’t the same? Only if you toss your dignity aside.”
You’re the wiggling worm, Carleton, trying to wiggle off the hook of your own blatantly ignorant misstatement. It’s bad enough you won’t admit you misspoke, but then you compound your misstatement with a misdirected and adumbrated quote from the sraeli Declaration of Independence.
Here’s the part you omitted:
What part of that says Judaism is the State Religion?
I repeat, where does it say JUDAISM IS THE STATE RELIGION?!
Your problem is you’re more interested in pontificating than making sense. That’s why you spin out all those prolix tangled sentences, a lot of cotton candy signifying nothing.
Here’s an example of Constitutional wording declaring a Nation’s religious intention:
From The Iranian Constitution – General Principles – Article 12
The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Ja’fari school [in usual al-Din and fiqh], and this principle will remain eternally immutable.
Got it? No? Here’s more–
Article 1- The form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic, endorsed by the people of Iran on the basis of their longstanding belief in the sovereignty of truth and Qur’anic justice…
Article 2 – The Islamic Republic is a system based on belief in:
1.the One God (as stated in the phrase “There is no god except Allah”), His exclusive sovereignty and the right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands;
2.Divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws;
Article 4 – All civil, penal financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria. This principle applies absolutely and generally to all articles of the Constitution as well as to all other laws and regulations, and the fuqaha’ of the Guardian Council are judges in this matter.
Got it now? Probably not–
Jacob,
I will defer to your definition of “cult”, since English is your native language, and not mine. At any rate, I do acknowledge that certain words (cult, regime, discrimination, etc.) have taken on pejorative connotations in modern usage.
But even so, I’m not sure that when a modern historian of antiquity refers to “the cult Pallas Athena”, or a modern churchman refers to “the cult of Our Lady of Fatima”, the usage carries all the pejorative freight that referring to Scientology as a “cult” usually does.
Being neither a historian nor a churchman, I admit that I was being a bit pejorative when I said “Christianity is exactly as much a ‘cult’ as every other religion”, but I should have emphasized the “exactly as much” part. Christianity as a whole (whatever that is; it’s for Christians, not atheists, to decide) and Islam as a whole (same caveat) are either both “cults” or both NOT.
Every atheist can probably hold that view unreservedly. I’m fairly sure that not every Christian or every Muslim can.
–TP
“I would just observe that isolating your position as not merely the best choice among good-faith arguments but as the single possible good-faith interpretation may be comforting, but it is usually inaccurate and promotes isolated thinking.”
Yes Carleton, sometimes you’ve been quite good at that.
Sometimes there really is a right position. For example, Islam is a religion that is protected by the 1st amendment. That is pretty much the only possible good-faith interpretation. People who say otherwise either don’t understand the Constitution, or are twisting the issue into what they wish the Constitution said. What they most certainly are not doing, is engaging in good faith Constitutional interpretation.
Similarly, there is very little to no evidence that there has been a large nationwide moral shift against the death penalty for particularly heinous 17-year old murderers, and negative evidence for a nationwide moral shift against life without the possibility of parole for the same. You can in good faith believe that there ought to be such a shift. You can’t in good faith believe that such a shift actually happened. When you base your ‘Constitutional’ ruling on such a shift you either don’t understand the Constitution, or are twisting the issue into what they wish the Constitution said. What you most certainly are not doing, is engaging in good faith Constitutional interpretation. Even if you are 5 Supreme Court justices.
Carleton Wu: Shall we also regard Judaism as a cult unworthy of 1st Amendment protection? If some country should adopt Christianity as a state religion and enforce it on its populace, what in tarnation would that have to do with how we ought to enforce our Constitution?
Way back when the Framers were writing the Constitution, the United Kingdom had Christianity as a state religion (as indeed we still do…) and was then enforcing one specific form of Christianity on its populace, with imprisonment and fines for dissenters.
You think maybe this might actually have inspired the Constitution, McKinney? Or does it just make you decide that Christianity is a cult?
Well, as Islam is practiced in other countries might be an indicator of how Islam might try to be practiced here, for example, a Muslim run business might try to impose Muslim views on women on its women employees. If this happened, would the free exercise clause trump Title VII? I think not.
Good point. Christian cultists try to practice Christianity in the US by enforcing Christian views on women on women customers and employees. When this happens, such Christians frequently claim that it’s their right to freely practice their religion by denying contraception and/or abortion to women.
I don’t support this. But many conservatives do support the enforcing of Christian views about abortion and contraception on women who do not share them.
We could also move on to the enforcing of Christian views against the rights of same-sex couples to marry, which conservative Christians likewise got up and claimed it was their right to freely exercise their religion by denying rights to others.
So if you’re really concerned about the US government supporting the denying of rights to others in the name of their religion, you have targets much closer to home and much more powerful in enforcing their religious views.
Of course it’s much easier to bully Muslims, a minority group in the US, than to take on right-wing Christians, a group powerful enough to enforce their views in multiple states of the US.
adumbrated
Good word, that.
From The Iranian Constitution – General Principles – Article 12
WTF does this have to do with the comments of the governor of TN?
McK correctly points out that Islam is the state religion in some other countries.
We don’t live in those countries.
In some Islamic countries, folks who aren’t Muslims don’t share all of the same civil rights as folks who are.
That kind of thing has, historically, been quite popular right around the world.
And, we don’t live in those countries. We live in this country, where we *very specifically* do not make legal distinctions between people based on the religion they practice, if any.
It’s right there in the Constitution. You can, as the great man said, look it up.
During a political meeting, some ignorant boob asserted that the nation was in danger of being undermined, or taken over, by Muslims.
There are 22 communities ruled by sharia law! Trouble, right here in River City!
To which the governor of Tennessee replied by speculating about whether Islam was actually a religion, or a nationality, or a lifestyle, or a cult, and if perhaps it didn’t deserve 1st Amendment protection.
I don’t care what your personal opinion is of Islam or Muslims, or any other religion, or religion at all. Ramsey’s comments are pure dumbassery. They display a profound and perhaps willful ignorance of the Constitution, of Islam, and of the history of the United States.
Way back when the Framers were writing the Constitution, the United Kingdom had Christianity as a state religion (as indeed we still do…) and was then enforcing one specific form of Christianity on its populace, with imprisonment and fines for dissenters.
This isn’t true.
If it has not been changed since I went to school, Sweden has still a Christian denomination as state religion. Iirc it required/s an explicit act of leaving the state church otheriwse a citizen is assumed to be default member by birth. In Greece (and increasingly in Russia) non-orthodox people are discriminated against. And I personally know people that left Poland because they had enough of the RCC meddling with law and politics/cy. Not to forget that rogue Polish priest with his Radio Marya that makes Fox News look fair and balanced and most RW evangelical screechers moderate. The Polish GOP equivalent is currently undergoing a similar process of banning all moderates and moderation in favor of rabid ultracatholics united in their hatred of Jews, Russians and Germans*.
*including the pope. That stinking liberal is in league with the forces of darkness that want to stamp out the only light of true faith on Earth and exterminate God’s chosen people (i.e. true Poles). No, I am not making that up.
Everybody focuses on Islam when it is Sharia law that needs to be stopped.
Hartmut: If it has not been changed since I went to school, Sweden has still a Christian denomination as state religion. Iirc it required/s an explicit act of leaving the state church otheriwse a citizen is assumed to be default member by birth.
No, it hasn’t changed, and I know that for an odd reason – Sweden is the only country in the world which requires ministers of religion employed by the state church to marry same-sex couples where at least one is a Swedish citizen in the state church, regardless of the minister’s personal views about gay marriage. (Apparently the same law applied to mixed-sex couples, it was just equalised after same-sex marriage came in.)
ajay: This isn’t true.
Picky. Okay, the United Kingdom didn’t have a state church, sort of: only England did and does.
The fining and imprisonment of dissenters, however, is perfectly true and I’m surprised you don’t know it: though the law was gradually passing out of use, the Blasphemy Act 1698 remained in force (Thomas Woolston died in jail in 1733 for publishing religious dissent, G. W. Foote was jailed for a year in the 1880s for publishing The Freethinker: the 1698 Act itself was only repealed in 2008, and the last conviction for blasphemy in England was in 1977 when Gay News and Denis Lemon, GN’s editor, were fined for publishing a poem about Christ.)
Well, as Islam is practiced in other countries might be an indicator of how Islam might try to be practiced here
Then again, it might not.
You’re right, “it might not.” But that is not the safe money bet. That is not what we see in France or in England. As the number of Muslims increase, there is a demonstrated trend toward a more assertive form of practicing some of the more troubling aspects of their religion.
Is this true of every other religion? Yes, but in the US, it’s a matter of degree. Our social contract–widely accepted across nearly the entire political and ideological spectrum–holds that everyone is free to worship as they please but not to engage in universally proscribed acts: discriminate against women, practice polygamy, genital mutilation, etc.
Are their Christians and Jews who, in the name of their religion, flaunt the social contract? Sure, but these are by and large fringe elements. A distinct minority. Not so much for Muslims in England and France.
There are 22 communities ruled by sharia law!
Isn’t this an issue, even if on a small scale? Suppose in ten years its 222 communities? Seems to me there are constitutional issues raised here that merit examination. If you counter with the Amish and Quaker communities, I will be forced to turn over my king on consistency grounds, but the issue still remains.
Ireland did have a state church in the eighteenth century, the (Anglican) Church of Ireland, and the civil, religious and economic disabilities enforced on the majority Catholics were extreme. (One lord chancellor summed it up as, in effect, “Under the law, there is no such person as an Irish Catholic.”) Even after Catholic emancipation, Catholics continued to pay tithes to support the Church of Ireland until 1871.
Our social contract–widely accepted across nearly the entire political and ideological spectrum–holds that everyone is free to worship as they please but not to engage in universally proscribed acts: discriminate against women, practice polygamy, genital mutilation, etc.
McTex, you’re a lawyer. And my guess, a pretty good one.
Surely you remember from law school, and your Con Law studies, that freedom of religion is not a license to violate the law.
If a Sikh or a Hindu or a Muslim undertakes an “honor killing” it is a crime. That is not relevant to the current discussion about the right to build houses of worship, and if one of the world’s major religions is a cult.
There is not much polygamy or genital mutilation from Muslim communities in France or England, and little reason to think they will be imported here.
As for discrimination against women, what about the female teacher that was just fired from the Xtian school because she got pregnant before she was married (though she did subsequently marry)?
I mean, Christianity and Judaism are not exactly great on women’s issues, each with millenia of historic discrimination.
As for blithely disregarding constitutional protections, this site, among many on the left, was outraged that corporations have free speech rights and barely batted an eye when HCR mandated that every citizen buy a prescribed insurance policy or pay a fine.
I don’t really want to get bogged down in a thread jack, but there are important distinctions here.
Citizen’s United overturned precedent. Meaning, in the previous 200 some odd years of Constitutional jurisprudence, corporations were NOT treated as citizens, now they are. It’s at the very least a controversial Constitutional issue. Whether or not an established major world religion should be treated as a cult is not really controversial at all, and a basic Constitutional tenet.
Similarly, the HCR legislation engaged in what is a common tax law practice. Just as non-home buyers pay more because they can’t deduct interest, and non-University students can’t take a lifetime learning credit or Hope scholarship deduction, so too do non insurance holders face a slightly higher tax bill.
This form of mandate has been in use for years in States like Mass. And the legal challenges that are almost universally deemed weak, if they even do proceed, will not succeed at the SCOTUS.
Again, to compare that to loose talk about negating the status of Islam as a religion, and thus allowing legal discrimination, is worse than apples and oranges. It’s peanuts and watermelons.
Eric, if you go back and read my comment, I note that every religion has its outliers and individuals, and small groups, who do run against the social contract. Narrowing the discussion to where a church or mosque might be built or whether it’s wrong to label anyone’s religion a cult artificially limits other very real issues attendant to Islam.
Islam and Sharia law are inseparable in many Muslim communities and in most Muslim countries. Certain tenets of Islam, mandated or allowed by Sharia law, don’t square with liberal democracy. Period. This is not a debatable point. And, this inability to square the circle does raise real constitutional issues. Simply positing that “we’re not talking about that right now”, particularly when it’s not at all clear that such is the case, doesn’t make those issues go away.
McTex, you’re a lawyer. And my guess, a pretty good one.
I’ve got a lot of people fooled. Not Phil or Carleton, but a lot of others.
Russell, would you (or would anyone) explain 22 “communities operating under sharia law”? I assume it was something in the Ramsay video at TPM, but
1) IE crashed every time I tried to follow that link, and
2) I won’t know why yet another one of us should waste time watching it anyhow.
Googling, all I got was hysteria from sources I wouldn’t trust to take out my trash.
Catholics live under Catholic “law,” in effect. They don’t eat meat on Fridays, don’t go to communion when they have mortal sins unconfessed, don’t miss Mass on Sundays, etc. (These were some of the rules when I was a kid growing up Catholic. I don’t know and don’t care what the rules are now.) The Catholic Church has spent, and continues to spend (half a million $ in Maine last fall?), plenty of resources in efforts to force the rest of us to live by Catholic rules. When it does that, it should be fought uncompromisingly. But that’s different from Catholics making their own choices about how to live their own lives.
The same distinctions go for Muslims. As people have said above, sharia law doesn’t nullify US, state, or local laws, any more than Catholic rules of conduct nullify them. If the Select Board of my town voted that the town had to live under sharia law, I would be in court before they could blink, arguing that that’s an establishment of religion and unconstitutional. (Does the First Amendment apply to municipalities? Heh.)
What are these 22 “communities”? Are they actual governmental entities? If so, I don’t see how “operating under sharia law” isn’t an establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment. If not, what are they? Gated neighborhoods? The equivalent of Catholic parishes?
That is not what we see in France or in England.
The history of Muslims in the UK and France is quite different than the history of Muslims here. Among other things, Muslims in the UK and France largely come from former colonies of those countries. It changes the dynamic.
It might no longer be true, but the largest Sunni Muslim community in the world outside of the Middle East was, for a long time, in Dearborn MI. Those folks have been there, in large numbers, for over a hundred years, and are as thoroughly assimilated into American life as any other immigrant community you might care to name.
They’re just people. I’m sure there are a worrisome number of Muslims in this country who are intent on political violence, but most, by which I mean “the ocean” as compared to “the drop of water”, are not.
To be dead honest, survivalists and skinheads worry me a lot more.
If you counter with the Amish and Quaker communities
AFAIK the Quakers are pretty mainstream, but I would definitely counter with the Amish, Hutterian Brethren, some Mennonites, the Hasidim, some very orthodox Jewish sects, lots of Mormons, the Santeros, snake handling primitive Baptists, and probably the Nation of Islam (not the same as mainstream Muslims).
There are lots and lots of religious communities whose practices range from odd to scary-odd. Muslims are in now way exceptional on that count.
If there are 22 “communities” ruled by “sharia law”, what you’re talking about are religious communities, and sharia is no weirder or more onerous than any number of other fundamentalist religious codes.
If there are 22 actual polities — civil governments — that observe sharia rather than forms of civil government that comply with the Constitution and the US Code, I will be quite surprised. If there is one, I will be quite surprised.
And if there is one, or 22, or 222, we’ll sort it out, like we do everything else.
American Muslims don’t freak me out. They live and work in the same communities I live and work in, they own, operate, and work in businesses I patronize, and there are several Muslims in my own workplace.
They’re normal people. Some of the women wear headscarves. So does my neighbor’s orthodox Jewish daughter in law.
Chacun au son gout. It doesn’t bug me.
Plus, some of the scarves are really beautiful. Much nicer than the heavy black stuff my Italian great-grandmother used to wear whenever she left the house.
“Christians” in America.
Jes, this bit
“was then enforcing one specific form of Christianity on its populace, with imprisonment and fines for dissenters”
isn’t true. You said that there was only one permitted form of Christianity – that enforced by the government – and the penalty for not believing in the right form of Christianity was imprisonment or fines. That’s not the case.
Is this true of every other religion? Yes, but in the US, it’s a matter of degree. Our social contract–widely accepted across nearly the entire political and ideological spectrum–holds that everyone is free to worship as they please but not to engage in universally proscribed acts: discriminate against women, practice polygamy, genital mutilation, etc.
Are their Christians and Jews who, in the name of their religion, flaunt the social contract? Sure, but these are by and large fringe elements.
Now, wait just a damned minute. Fringe elements? Are you serious? I have a feeling you’re trying to stack the deck here. The Catholic Church’s entire clergy is predicated on discriminating against women. Likewise most of the mainline Protestant denominations, Mormons, Orthodox Judaism, the various Orthodox Christian churches, etc. That’s hardly a “fringe element.”
Most US states have a law which exempts caregivers from child abuse charges if they withhold medical treatment from children in favor of prayer. How many groups take advantage of it? I don’t know. But the fact that the laws are on the books means its a significant enough factor not to be considered a “fringe element.”
To the extent that circumcision is “genital mutilation,” well, I hardly need to explain how un-fringe that practice is. And if you’re still in doubt, consider whether, as an adult, you’d volunteer to let someone cut off your foreskin for religious reasons.
There’s a whole cottage industry, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, devoted to finding ways to exempt religious bodies from generally applicable laws like zoning and public nuisance ordinances.
“Fringe elements.” Come on.
McK:
“Narrowing the discussion to where a church or mosque might be built or whether it’s wrong to label anyone’s religion a cult artificially limits other very real issues attendant to Islam.”
The person who “narrowed the discussion” was Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey. No liberal held a (second amendment protected!) gun to his head and forced him to expound “artificially” on the why Islam doesn’t deserve 1st amendment protection.
Secondly, you say:
“Islam and Sharia law are inseparable in many Muslim communities and in most Muslim countries.”
“Many” and “most,” my old nemeses. Many Muslim communities where? Which countries? What does this have to do with the U.S.? It *seems* like you’re arguing that because these some other people in some other countries act a certain way, we should assume some people in our country will act the same way, and we should … preemptively treat them differently? Religiously profile?
“Certain tenets of Islam, mandated or allowed by Sharia law, don’t square with liberal democracy. Period. This is not a debatable point.”
Firstly, who here has debated that?
Secondly, what you just said is also true of Christianity.
I anticipate that you will rightfully point out to me that most Christians in the U.S. do not strictly obey the “certain tenets” of Christianity that do not square with liberal democracy. And then I say most Muslims in the U.S. behave just as lawfully.
Now what? Are you arguing that there is a coming ultraconservative Sharia literalist immigrant explosion? And we need to start adjusting the application of our civil liberties accordingly?
Islam and Sharia law are inseparable in many Muslim communities and in most Muslim countries. Certain tenets of Islam, mandated or allowed by Sharia law, don’t square with liberal democracy. Period. This is not a debatable point.
Are they really? And aren’t there different interpretations of Sharia?
What about Turkey and Indonesia? How does Turkey manage to incorporate democracy?
Also, since it is not even debatable, could you name those tenets of Sharia law that are incompatible? And if they are so incompatible, how do American Muslims manage? What about Dearborn, as Russell mentioned?
The moral panic over Sharia is quite strange. You’re never going to get significant numbers of people of Western background accepting it.
But law of whatever type originates from customary agreements between people, for marriage, for debt contracts, for wills and estates. In (some) Muslim cultures those kinds of agreements are called Sharia, although what exactly they consist of varies a lot more than you’d think if all you know about it comes from reading right-wing moral panic rants on it.
So when two people from one of those backgrounds who have made one of those customary agreements under terms common to both of them, and they need to work something out, it’s not crazy to look at their understanding of what is effectively their own common law. As a result I think that consideration for Sharia (which again, is a very varied & complex thing) is likely to become more common in US law in communities where there are a lot of Muslims. Only to the degree that it is compatible with existing American law and the Constitution, but that could be substantial.
So what? So what if some contract disputes or family law among people from Muslim backgrounds take account of their customary agreements while remaining compatible with US law? The lack of trust in the ability of local communities & courts to deal with this stuff sort of puts the lie to the idea that conservatives think that disputes should be settled at the lowest reasonable level according to the norms of a particular community.
Are their Christians and Jews who, in the name of their religion, flaunt the social contract? Sure, but these are by and large fringe elements. A distinct minority. Not so much for Muslims in England and France.
Ok, but what you’re asking for is a wholesale stripping of Constitutional rights based on the predicted bad behavior of a subset of people. And this is not something that we could possibly tolerate under other circumstances (or, these circumstances).
In general, we don’t predictively restrict groups of people based on their religion even if we did have a basis for thinking that some of them might break the law. For example, those communities of Mormon polygamists are not broken up or preemptively jailed, or even prevented from making additional converts or raising their offspring in their religion.
Maybe this discussion would be more clear if you could articulate what sorts of restrictions or lack of religious freedom you think would be appropriate for Muslims. Im not really sure what you’re envisioning here.
There are 22 communities ruled by sharia law!
Isn’t this an issue, even if on a small scale? Suppose in ten years its 222 communities? Seems to me there are constitutional issues raised here that merit examination. If you counter with the Amish and Quaker communities, I will be forced to turn over my king on consistency grounds, but the issue still remains.
Ill counter with the obvious influence of Christianity on laws in virtually every municipality, county, and state as well as the federal government. Shall we ban Christianity for it’s noxious influence on our legal system?
For one specific story in which the Catholic Church played a huge role in shaping law in the US: Liberty and Sexuality, by David Garrow (a history of decades of efforts to legalize birth control, plus a quick look at subsequent related developments).
Also Liberty of Conscience, by Martha Nussbaum, in which the Catholics are by turns persecuted and persecutors. Ironic, that.
McKinneyTexas: As the number of Muslims increase [in France and England], there is a demonstrated trend toward a more assertive form of practicing some of the more troubling aspects of their religion.
Pish and poppycock.
There is no such “demonstrated trend”, and the only people claiming that there is are the racist bigots who read the Daily Mail, where the racist bigotry of their dish is served up to them, warmed over with liquid ordure for sauce.
Jay,
I think pointing out that you’re a fool more than once or twice per thread/banning is inhumane.
Ajay, Jesurgislac may have formed her statement in a way that is slightly off, but it isn’t off in any way pertinent to the conversation–which was to draw the correct conclusion that the free exercise clause of the Constitution really was inspired by the practices of England to force people into certain religious sects and persecute those who would not conform. Do you disagree with that general point? Or merely her exposition on the facts regarding that point?
“Citizen’s United overturned precedent. Meaning, in the previous 200 some odd years of Constitutional jurisprudence, corporations were NOT treated as citizens, now they are.”
This is something I disagree with both in fact and implication. Corporations have been citizens of at the very least one state (their incorporation state) for more than 100 years. They have traditionally been recognized as having the rights (no takings without due process of law for example) of citizens in cases where it makes sense to consider them as an aggregate of or for their members (i.e. certain physical rights or duties don’t exist for corporations if they don’t make sense in aggregate–the don’t have to register for the Selective Service.) Also you’re really complaining about corporate personhood, which so far as I can tell from the case, at the very least 8 out of 9 justices believed corporations had. And the importance of ‘precedent’ in general, seems pretty well NOT accepted at obsidianwings as one of the more important aspects of Constitutional law–again see our discussions on the Roper v. Simmons case and the Graham v. Florida case. I also note that Graham v. Florida shares another feature with Citizens United in that its critics point out that the decision could have been made on lesser grounds (that this particular LWP sentence was cruel and unusual, but that some of them–i.e. murder–might not be). Neither that, nor the precedent issue touched the liberals here much.
“I would just observe that isolating your position as not merely the best choice among good-faith arguments but as the single possible good-faith interpretation may be comforting, but it is usually inaccurate and promotes isolated thinking.”
Yes Carleton, sometimes you’ve been quite good at that.
What, it’s been so long since the schoolyard that you think the rubber-glue thing is effective? Here I am saying the *exact opposite* of what you claim about me, and this doesn’t make you, I dunno, embarrassed maybe?
I mean, Id perfectly willing to admit any number of faults. But constantly arguing that others hold their positions in bad faith isn’t one of them.
When you base your ‘Constitutional’ ruling on such a shift you either don’t understand the Constitution, or are twisting the issue into what they wish the Constitution said.
I have never made this argument. I am not sure how the existence of a bad liberal argument on a Constitutional issue somehow makes it Ok for you to brand any liberal position you disagree with as bad faith though.
IANAL but the topic of corporate personhood is of interest to me. Here is my understanding of the legal history.
The right of corporations to enter into contracts, and to have those contracts respected as if they had been made between actual persons, goes back in this country at least to Dartmouth v Woodard, decided in 1819.
The awarding of full legal personhood to corporations is generally seen to have occurred with Santa Clara v Southern Pacific Railroad, decided in 1886, where the the railroad was seen as a “person” for purposes of the 14th Amendment.
There’s a lot of debate about whether that’s actually what the decision in Santa Clara did, or meant to, say, but the principle has been considered to be settled law for quite a while.
United Citizens is just the logical outcome of all of that.
Neither that, nor the precedent issue touched the liberals here much.
Ah yes, the tried-and-true “you didnt talk about X and X is just as bad as Y so you must not care about Y very much” defense.
The reason I havent gone on about those cases is that I dont think that they are very important in and of themselves- the practical effect is small (whereas I think that Citizens United is a very dangerous decision- we already have de facto legalized bribery, so opening the door to unlimited contributions by profit-seeking entities virtually guarantees more abuse). They may be important in terms of the rigor of Constitutional interpretation, but IMO there are approximately one zillion areas where the Constitution ought to be interpreted differently, so my not dwelling on your pet peeve may be excusable in that context.
“When you base your ‘Constitutional’ ruling on such a shift you either don’t understand the Constitution, or are twisting the issue into what they wish the Constitution said.
I have never made this argument. I am not sure how the existence of a bad liberal argument on a Constitutional issue somehow makes it Ok for you to brand any liberal position you disagree with as bad faith though.”
It is the liberal Supreme Court justices who did–i.e. the liberals with actual power. And, ANY liberal position? There are plenty of issues where you can disagree in good faith, but decisions like Roper make it seem like the liberal jurisprudence style on the Constitution (not particularly worried about the history and not particularly moored to the text) really might just be judicial preference in other cases which aren’t as obviously cheating.
And the reason I bring it up, is not to tar you with it per se, I’m aware you didn’t personally make the decision. But the problem is that you don’t seem too troubled by the style of analysis, which makes invoking Constitutional principles in an argument very suspect, because they don’t really mean much than “this is the policy preference I like” in that style.
I also note that Graham v. Florida shares another feature with Citizens United in that its critics point out that the decision could have been made on lesser grounds (that this particular LWP sentence was cruel and unusual, but that some of them–i.e. murder–might not be). Neither that, nor the precedent issue touched the liberals here much.
ISTR that this is 100% false when applied to the Citizens United case; that, in fact, nearly all of the liberals here agreed that the court could have — and should have — found for CU on the narrower issue without making the ruling that they did. In fact, I’m certain that that’s exactly what occurred in the related threads, and if anyone wants me to, I’ll go back and look it up. Sebastian, would you like me to go back and look it up?
Sebastian seems to argue that since corporations have property rights just like persons, then it’s logically inconsistent to limit corporate speech rights more than personal speech rights.
But one difference between property and speech seems obvious: taking property from a corporation (without due process, just compensation, etc.) is taking property from persons. Before the taking, the stockholders owned some property; after, they don’t.
Speech is not like that. Limiting the corporation’s speech does NOT diminish the stockholders’ personal speech rights. They are still just as free as you and I to talk, blog, form 527 organizations, and so forth. Do the stockholders of XYZcorp want to speak as a body? Fine: they can form XYZ-PAC just like real people. If some of the stockholders choose NOT to participate in the PAC, that’s fine too.
If Seb wants to argue that corporations ought to have speech rights over and above the speech rights of the real persons who own its stock, I wonder whether he is willing to carry consistency far enough to argue that corporations ought also to have the right to own property which does not ultimately belong to their stockholders. That would be consistent. Bizarre, but consistent.
–TP
ISTR that this is 100% false when applied to the Citizens United case; that, in fact, nearly all of the liberals here agreed that the court could have — and should have — found for CU on the narrower issue without making the ruling that they did.
Yes. This point was made over and over again at the time by numerous commenters, myself included. It was also serially ignored, at least by Brett, and maybe others. It’s frustrating to argue with someone who pretends you’re saying something other than what you’re actually saying. CU can show PPV commercials on whatever they like 24-hours a day in perpetuity for all I care.
And the reason I bring it up, is not to tar you with it per se, I’m aware you didn’t personally make the decision. But the problem is that you don’t seem too troubled by the style of analysis, which makes invoking Constitutional principles in an argument very suspect, because they don’t really mean much than “this is the policy preference I like” in that style.
I have no idea what leads you to infer my level of dissatisfaction with the Court’s death penalty jurisprudence.
But apparently, you’re unwilling to hear argument based on Constitutional principles because of this perceived failing. I must be a hypocrite to invoke Constitutional principle since I havent had “Screw the Roper Decision” tattooed on my forehead. Or maybe I have, who knows?
Interesting sidenote: I’ve never heard you complain about the Court’s odd view that the 11th amendment bars suits by individuals against their own states (when the langauge of the amendment goes out of its way to avoid this implication) or the mentally challenged viewpoint that the 11th amendment was passed despite some penumbral soverign immunity that existed in the Constitution broader than the actual amendment.
Since you havent complained about this, and since I consider it an obvious breach of good faith Constitutional interpretation, you must be some species of hypocrite who ought not speak of Constitutional principles.
It is the liberal Supreme Court justices who did–i.e. the liberals with actual power. And, ANY liberal position? There are plenty of issues where you can disagree in good faith…
Totally mystified as to why you brought it up then. I will stipulate that bad faith arguments exist, although I would not as you have limit this to liberal judicial thinking.
“ISTR that this is 100% false when applied to the Citizens United case; that, in fact, nearly all of the liberals here agreed that the court could have — and should have — found for CU on the narrower issue without making the ruling that they did. In fact, I’m certain that that’s exactly what occurred in the related threads, and if anyone wants me to, I’ll go back and look it up. Sebastian, would you like me to go back and look it up?”
Ummm, you’re seriously misreading my point. I’ll try to be clearer: “In both Graham and Roper, neither the possibility of a more limited ruling, nor the precedent issue touched the liberals here much.
Which interpretation makes more sense than the one you made, because then I’m contrasting two cases with outcomes liberals seem to be generally ok with as sharing quite a bit analytically with one that you don’t seem to be generally ok with. That contrast doesn’t really work if I think you held the same views of the Citizens United case as you do in the Roper case. So not only am I aware that you were willing to have Citizens United drawn more closely, I *actually used that in my argument*. So you don’t need to look that up and prove it to me. It is essential to my argument.
So I’m confused by your strange attacking posture on the issue.
“I have no idea what leads you to infer my level of dissatisfaction with the Court’s death penalty jurisprudence.”
That’s very coy.
So let’s avoid coy: Do you have a high level of dissatisfaction with the Court’s death penalty jurisprudence?
I would have suspected not considering your previous discussions on the matter here for example, but if you have some deeply hidden reserve of dissatisfaction with it, I’d be comforted to hear of it.
Really. Because my impression is that liberals are pretty much ends-justifies-the-means when it comes to the Constitution and the results they want out of punishment, so it would be encouraging to hear that some of you aren’t.
I would have suspected not considering your previous discussions on the matter here for example
Is this some crafty way of winning the debate by wasting my time? I go back to a year-old thread to find myself:
-snarking that not all slopes are slippery
-observing that congress ought not be able to determine “cruel and unusual”‘s definition by legislation
-observing that separation of powers is a good thing
-scoffing at euro-phobia
-scoffing at the idea that “cruel and unusual” ought to be determined by popular opinion
-observing that restraining the court to only look at guaranteed USA sources to understand “cruel and usual” is unnecessary
-scoffed at the idea that the 14th amendment originally intended to make the Constitution colorblind
I did find this nugget:
I thought we were discussing why the SC could look at outside sources to determine whether mores had changed, not whether Constitutional interpretation ought to take into account those changing mores.
I mean, we can have that other discussion (and apparently are), but we *were* talking about the legitimacy of citing of foreign sources.
That’s me specifically disavowing the idea that I’m passing judgment on the actual case. Im trying to talk about the original subject of the post- the use of foreign sources in USSC decisions. Apparently you’re still so miffed that you couldn’t have the thread-jacking conversation you wanted to have that you’re carrying a grudge about it.
Because my impression is that liberals are pretty much ends-justifies-the-means when it comes to the Constitution and the results they want out of punishment, so it would be encouraging to hear that some of you aren’t.
You keep saying this as if it were unique to liberals. Do you really need a list of conservatives saying things that aren’t good faith readings of the Constitution?
And, since this is your impression, and you appear to hold me disproving it as a bar to actually having a conversation, I don’t see why I should be bothering. You may continue to inhabit the world where Sebastian has the only true understanding of the Constitution unmolested.
So I take it you are invested in remaining coy?
You may take it that I don’t see any point in having a conversation with you. Answering your trollish threadjack of a question seems pointless to me, since there’s no hope of a reasonable conversation.
You may take it that I don’t see any point in having a conversation with you. Answering your trollish threadjack of a question seems pointless to me, since there’s no hope of a reasonable conversation.
The problem with Roper and Graham isn’t just that they are wrong, it is that they are so frighteningly blatant. They really appear to me to be cases of “we 5 justices of the Supreme Court don’t give a crap about the rest of you”.
It gives the impression that perhaps that is how the Supreme Court works in general, in which case talk of jurisprudence becomes rather more complicated.
And the fact that the stakes are relatively low (effects very few people) should in theory make it easier/safer to have a contained discussion about what ought to be out of bounds in Supreme Court practice. But it doesn’t seem to.
…my impression is that liberals are pretty much ends-justifies-the-means when it comes to the Constitution …
Aside from the silly generalization of the liberals-must-be-wrongly-interpreting-the-Constitution variety, there’s a more profound problem with Seb’s language here.
The Constitution was CREATED as a “means” to certain “ends”. It was not written merely for the purpose of being adhered to. The “means” the Framers chose, explicitly stated in Articles 1-7 and Amendments 1-10, they justified based on the “ends” they explicitly stated in the Preamble.
It’s “ends” all the way down, Seb. Even the Framers had “ends” in view — ends they considered good enough to justify the “means” of throwing out the Articles of Confederation and writing the Constitution instead.
–TP
Your typical requests for continuous explanation from others, paired with a coyness about your own views is duly noted Mr. Wu. Thanks.
You’re welcome. I think you’re not here to have a discussion Sebastian. You’re here out of some insecurity in your intellect that forces you to attempt to ‘win’, over and over again. You criticize on minutiae or even invented grounds, offer pedantic lectures, and- typically as here- cannot stand someone else having the last word, even if it’s just saying that they don’t want to talk to you. As long as you get the last point and manage to maintain your facade of engaging in debate, you can get to sleep alright- but you apparently wake up with the same set of insecurities.
So why are you here Mr. Wu? Are you here to have discussion?
I was, I think. Im pretty disillusioned these days.
To be clear- I dont mind talking about the death penalty. I dont mind talking about any number of cases. But I just didnt, and dont, see you wanting to engage here- you want to prove that liberals don’t respect precedent or good faith Constitutional interpretation. Not even “have a discussion about precedent and good faith Constitutional interpretation”, since I’ve offered a few times to broaden the discussion to include conservatives.
No, you are focused like a laser- once threadjacked, this conversation is about how liberals misuse the Constitution. And it turns out, that just isn’t an interesting conversation to me. Id just as soon be trapped in an elevator with Brett for four hours.
Im thinking “where is this going to go”- I tell you what I think about a case, you either decide that Im in agreement with you and ask me to condemn liberal judges, or you disagree with my position and decide that I have no respect for the Constitution.
Either way, not a fun conversation and not one where Im going to learn anything beyond “Sebastian doesn’t like liberal judges”. I already know that, so Im opting for the richer, more pleasant experience of playing some music.
Or I was, but I keep getting sucked back into this thing. One thing I can’t &%&$ do is quit a conversation even when I know I should, a trait I think we share.
But to be perfectly honest, I’m definitely a bit [ahem] OCD about certain things. Which has served me well sometimes and poorly at others.
And I DEFINITELY tend to hold on to things longer than is good for me. Take for instance the Republican party (please).
So I apologize for that. The good news is I’m tenacious and loyal. The bad news is I’m tenacious and loyal.
But yes. I’m still working on it.
Russell, would you (or would anyone) explain 22 “communities operating under sharia law”?
Sure.
The TPM piece Eric links to includes a video of Ramsey’s comments. His comments were given in smallish public meeting, in response to a concern offered by a gentleman in the audience.
The gentleman’s issue was that, in his opinion, the US was under some kind of internal stealth attack from Muslims. As evidence of this, he asserted that there were “22 communities” in the US that were “under sharia law”.
Details were never offered, and I have no idea WTF he was talking about.
Russell — thanks. I wasn’t sure whether you were writing from something you knew independent of that video, or not. So now I know just about how much credence to give the information.
Wow, this thread got derailed quickly.
Back on-topic, MattY had a post today about Islamophobia and the Great Recession, where he says “Simply put, when economies head south xenophobic and anti-foreign sentiments tend to rise.” Which is hardly controversial, a quick survey of national and world history, or a comparison of places with more economic growth and stability (most bigger cities and traditionally liberal areas) versus places of lower economic growth, more inequality, less stability, more poverty etc (decayed cities, portions of the Deep South, etc) and see it. When people are insecure, they look for a scapegoat, for an “other” to blame.
Hysterical ranting from Fox, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and the rest only amplifies and directs the fear that’s already there.
Wow, this thread got derailed quickly.
Ah, my work here is done.
Back on-topic…
Hey, wtf?
Seriously- McTex, if you’re still reading, I never got an idea of what your position translated to on the ground. If it’s just ‘we need to make sure that various people don’t break the law in the service of their religion’, then that’s one thing. If it’s ‘it’s ok for communities to prevent mosques from being built since they have a reasonable fear about Muslims’, then that’s another. If you’re still interested, I think that’s a next reasonable step.
“Take for instance the Republican Party, (please).”
I usually skip over Sebastian’s comments when I’m not in the mood for humor, but a little Henny Youngman never hurt anyone.
ajay: You said that there was only one permitted form of Christianity – that enforced by the government – and the penalty for not believing in the right form of Christianity was imprisonment or fines. That’s not the case.
That’s not actually what I said, either.
Sebastian: but it isn’t off in any way pertinent to the conversation–which was to draw the correct conclusion that the free exercise clause of the Constitution really was inspired by the practices of England to force people into certain religious sects and persecute those who would not conform. Do you disagree with that general point? Or merely her exposition on the facts regarding that point?
Don’t take this as a sweeping statement of approval, Sebastian, but, just for once: you’re right.
That was funny.
The problem with Roper and Graham isn’t just that they are wrong, it is that they are so frighteningly blatant. They really appear to me to be cases of “we 5 justices of the Supreme Court don’t give a crap about the rest of you”.
It gives the impression that perhaps that is how the Supreme Court works in general, in which case talk of jurisprudence becomes rather more complicated.
Given the recent McDonald Second Amendment case (among others) I’m not sure you can continue to pin this on liberals.
Unless you’re licensed to practice psychoanalysis over the Internet, it’s probably best to refrain from these kinds of statements.
it’s just ‘we need to make sure that various people don’t break the law in the service of their religion’
Yep, that is my main point, added to which is the notion, not well received here, that Islam and Sharia law present a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.
And, whether it’s a hijacking or not (I think not), I am in firm agreement with Seb, with this added proviso: progressives and arch-conservatives, as opposed to the broader group of generic liberal or conservative leaning jurists, tend heavily toward outcome jurisprudence at the expense of precedent, predictability and, ultimately, intellectual coherence.
Take free speech for corporations: it’s always been recognized and political speech has never, until CFR, been subject to prior restraint. Arguing otherwise is simply counter to every decision and the plain language and jurisprudence of the First Amendment. That CU was not unanimous in its result, if not in its rationales (that’s what concurring opinions are for) is disturbing, to put it mildly.
Which is why Seb didn’t hijack anything. If anyone did, it was me in noting that progressives tend to be hyper-constitutionally aware when it suits them, but not so much if it doesn’t. Arch conservatives (my term for the progressive counterpart) operate in the same fashion.
And, just as an aside, we have a very conservative, result oriented Supreme Court in Texas. Ideology trumps jurisprudence (and the facts) everyday here in the People’s Republic of Texas. It’s bizarre, like living in One Hundred Years of Loneliness.
it’s just ‘we need to make sure that various people don’t break the law in the service of their religion’
Yep, that is my main point, added to which is the notion, not well received here, that Islam and Sharia law present a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.
I agree.
I agree because I think we need to make sure that various people don’t break the law for whatever reason.
I agree because I think many religions as practiced by some people present a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy, particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.
“Back on-topic…
Hey, wtf?”
What, an explanation of the popularity of anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t on-topic for this thread?
“Yep, that is my main point, added to which is the notion, not well received here, that Islam and Sharia law present a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.”
Is this radically different than many other religions? At least the extreme kind that want to make everyone live under their rules? Look at any country that has had a major state religion, with significant political power, and you’ll see “problematical issues for liberal democracy”, especially with “fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.”
Look at say, the Catholic Church. Or many Southern Baptist denominations. Or the Christian Right as a whole. Or Prohibition. Or Hindus or even some Buddhists when they’ve been in power. Or officially atheist places like the Soviet Union.
Do you have anything backing up the claim that Islam is somehow unique and different in this respect, rather than being something that happens with pretty much EVERY religion or ideology if they get enough power to promote their “in” group’s ideas and practices over anyone else’s? Seriously?
added to which is the notion, not well received here, that Islam and Sharia law present a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.
I’d ask for specifics.
And ask what sets Islam apart from Christianity and Judaism in this respect.
How many municipalities in this country still have Sunday blue laws forbidding the sale of liquor and other naughty consumables, or even requiring businesses to be closed? Isn’t that a prime example of religious fundamentalism “present[ing] a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.”?
When it comes to this stuff, given the relative size and power of the US Muslim population, I’m about a zillion times more concerned about, say, Catholics (and evangelicals) fighting to limit the availability of RU-486, or Christian Scientists (and some evangelicals!) letting their children waste away from treatable illness, than I am whether everybody’s about to have to start wearing burqas. And so is anyone with a lick of common sense.
Arch conservatives (my term for the progressive counterpart)
Cute, but logically speaking, the polar opposite of progressives would be regressives.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that ALL organized religions “present a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.”
Every single one.
And some of them have real power in this country, and some of them don’t. Sitting there fretting over the ones that don’t — and, in all likelihood, never will — is the height of silliness.
McKinney: Yep, that is my main point, added to which is the notion, not well received here, that Islam and Sharia law present a number of problematical issues for liberal democracy particularly for a constitutional liberal democracy with fundamental rules on the separation of church and state, equality of the sexes, races, etc.
So, basically, you’re going to “participate” by ignoring everything everyone said to you to date pointing out the factual flaws in this statement you made earlier, and repeat the same statement?
This works when you have the facts on your side. When you’re just repeating bigoted BS, not so much.
Slartibartfast: Unless you’re licensed to practice psychoanalysis over the Internet, it’s probably best to refrain from these kinds of statements.
Now, what did he really mean by that?
I’d ask for specifics.
And ask what sets Islam apart from Christianity and Judaism in this respect.
Stoning/hanging adulterers, homosexuals, mandating that women where oppressive clothing, abiding honor killings, issuing fatwas calling for the death of fill-in-the-blank, etc. See Saudi Arabia as an example of life under Sharia. Or Iran.
How many municipalities in this country still have Sunday blue laws forbidding the sale of liquor and other naughty consumables, or even requiring businesses to be closed?,
I don’t know. Blue laws passed constitutional muster, not because of a deference to religion, but because of a state’s secular right to set aside a day for diminished commercial activity and thus a day off for people. Blue laws are also fading, for the most part, into history.
I am well aware that the US has had plenty of friction with religious encroachment. For the most part, religion comes in second place when it intrudes into the public/governmental arena.
Blue laws, even being pro-life, are orders of magnitude less intrusive than, say, stoning women for adultery. You can argue the substantive equivalence of modern, mainstream religion in the US with modern, mainstream Islam practiced around the world, but it’s a losing argument outside blogs like this.
Yeah, what Janie said. I thought it was a legitimate stat.
Stoning/hanging adulterers, homosexuals, mandating that women where oppressive clothing, abiding honor killings, issuing fatwas calling for the death of fill-in-the-blank, etc. See Saudi Arabia as an example of life under Sharia. Or Iran.
You do realize, I’m sure, that the Old Testament calls for many of the same punishments/illiberal policies, right? See, ie, Leviticus.
Also, Sharia does not actually call for women wearing oppressive clothing. That is more cultural than religious.
Honor killings are also cultural, not Sharia required/condoned. Other religious groups engage in the barbaric practice. See, ie, Sikhs and Hindus at times.
As a counter example to SA and Iran, check out Turkey.
And the fatwas are not Sharia.
But, regardless, Islam and Sharia are practiced and interpreted differently in different countries.
See, again, Turkey and Indonesia as counterweights to Iran and SA. Further, the US would not be adopting Sharia, and Muslims have lived in the US for centuries, and had to abide by US laws which they do. Without resistance.
You can argue the substantive equivalence of modern, mainstream religion in the US with modern, mainstream Islam practiced around the world, but it’s a losing argument outside blogs like this.
But that’s a poor comparison.
The proper comparison would be comparing how Islam is practiced in the US with how Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism are practiced also in the United States.
There are cultural reasons that it looks different in Iran than the US, and Iran and Saudi Arabia.
We are the United States, though, and should stick to how Islam is practiced here.
We don’t have a lot of stonings.
We do have some weird Christian sects where middle-aged men get to have sex with 12-year-old girls. That’s here, in America.
I don’t know. Blue laws passed constitutional muster, not because of a deference to religion, but because of a state’s secular right to set aside a day for diminished commercial activity and thus a day off for people.
Ha! You are perhaps familiar with the word “pretext?”
mandating that women where oppressive clothing
If you’re ever in Cleveland, come visit my neighborhood, where all the Orthodox Jewish women age 10 and up (Orthodox Jews account for about 90% of my neighbors) are required to wear ankle-length skirts and long sleeves 365 days a year. Depending on the degree of orthodoxy, they’re also required to either wear scarves over their hair, or to cut their hair extremely short (or in some cases shave it) and wear wigs.
Stoning/hanging adulterers, homosexuals,
From yesterday at Andrew Sullivan’s blog:
You can argue the substantive equivalence of modern, mainstream religion in the US with modern, mainstream Islam practiced around the world, but it’s a losing argument outside blogs like this.
And here I thought we were discussing mainstream Islam as practiced in the United States, and particularly in the alleged “22 communities under sharia law!” I mean, do you suppose Judaism is generally practiced differently in Tel Aviv than it is in the US? So what if it is?
If you’re ever in Cleveland, come visit my neighborhood, where all the Orthodox Jewish women age 10 and up (Orthodox Jews account for about 90% of my neighbors) are required to wear ankle-length skirts and long sleeves 365 days a year. Depending on the degree of orthodoxy, they’re also required to either wear scarves over their hair, or to cut their hair extremely short (or in some cases shave it) and wear wigs.
Or come to certain Brooklyn nabes (or certain areas of Westchester) to see the same.
And that’s keeping in mind that the weather in Clevo right now — before lunchtime — is 86F, with a heat index of 92. Those skirts and long sleeves are probably feeling really good right now.
The other day, I was biking home from work and went past a house on my street. Sitting in the front yard was a double stroller, and two of the women had left their wigs sitting in it. It struck me as really creepy.
Blue laws passed constitutional muster, not because of a deference to religion, but because of a state’s secular right to set aside a day for diminished commercial activity and thus a day off for people.
Sure. But now you seem to be mixing positions. That is, a law condemning adulterers to death by stoning may well not pass Constitutional muster- but *not* because of the 1st Amendment, and I cannot imagine anyone arguing that the 1st would protect such activity. Since freedom to practice one’s religion doesn’t ever extend to enforcing its dictates onto others, it’s not even really relevant- seems that “cruel and unusual” would cover this, and/or right to privacy.
You seem to be saying that the US *might* have problems in the future integrating Muslim immigrants into our society. And that may be true (altho I think the track record so far indicates otherwise). But I just dont think that this is a First Amendment issue per se- there is nothing in your concern that would cause us, as a nation, to allow a Muslim any less freedom of conscience to worship as they see fit- within the confines of their own lives, as we do with all religions. As long as we continue to maintain our existing Constitutional and legal protections, we will not suffer from eg toleration for honor killings.
So Im still trying to understand this- I hear your concerns about what could happen, but I don’t hear your recommendations or how we would change our current Constitutional protections for religion.
McKinneyTexas:
What are you specifically afraid is going to happen, and what about our laws do you want to change, and what effect do you hope the change will have?
Currently, my impression is that you are worried that Muslims in the U.S. are going to radicalize (or that extremely strict and conservative religious Muslims will move here) and begin enforcing sharia law. You seem to think this is possible or likely because Saudi Arabia and Iran are autocratic states which enforce sharia law.
If you’re concerned that American Muslims are going to start violating U.S. law, the Constitution, etc., so what? We have a criminal justice system for lawbreakers. Do you want to change it? How and why?
Are you afraid that Constitutional protections for religion, in their current form, will ineluctably protect stonings and honor killings?
If so, why?
A simple point of fact: the US likely *will* have trouble assimilating *some* Muslims into our forms of civil society.
Same as every other group of immigrants who ever came here, period.
We’ll deal with it.
Muslims currently make up about 2% of the US population. They do not appear to be stoning gays, mutilating their women, or otherwise behaving illegally in numbers that make them any more worrisome than any other religous group that contains some fringe fundamentalist or separatist elements.
There is no statement being made about Muslims that hasn’t been made, in essence if not in the details, about *every other* immigrant group who were “different” than the people who were here “first”. And all of those folks assimilated into US culture just fine.
There is nothing unique about Muslims that should cause us to treat them, as a group, differently than anybody else.
Take free speech for corporations: it’s always been recognized and political speech has never, until CFR, been subject to prior restraint. Arguing otherwise is simply counter to every decision and the plain language and jurisprudence of the First Amendment.
The dissent makes it clear in the first paragraph that, had they used their pac money, this would not have been an issue. As long as they have a way of speaking that isn’t unduly burdened, I don’t see the reason for your concern.
I cannot, for example, set up loudspeakers on my house and blast political messages all night. I cannot pay below minimum wage to my workers creating my pamphlets. I cannot violate OSHA rules in making my commercials, or show nudity & swear and then air them during the day on broadcast TV. I cannot broadcast my radio or TV ads myself over the top of existing channels.
But, within all of those constraints, it’s still very easy for me to transmit my message. And therefore, my speech isn’t really being inhibited by them.
The dissent also discusses several precedents for treating corporate speech differently than the speech of natural persons. And even Kennedy’s opinion for the majority says The relevant factors in deciding whether to adhere to stare decisis, beyond workability—the precedent’s antiquity, the reliance interests at stake, and whether the decision was well reasoned—counsel in favor of abandoning Austin… so the position that the CU majority was merely applying existing precedent is not supportable.
You do realize, I’m sure, that the Old Testament calls for many of the same punishments/illiberal policies, right? See, ie, Leviticus.
Also, Sharia does not actually call for women wearing oppressive clothing. That is more cultural than religious.
Honor killings are also cultural, not Sharia required/condoned. Other religious groups engage in the barbaric practice. See, ie, Sikhs and Hindus at times.
As a counter example to SA and Iran, check out Turkey.
And the fatwas are not Sharia.
But, regardless, Islam and Sharia are practiced and interpreted differently in different countries.
See, again, Turkey and Indonesia as counterweights to Iran and SA. Further, the US would not be adopting Sharia, and Muslims have lived in the US for centuries, and had to abide by US laws which they do. Without resistance.
Yes, I am familiar with Leviticus, which is not the public policy of this country and is only believed literally by a handful of lunatics. In fact, Leviticus is my first counter to religious opponents of gay marriage: why aren’t you stoning them if the Bible means what it says?
How Islam is currently practiced in the US and how it might be practiced as the Muslim population grows are two different things. Trends in other Western countries are not cause for optimism, but they are only trends and what happens elsewhere doesn’t necessarily happen here.
My point, to repeat myself, is simply that there are aspects of Islam that go beyond mere belief and are constitutionally problematical. Muslims migrating to the US, and many who are already here, have not been acculturated to defer to what I referred to upthread as the US social contract. Mainstream protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism pretty much are in sync with the social contract. It remains to be seen whether, as time passes, US Muslims generally will buy into or seek exception from the contact. If it’s the latter, the constitution will be implicated in a big way.
Phil, isolated nut cases make for a poor reference point. In poor counterpoint, I give you the US citizen, Muslim extremist who tried to bomb Times Square.
I’m from a town that had, for the longest time, a sign that greeted people coming off the interstate saying ‘Jesus is Lord over [town’s name]’ (someone, nothing the prevalence of meth, suggested that it should be amended to Jesus is Drug lord ‘)
My point being, even if we assume that everything about the onslaught of Islam in the US is true, it would take a long time for it to reach the levels that the intrusiveness of Christianity has in many parts of the US. So the notion that the US might have some problems in the future should be weighed against the asymmetry of access and the challenge of Islam reaching anywhere near a point that is taken for granted with Christianity.
McKinney,
I have to say, your argument seems to boil down to “Muslims are scary.” I can’t find much more than that as this discussion progresses.
What is it you’re advocating? Should Muslims be treated as some special case with fewer rights and freedoms than other people, or what?
I mean, if you have a concern about Muslims assimilating, maybe none of us can help that. But how should your concern be addressed outside of your own mind? What do you want?
FWIW a piece by an American Muslim on sharia in the US.
Andrew Sullivan links to this about a planned protest against the building of a mosque in a California town. Among other things, the protesters are told to bring their dogs, because Muslims don’t like dogs. Words fail.
McKinney, much quoted already:
To repeat in response to repetition: how is this different from any other religion? What are we supposed to do proactively in relation to Islam that we don’t do proactively in relation to any other religion?
For that matter, how is this different from the way we handle lawbreaking in general? What do “we” do to make sure preemptively that laws don’t get broken? Maybe we should start putting everyone in jail ahead of time, just in case.
The idea doesn’t even make sense. It’s just a way to join in and/or whip up fear of the other, which is admittedly a grand old American tradition: Catholics, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, etc. etc. etc. (See Liberty of Conscience.)
If “we” are going to spend any resources being on guard against threats to liberal democracy, we would far better spend them keeping an eye on the [expletives suppressed] planning the protest in California, and the Palins and the Cheneys and their ilk. They’re a far bigger threat than American Muslims are. And if you don’t think they’re much of a threat at all, then you now know just how to calibrate the threat level of Muslims.
How Islam is currently practiced in the US and how it might be practiced as the Muslim population grows are two different things. Trends in other Western countries are not cause for optimism, but they are only trends and what happens elsewhere doesn’t necessarily happen here.
Yeah, and even those “trends” don’t involve stonings. And they don’t involve European countries allowing for murders by fatwa out of concern for religious freedom.
Again, if there are problems, law enforcement will handle them. We don’t need to change Islam’s status from religion to cult to aid that effort.
My point, to repeat myself, is simply that there are aspects of Islam that go beyond mere belief and are constitutionally problematical.
Yes, this is true of every religion.
Muslims migrating to the US, and many who are already here, have not been acculturated to defer to what I referred to upthread as the US social contract.
What is your evidence of this? They seem to be doing fine to me? I have Muslim friends (one is a terrific shortstop and leadoff hitter on my softball team) and sometimes spend time in Muslim areas of Brooklyn.
No stonings. No fatwa-inspired murders. Women with hijab and without.
Mainstream protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism pretty much are in sync with the social contract. It remains to be seen whether, as time passes, US Muslims generally will buy into or seek exception from the contact.
Yes it does, but current trends are promising.
If it’s the latter, the constitution will be implicated in a big way.
How?
McK: My point, to repeat myself, is simply that there are aspects of Islam that go beyond mere belief and are constitutionally problematical.
Your point is that you’re bigoted against Muslims and are therefore going to seize any excuse to pick on Muslims – and, not at all incidentally, using GLBT people as an excuse to pick on Muslims while having no demonstrable concern for how GLBT people are treated in the US by Christians. Nice.
Incidentally, an Anglican bishop a couple of years ago listened unmoved to an account of how Christians had tortured and raped a lesbian, and said that was justified because they wanted to make her straight. Hell, McKinney! Gene Robinson had to wear a bulletproof jacket when he was made a bishop, because of the death threats he had received from Christians, and you think Islam is the problem?
Trying to fake a concern about “homosexuals” as a justification for your anti-Islamic bigotry is unconvincing, to say the least.
Yes, I am familiar with Leviticus, which is not the public policy of this country and is only believed literally by a handful of lunatics.
Uh, I’m pretty sure that every single Orthodox and Conservative Jew and Evangelical Christian in THE WORLD believes that Leviticus is literally true.
Mainstream protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism pretty much are in sync with the social contract. It remains to be seen whether, as time passes, US Muslims generally will buy into or seek exception from the contact.
As has been stated repeatedly already, in the history of this country Catholicism and Judaism were certainly not always seen to be in sync with the social contract. It does in fact remain to be seen; that has been the case with every group that has ever come here. So what?
And what does “seek exception” mean? The Amish don’t have the send their kids to high school (Wisconsin v. Yoder). A Seventh Day Adventist can still get unemployment benefits if she refuses a job that would require her to work on Saturdays (Sherbert v Verner). Etc. We have been trying to strike a balance for a long time; I don’t see why Muslims are any more of a threat to that process than all these other groups have been over the centuries.
Mainstream protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism pretty much are in sync with the social contract
We are talking passed each other: my point is that Islam has a number of features that, if practiced in the US (and there are incidences of honor killings, etc. in the US although not numerous), present problematical constitutional issues if the practitioner raises a constitutional defense of his/her right to act.
If it’s the latter, the constitution will be implicated in a big way.
How?
For example, if a public school that was majority Muslim were to segregate classes by sex and to forbid serving pork in the school cafeteria and were to teach the Koran as a part of class activities, all of these things, were they to happen, would run afoul of the constitution.
In their time, Christians mandated prayer in public school. That is gone. Rightly so. As the number of Muslims grow, I expect there to be issues outside of the belief side of any religion that will be claimed to be allowed under the rubric of the free exercise clause but which, in fact, go beyond what the free exercise clause allows. At the same time, there will be those within the Christian, Jewish, etc communities who push the envelope.
Here is my original point:raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game.
That was it.
At the same time, there will be those within the Christian, Jewish, etc communities who push the envelope.
Therefore, raising the question of whether aspects of Christianity/Judaism/etc. fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game.
Therefore, your “original point” is that Islam is just another religion.
Which makes this entire thread not only pointless, but downright bizarre.
my point is that Islam has a number of features that, if practiced in the US (and there are incidences of honor killings, etc. in the US although not numerous), present problematical constitutional issues if the practitioner raises a constitutional defense of his/her right to act.
This is utter nonsense. First of all, it’s been pointed out to you repeatedly that honor killings are not an Islam thing, nor are they Sharia; there are non-Islamic Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants who also commit them. So maybe you should internalize that.
Second, if Scott Roeder couldn’t mount a successful defense for killing George Tiller, I can’t imagine — I mean, literally, cannot conceive of under any circumstances whatsoever — a court that would even allow an attorney to mount a free exercise defense to murder charges. Like, in a zillion years.
Likewise, more and more states are finally coming to their senses and holding people like this to account for essentially murdering their children in the name of religion.
This is just cloud-cuckoo-land. There is no precedent — NONE — in the United States for killing people being a Constitutionally-protected activity under the First Amendment or any other. And there never will be.
my point is that Islam has a number of features that, if practiced in the US (and there are incidences of honor killings, etc. in the US although not numerous), present problematical constitutional issues if the practitioner raises a constitutional defense of his/her right to act.
How would that be problematic at all? You can not use “religion” as a defense to murder, regardless of the religion in question.
That is not problematic, but very easy. Slam dunk. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
For example, if a public school that was majority Muslim were to segregate classes by sex and to forbid serving pork in the school cafeteria and were to teach the Koran as a part of class activities, all of these things, were they to happen, would run afoul of the constitution.
I’ll take each in turn:
1. Can’t segragate classes in public school, because the schools are “public” and that would be imposing a religion in the public square. Well settled Con Law doctrine, not a problem at all.
2. Aside from making the kids healthier ;), this would not fly, again, for the reasons stated in #1. However, just as Kosher alternatives are offered to observant Jewish kids, so to would Halal alternatives be offered to observant Muslim kids.
Not a problem at all.
3. Teaching the Koran, like teaching the Bible, would not be allowed.
Again, not sure I see the problem here?
In other words, Muslims, like Christians and Jews, might try to impose their religion in the public square, but Con Law is quite adept at disallowing such entreaties.
So?
I’m sorry, McKinney, but I don’t think we’re talking past each other. I think the discussion is going the way it is because your point just isn’t much of a point. It’s a lesser version of someone saying, “You know, people might do bad things,” which would prompt a response of “Yeah? So what?”
Do you think Islam is a cult? Do you think Muslims should be restricted more than other groups in building places of worship (or in other ways)? (And I don’t want to hear “if they do this” or “if they do that” because the same applies to any other group that might do this or that.)
Here is my original point:raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game.
And since honor killings are not “an aspect of Islam,” there is no point. So, here we are.
Evidence that much of this is cultural and regional and that Islam, like any other religion with a strong cultural aspect, can and will adapt itself to new cultural situations:
German Muslim group: professional soccer players can break fast during Ramadan
This is what happens when groups are allowed to participate in a mixed society and not isolated through social censure. They seek to translate their cultural practices in ways that fit the new context.
UK, Phil, Eric, and HSH have all said what I wanted to say, and better than I’d have said it.
“Here is my original point:raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game.
That was it.”
Watch this:
raising the question of whether aspects of RELIGION fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game.
Has anyone on this board disputed that statement? Why did you feel the need to assert it?
Mainstream protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism pretty much are in sync with the social contract.
I have a friend who lives in a state of the US where gay marriage is illegal, thanks to your “mainstream Protestantism & Catholicism”. She’s dying of cancer. She wants to marry her partner, legally, before she dies. She’s got 18 months, max.
To you, McKinney, she and a hundred thousand like her may be outside the social contract. To me, not.
We are talking passed each other: my point is that Islam has a number of features that, if practiced in the US (and there are incidences of honor killings, etc. in the US although not numerous), present problematical constitutional issues if the practitioner raises a constitutional defense of his/her right to act.
See, I dont think that at all. Honor killings are not protected by the first amendment under almost any interpretation, and certainly any interpretation likely to exist in the near future. I think it’s radical of you to contemplate a first amendment that protects honor killing.
We don’t need to change the first amendment to address your concerns- it already fails to cover enforcing one’s religion on others.
For example, if a public school that was majority Muslim were to segregate classes by sex and to forbid serving pork in the school cafeteria and were to teach the Koran as a part of class activities, all of these things, were they to happen, would run afoul of the constitution.
Not serving pork probably wouldn’t run afoul of the Constitution, unless there’s a Right To Pork that Im unfamiliar with. Segregating classes by gender is probably also permitted. As you said about blue laws, the state has the power to do some things, and as long as they aren’t forcing a religious practice on anyone, there is some deference. Too much IMO, but that’s another story.
Teaching the Koran (as a religious exercise) in public school isn’t Constitutional, and that’s pretty settled law already. But there are plenty of Christians who have tried to get the Bible taught in schools, so if that is an example of Islam violating the social contract, you should also re-examine Evangelicals in this light.
I have a friend who lives in a state of the US where gay marriage is illegal, thanks to your “mainstream Protestantism & Catholicism”.
Well, this is another problem with the argument I think- aspects of the mainstream religion and it’s impact on social mores become part & parcel of the ‘social contract’, to the point that- McK- I dont think you see them as being overtly religious. Cant buy beer on Sunday morning? No biggie, the state can decide that everyone should take a morning off from drinking. Public school doesn’t serve pork? Violation of the social contract.
I have a UU friend who is surprisingly resentful (given that she is not generally a bitter kind of person) about the fact that in her public school in the midwest, sometime in the 50’s or 60’s, the cafeteria always served fish on Fridays to accommodate the Catholic kids. It was the old days, and her school wasn’t big/rich enough to have multiple entree choices, so it was fish for everyone.
None of this is new.
Me: None of this is new.
I forgot to add: Or unique to Islam.
And the notion — and from a lawyer, too! — that someone might mount a 1st Amendment defense (“my religion made me do it”) in a murder trial, and that fear of this eventuality and the need to guard against it is worth one nanosecond of our time, is so bizarre that I think I need to go to the beach and bask in the blazing sun for a while to regain my sense of proportion.
(Just kidding about the beach.)
CW: Are you sure public schools are allowed to segregate kids based on sex? Maybe so. I’m not an expert by any stretch.
No biggie, the state can decide that everyone should take a morning off from drinking.
Wait one second. The state might be able to tell me I can’t buy beer on Sunday, but they sure as hell can’t tell me I can’t drink it! You trying to throw me into the Tea Party or what, CW?
Word.
Oh, and because making emotional statements like my last one is kind of pointless except for wetting the keyboard (I have tear’d up yet again, dammit): If you live in Washington State, here’s how you find your legislator, please write and ask them to have the ban on same-sex marriage lifted. My friend and her love can’t even go somewhere else, get married, and come back – State of Washington has decreed that, with the support of DOMA, Article 4 of the US Constitution can just not apply to her, or to thousands like her.
She’s dying. She’d like to get married.
All-girls charter school celebrates 10 years of success
Well there’s your answer right there!
Thanks elm.
But then…what would the problem be if the same were implemented again?
Here is the sequence of events:
Ramsey says, “Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of
life, cult whatever you want to call it,”
Then Eric said, “Not to mention that such a blithe disregard to a fundamental Constitutional protection is alarming in its own right.”
Then I said, “raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game. Freedom to believe is virtually unlimited, not so freedom to act on those beliefs. Honor killings, the role of women, polygamy, etc. are all within Islam, or subsets thereof.”
Which, I agree with HSD, isn’t that large a point. Yet, this thread would indicate otherwise.
CW: Are you sure public schools are allowed to segregate kids based on sex? Maybe so. I’m not an expert by any stretch.
Im not sure. Im just saying that segregating by gender isn’t necessarily a religious act, like studying the Koran or the Bible, praying, etc. And while I think the courts have given too much leeway to such ostensibly non-religious acts (eg blue laws), that is the existing precedent.
Fortunately, I think we’re moving the right direction on those issues as well, so maybe this wouldn’t pass muster anymore. And Id be happy with that outcome.
progressives and arch-conservatives, as opposed to the broader group of generic liberal or conservative leaning jurists, tend heavily toward outcome jurisprudence at the expense of precedent, predictability and, ultimately, intellectual coherence.
I think that all jurists do this; it’s just that the mainstream jurists are operating within an Overton window of ‘accepted interpretation’, and we become accustomed to that framework. But those interpretations ought not be privileged as more reasonable just because they are mainstream. Take, for example, Bork’s out-of-the-mainstream view that the 9th amendment ought to be treated as an inkblot on the Constitution- similar inkblot-type views have been IMO held by the majority regarding parts of the Constitution (eg Plessy, the Slaugherhouse cases, Korematsu).
In the mainstream, we see all manner of inconsistency from case to case from the same judge, based on what appears to me to be results-oriented jurisprudence: switching between decision-making processes (eg afaict, stare decisis is Latin for “I prefer the earlier decision although I can find no actual justification for it”), putting varying weight on various parts of the decision-making process (eg how much deference to give to legislative or executive opinions/findings, which precedents to apply), how to understand the language being interpreted (eg signing statements, legislative records, only the text itself, which definitions to use, what implications to draw).
When I see a new SC decision, I often think- did any of the jurists here reach a conclusion contrary to (what appears to be) their personal, political views? And it’s pretty rare when I can give a strong ‘yes’ to that.
McK: Yet, this thread would indicate otherwise.
Possibly in your mind. To me what it appears to most-strongly indicate is that you’re an Islamophobic bigot who won’t listen to anyone who tries to enlighten you of your bigotry with mere facts, and for some reason, most of the rest of us have not yet given up on trying to enlighten you, even though it seems clear that you’re really not going to listen to anything that would require you to let go of your bigotry.
Ramsey says, “Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of
life, cult whatever you want to call it,”
The question isn’t whether Ramsey personally thinks Islam is a cult or not. It’s whether he believes that Islam is deserving of the protections of the First Amendment right to freedom of religion. He certainly calls that into question in the larger context of his quote (which you didn’t reproduce).
I mean, I may personally think that Scientology is a cult. But I also believe that it certainly deserves the protection of the First Amendment. If I say “I think Scientology is a cult, not a true religion per se”, that is very different on it’s own than if it’s followed by “…and the Constitution only protects Freedom Of Religion”.
Jesurgislac: Now, what did he really mean by that?
Simultaneous bow/chortle.
But that’s not the same as believing that it ought to dictate policy in the here-and-now. I can tell you that my church does not believe Leviticus applies to how Christians should live their lives, in the here and now. Has to do with new covenants superceding old; probably not too interesting.
In a larger, more general context, there are people who are of the mind to seize things out of the Bible to support their own particular prejudices. If that had been your point, and it didn’t seem to be, I wouldn’t argue against it. There may even be sects of Christianity that are hard-over on Leviticus, but you’d have to show me that such people constitute a regardable percentage of the entirety.
The laws in Leviticus applied to Jews (Israelites) only. They didn’t apply to people of other religions. We Christians are not, for example, required to submit any mildewed leather goods to our local priest, among a large number of other bits in Leviticus that we do not have to follow.
Take free speech for corporations: it’s always been recognized
OT, for which my apologies, but this is factually incorrect.
Please see the Tillman Act (1907), Austin v Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), McConnell v FEC (2003), for starters.
raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game.
You know what? You’re right, it is fair game.
And you’ve spun that game out for this full thread, without once being able to demonstrate a single aspect of Islam — not one — that presents any greater problem to American civil society than any other religion does.
Nobody is saying you can’t raise the issue. It does, however, behoove you to present some substance.
Jes: please, with the insults. Oy.
McTex: Ramsay issued those comments in the context of denying Muslims the ability to build a house of worship. And, in reclassifying Islam as a cult, he was looking to circumvent Constitutional prohibitions on such denials.
Your first comment suggested that Ramsay was guilty of bad manners, but…then much followed. Which made it unclear whether you thought there was a basis for stripping Con protection from Islam as a religion.
This was controversial to some.
Also, honor killings are not a part of Islam, or Sharia. They are cultural, and I’ve made this point to you more than once. At least have the decency to disagree with a counterargument.
Further, a lot of the comments addressed the likelihood that Muslims in the US would threaten the Constitution with their attempts to practice a fundamentalist version that current US Muslims by and large don’t attempt.
Anyway.
McTx worries that the number of Muslims in the US might grow.
I have a question: How?
To my knowledge, the number of Muslims, like the number of Baptists or the number of Catholics, can only grow by:
1) Birth
2) Conversion
3) Immigration
Which of these, I ask McKinney, is the basis of his worry?
Birth? Even granting that religion is hereditary (which I am happy to do) is McKinney really worried about a Muslim baby boom?
Conversion? Is McKinney really worried that Islam is persuasive enough to seduce Baptists or Catholics away from their hereditary religions?
Immigration? Even if you dislike Muslim immigrants, you’d have to postulate an awful lot of them, wouldn’t you?
But maybe McKinney is worried about some fourth way that I can’t imagine. Or maybe numbers are irrelevant to what worries him. I don’t have my internet psychologist license yet, so all I can do is ask these questions.
–TP
There may even be sects of Christianity that are hard-over on Leviticus, but you’d have to show me that such people constitute a regardable percentage of the entirety.
If we’re going to have to respect archaic priestly cult law, I want the Year of Jubilee reinstated.
Eric: Jes: please, with the insults. Oy.
Insults? Did I say anything insulting? I don’t think so. I identified McKinneyTexas’s problem in clear language.
Eh. Less mind reading please.
You’d have to have some food/drink put away for that, but I agree with the sentiment.
Or, put another way: Yeah, I’m being as polite as I can be to and about McKinneyTexas, who has, in this thread, clarified that discrimination and denial of civil rights to LGBT people is within the social contract, but that homosexuals are useful as a means of berating Muslims.
When right-wingers who neither believe in nor support women’s rights and GLBT rights at home, and ignore completely how many Christian countries treat women and GLBT people, pick up the font of mistreatment of women and mistreatment of GLBT people and use it to justify their Islamophobic bigotry, I not only despise their Islamophobia, I resent their making use of
people whom they do not care about to justify their bigotry.
Which is what McKinneyTexas is doing. And since he has demonstrated he pays no attention to anything anyone says that might enlighten him, I don’t doubt he will keep doing that.
You’d have to have some food/drink put away for that, but I agree with the sentiment.
I have two refrigerators and a big pantry.
Bring it.
Jes,
It’s a conversation, and he has certainly not “clarified” the things you claim. Yours is the worst possible reading of his comments, and lacks any type of dialectical slack.
Please refrain.
Also, there’s a difference to saying that a certain statement or position is bigoted, and the person is. The former is fine. The latter involves a lot of mind reading and is generally not cool in the comments.
Jay Smooth has a great video about how to effectively criticize racist statements/positions (forgive me if I originally found this here and it’s all old news):
http://www.illdoctrine.com/2008/07/how_to_tell_people_they_sound.html
Love that video. Was looking for it, but couldn’t find it. I first came across it on Balloon Juice fwiw.
And you’ve spun that game out for this full thread, without once being able to demonstrate a single aspect of Islam — not one — that presents any greater problem to American civil society than any other religion does.
Actually, what I’ve mainly done is reiterate my basic position and when asked to give examples, I’ve done so. The responses have been generally, well Christians and Jews do things too. As if that disproved my point.
Nor did I ever indicate that Islam in the US poses any greater problem than any other religion.
I happen to think there are aspects of the fundamentalist Christian movement on what is mainly the right that pose a relatively more imminent, but still marginal threat to our social contract. FWIW.
OT, for which my apologies, but this is factually incorrect.
Please see the Tillman Act (1907), Austin v Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), McConnell v FEC (2003), for starters.
Didn’t Austin follow the first round of CFR? What prior restraints did the Tillman Act place of corporations?
McTx worries that the number of Muslims in the US might grow.
I believe I said words to the effect: if it grows (the number, that is). I have not expressed any concern or worry. TP, I think this is one of many cases where more is read into my comments than was actually there.
Which made it unclear whether you thought there was a basis for stripping Con protection from Islam as a religion.
I think my words were and are pretty clear. I think there has been a lot of jumping-to-conclusions. Ramsey was out of bounds, but that does not mean that there is nothing about Islam that doesn’t present potential constitutional issues as that religion is practiced. It was neither an exclusive statement limited solely to Islam nor a comparative statement favoring any other religion over Islam. That so many others read so much into it is not of my doing.
The social contract in the US holds, generally, a respect for the right of others to believe as they will and a subordination of personal beliefs to the rule of law. To respond indirectly to some of Jes’ hyperventilation: if a law is passed allowing gay marriage (as I would favor), the majority of Americans would abide by that law whether regardless of their religious views. That many Americans–but a number that shrinks every year–oppose gay marriage for religious reasons doesn’t mean they don’t sign on to the contract. Rather, the contract permits dissenting views, even views that are based on bigotry or ignorance or a combination of the two. A different example would be abortion: most who oppose Roe limit their opposition to the ballot box, a small minority do not, a very small minority are extremists. The contract allows people to disagree with Roe and vote accordingly.
And the notion — and from a lawyer, too! — that someone might mount a 1st Amendment defense (“my religion made me do it”) in a murder trial, and that fear of this eventuality and the need to guard against it is worth one nanosecond of our time, is so bizarre that I think I need to go to the beach and bask in the blazing sun for a while to regain my sense of proportion.
It is well within reasonable contemplation that witnesses might refuse to give testimony about what they perceive to be a justifiable homicide based on religious views or that a defendant might plead their cultural and religious requirements as mitigating factors in defense to a charge of murder. Whether the issue is holding the witness in contempt or ruling on the legal efficacy of the claimed mitigating factor, the free exercise clause is implicated.
Janie, because I raise the prospect of a defense being raised doesn’t mean I expect it to prevail–I mean only that there are foreseeable circumstances under which the free exercise clause will be triggered.
If I’ve said something substantively beyond that–other than offering a hypothetical example in direct response to request or a challenge–point it out to me and I will try to fix or clarify it.
McTex,
You said:
Ramsey was out of bounds, but that does not mean that there is nothing about Islam that doesn’t present potential constitutional issues as that religion is practiced.
Then:
Janie, because I raise the prospect of a defense being raised doesn’t mean I expect it to prevail–I mean only that there are foreseeable circumstances under which the free exercise clause will be triggered.
I think the confusion, and the miscommunication, on this thread stems from the fact that the threats to the Constitution, or challenges thereto, seem so mundane that there isn’t a lot of there there that is worth exploring.
It’s all rather uncontroversial.
Some Muslims might try to impose their religion in the public square in ways that Christians have, and they will meet the same Constitutional barriers.
Some might try to use their religion to justify murder as George Tiller did. Again, they will hit the same wall.
Seems like there isn’t much there worth exploring because it’s so humdrum. The confusion stems from the apprehension on our part that you were suggesting that there was something more than routine religious tensions with Islam – pointing to Europe, repeatedly, as a harbinger.
In a larger, more general context, there are people who are of the mind to seize things out of the Bible to support their own particular prejudices. If that had been your point, and it didn’t seem to be, I wouldn’t argue against it.
My point was that the number of people in the world who believe that the events depicted in Leviticus all occurred literally as described, and added to that the number who believe its various commandments apply even today, is far more than a “handful of fringe lunatics.” Which is exactly what I said. Where you got lost with that escapes me.
Nor did I ever indicate that Islam in the US poses any greater problem than any other religion.
Then why did you keep bringing up honor killings and stoning homosexuals and whatnot?
The responses have been generally, well Christians and Jews do things too. As if that disproved my point.
Nor did I ever indicate that Islam in the US poses any greater problem than any other religion.
Some significant majority of US citizens are as least casual adherents to a religion. So if this is the case, and Islam poses no greater problem, then why bring it up on this thread, and discuss the specific issues you see with Islam- simultaneously pointing out that Islam might influence our school lunch menu while dismissing concerns that blue laws have already had a similar effect from the Christian side?
It was neither an exclusive statement limited solely to Islam nor a comparative statement favoring any other religion over Islam. That so many others read so much into it is not of my doing.
Well, you didn’t really correct anyone until now. That is of your doing.
It is well within reasonable contemplation that witnesses might refuse to give testimony about what they perceive to be a justifiable homicide based on religious views or that a defendant might plead their cultural and religious requirements as mitigating factors in defense to a charge of murder. Whether the issue is holding the witness in contempt or ruling on the legal efficacy of the claimed mitigating factor, the free exercise clause is implicated.
Only insofar as a defendant might *wrongly* assert that their behavior was protected. I just don’t see that as “implicated”. If I claim that my daily spliff is a weapon and therefore protected under the 2nd amendment, no Constitutional issue is implicated- Im merely mistaken.
Obviously, individuals and their lawyers make claims all of the time without the inference that those claims necessarily have some substance just by virtue of having been made.
I think the confusion, and the miscommunication, on this thread stems from the fact that the threats to the Constitution, or challenges thereto, seem so mundane that there isn’t a lot of there there that is worth exploring.
It’s all rather uncontroversial.
I went back to McK’s first comment, which said That said, raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game.
And yeah, maybe this is a misunderstanding. I interpreted such a statement, following on the original post, as ‘there are aspects of Islam which ought not be protected as religious activity, such as the building of Mosques.’
But then I have another problem- McK, if this was your point all along- that some people believe their religion gives them license to act outside of the law & social contract- but that they are mistaken in this belief- it seems like you could’ve corrected the misinterpretation. It would been very easy to say “Islam deserves exactly the same protections that all other religions receive, and that protection ends when others’ rights are infringed upon.” If that’s a fair summation of your views on the Constitutionality of practicing Islam, then I think we’re in agreement.
The social contract in the US holds, generally, a respect for the right of others to believe as they will and a subordination of personal beliefs to the rule of law. . . . A different example would be abortion: most who oppose Roe limit their opposition to the ballot box, a small minority do not, a very small minority are extremists. The contract allows people to disagree with Roe and vote accordingly.
Not to get into this yet again, but the idea that people’s rights should be up for a vote is itself inimical to the rule of law. And given that there are no real nonreligious objections to safe, legal abortion . . . well, you put it together.
If that’s a fair summation of your views on the Constitutionality of practicing Islam, then I think we’re in agreement.
Much ado about nothing. Now if feel really guilty about blog-reading and commenting while I should have been working. If only there had been a point to all of this.
Nor did I ever indicate that Islam in the US poses any greater problem than any other religion.
Thanks for clarifying that.
What prior restraints did the Tillman Act place of corporations?
You asserted that corporate free speech has “always been recognized”.
Tillman prohibited corporations from making contributions to political campaigns.
In Austin v Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Finance Act, which likewise prohibited corporations from using corporate treasury funds to support or oppose political candidates, was held to specifically not violate the 1st or 14th Amendments.
Net/net, the right of corporations to free speech under the 1st has most definitely not “always been recognized”. It has, in fact, most typically been *not* recognized.
McKinney: Nor did I ever indicate that Islam in the US poses any greater problem than any other religion.
Yes, you did. In this thread there are actual comments in which you claimed this.
You may now have changed your mind, but it would be courteous to admit it, rather than just doing a “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia” shift in the same thread.
And speaking of the fallout from Citizens United, Target Corp. has decided to be the first into the fray.
Phil, Target’s contribution makes perfect sense.
The Republican candidate they are contributing to hates taxes and gays.
Target hates taxes but supports gays.
The candidate will reduce or eliminate taxes so that Target can hire more people, including gays, at subsistence wages. They might even secure a bonus in the deal, by having Obamacare repealed.
If the Minnesota Republican in question was also in favor of stoning women to death, Target would not withdraw their support, given their commonality on the tax issue.
Target’s tax burden would then be reduced, permitting them to lower the price of stones.
We saw how this worked in Germany 75 years ago. Railroads were relieved of pesky taxes and regulation and, as a result, were able to provide free transportation for select customers.
Yes, I got that. To clarify my response: I don’t have any issue with the claim that a goodly chunk of Judeo-Christianity believes that the events depicted in Leviticus all occurred literally as described. What I question is that you have any basis at all for the notion that there’s any significant portion of Judeo-Christianity that believes that its various commandments apply even today. You can’t add (or otherwise conflate) those populations, because one is, for the most part, a (small, I say) subset of the other.
OTOH if you’re pointing out that lots of people believe funny things, that is uncontroversial, but not nearly as scary. Which I’ve already said, in so many words.
A Target spokesman, from Phil’s link:
“Let me be very clear,” he said, “Target’s support of the GLBT community is unwavering, and inclusiveness remains a core value of our company.”
In the Target lexicon, “unwavering” can also mean “for sale”.
I actually don’t have that big of a problem with businesses acting like making money is their first priority. The world might be a somewhat better place if that took second place to, perhaps, providing value to their customers, but it’s a tough world out there and if you don’t make your nut, you go away.
But giving corporations, with the enormous financial and other resources they bring to the table, access to the political process is going to do nothing but fnck it up for the actual human beings who live here.
Corporations do not have the same priorities as people do. OK, maybe they have the same priorities as twisted greedy people, but not the same as normal people.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Corporations have a purpose for existing, and that purpose requires them to have the priorities they have.
But they’re not people. They’re not even a proxy for the people who own them and work for them. They’re a legal structure for encouraging the formation of capital by limiting the liability of the investors.
Citizens United is going to be remembered as one of the truly crappy SCOTUS decisions of all time, and its practical effect is going to be to radically distort public policy in this country in ways we can only dream of.
We’re stuck with this freaking court for another generation.
Slartibartfast: What I question is that you have any basis at all for the notion that there’s any significant portion of Judeo-Christianity that believes that its various commandments apply even today.
Many Jews get really offended at having Judaism, the oldest of the three Abrahamic religions, get muddled in with Christianity by the phrase “Judeo-Christianity”.
And yes, it is basically kind of the point of being Jewish that you do believe that the mitzvot commanded in Vayikra apply even today – though rabbi may differ as to how to interpret them.
For Christians, the commandments of Leviticus are primarily used as a stick to beat people Christians don’t like – you never see the religious right demonstrating outside McDonalds because they sell milk and meat in the same cheeseburger, for example.
And that different is one good reason why muddling the two faiths together is a silly thing to do.
You rarely do see Jews stoning each other, though, so the degree to which Leviticus is taken literally is, well, limited.
My apologies to any Jews that were offended by my usage.
Everybody must get stoned.
You rarely do see Jews stoning each other, though, so the degree to which Leviticus is taken literally is, well, limited.
Well, that’s a rather different statement from what you originally said, which was that Jews and Christians do not believe “that [Leviticus/Vayikra]’s various commandments apply even today” – which Christians certainly don’t but Jews certainly do.
The idea that Jews can only be said to think the mitzvot of Vayikra apply if they actually have Adolf Eichmann stoned to death seems… just plain wrong.
Islamo-Christian countries are far more likely to apply the death penalty to their own citizens than Israel is to Israeli citizens, though of course Israel does indiscriminately kill non-citizens as a form of collective punishment.
For Christians, the commandments of Leviticus are primarily used as a stick to beat people Christians don’t like
This. Precisely.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard very many recent cases of Jewish people stoning other people for adultery or homosexuality. So it isn’t very accurate to suggest that those particular portions of Leviticus are understood to be in force.
No, I’m afraid you’re wrong, here. Leviticus prescribes stoning for various offenses. But you already knew that.
Noting that Jews don’t heed Leviticus in this regard is perfectly consistent with my earlier statements.
This, precisely, is how actions taken by some Muslims get attached to all of Islam.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard very many recent cases of Jewish people stoning other people for adultery or homosexuality.
I’m pretty sure Jes hasn’t either, Sebastian.
So it isn’t very accurate to suggest that those particular portions of Leviticus are understood to be in force.
Sigh.
I took Jes to be making the rather obvious observation that even if Leviticus isn’t “understood to be in force,” it still gets used as a rhetorical gay-bashing stick on a regular basis. A cursory glance at just about any “faith-based” argument against equality for LGBT folk would bear this out.
However, not wishing to get into a 200-comment discussion with Sebastian on the precise meanings of the words “rhetorical,” “gay,” “bashing,” “stick,” “on,” “a,” “regular,” and “basis,” I’ll step away now.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t heard very many recent cases of Jewish people stoning other people for adultery or homosexuality.
Because the appropriate Rabbinical courts and the Temple no longer exist, not because they don’t believe those particular commandments are no longer in effect.
They also don’t currently keep the commandments related to the operation of the Temple, or those that had to be carried out within the Temple, for obvious reasons. That doesn’t mean that those commandments are not in effect.
Although I’m not saying that if the Sanhedrin reconvened that Jews would start stoning gays and adulterers and Sabbath violators. The circumstances under which those punishments were, in the rabbinical tradition, to take place were almost impossible to meet anyway; and I believe there is later Talmudic commentary recommending against them.
“I took Jes to be making the rather obvious observation that even if Leviticus isn’t “understood to be in force,” it still gets used as a rhetorical gay-bashing stick on a regular basis. A cursory glance at just about any “faith-based” argument against equality for LGBT folk would bear this out.”
I didn’t take it that way. I took it as a point suggesting strong similarity between how Christian-influenced governments, Jewish-influenced governments and Muslim-influenced governments operate. But the actual killing of homosexuals is done in relatively advanced Muslim-influenced governments like Iran. I’m not aware of that in Israel. Which seems like somewhat of a difference. (Unless you want to say that Iran is more like Somalia than it is like Israel. But normally Iran is held out as a relatively advanced and modern Muslim government.)
But the actual killing of homosexuals is done in relatively advanced Muslim-influenced governments like Iran.
Seven countries in the world still have the death penalty for homosexuality: Iran, Nigeria, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
Those countries voted against an UN resolution to decriminalize homosexuality last year. As did the Vatican.
The Vatican representative justified their vote by arguing that in many countries where homosexuality is not a crime, this eventually leads to gay marriage. So the actual killing of homosexuals is well accepted by the Catholic Church, while decriminalizing consensual sex might lead to legal recognition of same-sex relationships and even gay parents. Much better to kill them young than to let them marry…
Phil: Although I’m not saying that if the Sanhedrin reconvened that Jews would start stoning gays and adulterers and Sabbath violators. The circumstances under which those punishments were, in the rabbinical tradition, to take place were almost impossible to meet anyway; and I believe there is later Talmudic commentary recommending against them.
Indeed.
Basically, if we just want to measure the world by rights-of-LGBT-people-and-all-women, Christo-Islamic (or Islamo-Christian) is the anti-rights bloc, and Judaeo-secular is the pro-rights bloc.
Hooray for secular Judaism! (As the son of a secular Jew, I highly recommend it.)
But the actual killing of homosexuals is done in relatively advanced Muslim-influenced governments like Iran.
It was very close to being done in Uganda very recently, with the active involvement of Christian clergy.
Then there are Christian-dominant places like the British Caribbean — particularly Jamaica — where people believed to be gay have been subject to mob violence in broad daylight, in the name of Christian morality.
None of which mitigates the utter horror of a case like Iran. But you’re apparently one more conservative who insists that the difference between Christianity and Islam in this regard is fundamental, when it’s actually just a question of degree.
For Christians, the commandments of Leviticus are primarily used as a stick to beat people Christians don’t like
I put it to everyone here: isn’t this a very broad and possibly bigoted over-generalization? Stumped by this one? I’ll rewrite the quote, For Muslims, the commandments of the Koran are primarily used as a stick to beat people Muslims don’t like.
I mean, if we were to review this thread objectively, didn’t I spend about half of it being chastized/questioned/called a bigot for raising questions about Islam and the free exercise clause?
Haven’t, on other threads, I been fairly thoroughly slammed for using the expression jihadist in place of Islamic extremist?
Actually, while Jes probably is a bit prejudiced against Christians, or at least subsets thereof, she has her reasons. I am simply noting a bit of a double standard. In fact, it’s one I noted in my original comment: (not that bad manners keeps any number of progressives from saying substantively about Christianity what Ramsey said about Islam)
where people believed to be gay have been subject to mob violence in broad daylight, in the name of Christian morality.
And this was at the instance of the Jamaican gov’t? Mob violence and gov’t action are usually two different things.
I have not read specifics, stats, or depositions about the antigay violence in Jamaica, but: Sometimes mob violence is tacitly condoned by the government. There’s a spectrum between the two poles of mob violence and government violence.
Mob violence and gov’t action are usually two different things.
And yet the end result is the same.
Source
Source
I mean, if we were to review this thread objectively, didn’t I spend about half of it being chastized/questioned/called a bigot for raising questions about Islam and the free exercise clause?
No, you spent about half of it being chastised for insinuating repeatedly that there was something unique about Islam in this regard, then pretending at the last minute that you weren’t doing that.
Horrible things are done to LGBT people, up to and including state-sanctioned murder, in the name of Islam.
Horrible things are done to LGBT people, up to and including state-sanctioned murder, in the name of Christianity.
In both cases, people draw on the holy writings of the religion in question as a pretext.
There are differences of scope and degree, but the above facts seem pretty banal to me.
And yet Sebastian and McKinney simply will not let go of the idea that there is some qualitative distinction at work here — a difference of kind, not of degree — such that Islam comes out fundamentally “worse” than Christianity. And as the thread goes on, the contortions get ever more extreme, bordering on grotesque: Being put to death by the state in Iran somehow has to be “worse” than being beaten to death by a mob in Jamaica while the police stand by and do nothing.
And I still don’t know what the ultimate point of it all is. I do know that I need to follow my own advice and move on from this little discussion, because it’s starting to really bum me out.
For Christians, the commandments of Leviticus are primarily used as a stick to beat people Christians don’t like
This. Precisely.
THEN
I do know that I need to follow my own advice and move on from this little discussion, because it’s starting to really bum me out.
What part do you find so depressing–the glass house part? Generalizing, stigmatizing, blanket statements without qualification or nuance? Phil, you there? Carleton? Anybody?
Not a problem. We’ll pass this way again.
Would you like me to answer for Uncle Kvetch or Jesurgislac? Because that’s who you’re quoting while calling me out. Sorry, but I’m neither authorized nor qualified to speak for them.
As I said, my problem is your repeated insinuation that Islam is somehow unique in having tenets that might run afoul of the First Amendment somehow — even though your apparent bugbear, honor killings, are not a tenet of Islam or Sharia law at all, as was repeatedly explained to you and which you never acknowledged.
Then, when called on it enough times, you coyly fall back on, “Oh, I never meant to imply that Islam was somehow unique.” Even though that was pretty clearly your intent.
I’m not here to defend Islam, any more than I am any other belief system I don’t practice. But I know unreasonable bigotry when I see it.
I am calling you out for hypocrisy. For reading into my statement what you want to see and ignoring the same if its directed toward Christians.
Honor killings, persecution and execution of homosexuals, stoning of “adulterous women”, relegation of women to chattel status, these aren’t small things. Whether they fall under the rubric of Sharia or the more general practice and tradition of Islam, they are government policy in many Islamic countries. Not mob practice, not private thuggery, but governmental policy.
Historically, Christianity has inflicted the same class and degree of horror (and is doing so now in parts of Africa which are as abhorrent as anything Iran et al do). If Islam (or Christianity as it is now being practiced in Uganda, for example) were to be practiced here as it is elsewhere, it would raise significant free exercise questions. I addressed Islam because that was the subject of Eric’s post. That was my first point. It is neither bigoted nor inaccurate. My second point was that comments like Ramsey’s get great play in progressive quarters if they are about Islam. If it is a progressive slamming Christianity, the silence is deafening. Jes proves my point and so do you.
I put it to everyone here: isn’t this a very broad and possibly bigoted over-generalization? Stumped by this one? I’ll rewrite the quote, For Muslims, the commandments of the Koran are primarily used as a stick to beat people Muslims don’t like.
Yes it is overly broad, and as such, it is bigoted. There are, in fact, many Christians that do not have backwards, retrograde attitudes about homesexuality, and that should be acknowledged.
Simply put, the statement should have been caveated. Admittedly, people say things that aren’t properly caveated all the time. But the proper response to having this pointed out is to, then, clarify and caveat.
Point made.
Honor killings, persecution and execution of homosexuals, stoning of “adulterous women”, relegation of women to chattel status, these aren’t small things. Whether they fall under the rubric of Sharia or the more general practice and tradition of Islam, they are government policy in many Islamic countries. Not mob practice, not private thuggery, but governmental policy.
Ugh!!!
McTex, honor killings are NOT a part of Islam. And NOT a part of Sharia.
Please, please, please stop repeating this unless you have actual evidence to the contrary.
As pointed out, other religions practice this barbarism, and it is cultural in origin, not religious.
Also, what do you mean chattel status? This is actually not true. By Sharia law, women have very clearly delineated property and inheritance rights and are NOT considered chattel.
Ironically, in the US, women WERE legally considered chattel until around the turn of the century.
Otherwise, in which Muslim country are honor killings government policy?
Honor killings . . . aren’t small things. Whether they fall under the rubric of Sharia or the more general practice and tradition of Islam
Once again, they are neither, as Eric points out above me. You need to either acknowledge this, or present evidence to the contrary, or I’m going to assume from this point forward that you are acting in bad faith.
If Islam (or Christianity as it is now being practiced in Uganda, for example) were to be practiced here as it is elsewhere, it would raise significant free exercise questions.
But it wouldn’t, because none of the things you’ve brought up have ever been protected expressions of religious freedom and never will be. They haven’t been when done by Christians, Jews or anyone else, and they won’t be when done by Muslims. You’re inventing, in your head, a crisis that’s never going to happen. Unless you honestly believe our courts will suddenly be deferential to Islam in a way they never have been towards other religions.
My second point was that comments like Ramsey’s get great play in progressive quarters if they are about Islam. If it is a progressive slamming Christianity, the silence is deafening. Jes proves my point and so do you.
Wow, bigoted remarks towards minorities get more attention and opprobrium than those directed at the dominant cultural paradigm. Color me shocked. Next you’re going to tell me that rich people have more money than poor people.
I mean, is it really shocking that bigoted remarks by a candidate for high office* in which he discusses stripping First Amendment protections from a group which currently comprises less than 2% of the US population get more condemnation then some faceless people on the intertubes making bigoted remarks about a religion practiced by 76% of Americans? Context matters.
I can’t argue with the assertion that some progressives have at various points made bigotted statements about Christianity. But, so what?
What I would point out is that commenters on this thread are describing the bad behavior of both Jews and Christians, among others, in the names of said adherents’ religions, specifically in reaction to your characterizations of Muslims that those commenters have taken to be meant as being somehow special or unique to Muslims, McKinney. There is no hypocricy in demonstrating that Muslims are not unique in their bad, religiously justified behavior by showing similar instances among other faiths. The point isn’t “You can’t say anything bad about Muslims, but I can say whatever I like about Christians.” The point is “You’re wrong that Muslims are somehow different in this respect than members of other religions, because members of other faiths have done the same things.”
You’ve said, McKinney, that your point wasn’t that there was something special about Islam or Muslims with regard to our constitutional protections of freedom of religion, but it certainly could have been taken that way. The most obvious reason to bring up Muslims in particular when the protections apply to all religions is to point out that there is something special or different or unique about Muslims with regard to constitutional protections.
Let’s say we’re at a party and everyone is wearing red. If I start going on about how much nerve it takes for Eric Martin to be wearing red (Eric the Red, heh), despite that fact that everyone is wearing red, wouldn’t you think I might have something against Eric that I don’t have against everyone else. And if you pointed out that everyone else was also wearing red, would that then make you a hypocrite (because, supposedly, you were acting just like I was)?
Context matters.
I put it to everyone here: isn’t this a very broad and possibly bigoted over-generalization?
I’d say it’s overly broad.
What part do you find so depressing–the glass house part?
I don’t wish to speak for Uncle K, so I won’t.
I don’t mind speaking for many other gay people I know, for whom the “depressing part” is confronting the reality that lots of their neighbors and fellow citizens believe that, due to their being gay, they are going to burn in hell for all time and, in this life, are fair game for a beating and/or any number of other forms of abuse.
If any of the forms of Islam-inspired bad behavior that you refer to throughout this thread were, in fact, at all common in this country, I might feel toward Muslims and the Koran some of the same sentiments that Uncle K has expressed toward Christians and the Bible. I hope not, but I might.
Beating the crap out of gays is quite common here, receives a disturbing level of acceptance, and is quite often justified by citing proof texts from, among other places, the archaic Jewish priestly temple cult handbook know to us as Leviticus.
And I speak as someone who is quite fond of the book. I’m just not blind to the harmful ways it’s used, and on a daily basis.
Not saying the Koran isn’t also misused in similar ways, it’s just vanishingly uncommon here, and shows no particular sign of becoming more common. Thankfully.
My asterisk above was supposed to point to a footnote in which it is noted that he is white (62% of the US population), male (49% of the US population), Christian (85% of the US population) and Methodist (3rd largest Christian denomination in the US). This man, who is a member of so many demographic majorities or near-majorities, wants to govern his state, and is discussing whether he might be able to remove First Amendment protections from Muslims.
Muslims, by the way, are about 1% of the population of Tennessee.
So, yeah, I’m more condemning of the potential governor of the state of Tennessee wanting to punish 1% of his population for no good reason than I am of two homosexual posters at ObWi having a bone to pick with Christianity.
My bad. I guess?
I really agree with the last sentence in Phil’s 10:16 comment. (Obviously, I didn’t write my 10:18 comment in two short minutes after reading Phil’s. Plate of shrimp.)
McKinneyTexas: If it is a progressive slamming Christianity, the silence is deafening. Jes proves my point and so do you.
Ah-huh. Right now a post I wrote a couple of years ago seems appropriate to cite: What I Like About Christianity.
You are slamming Islam based on ignorance. Based on no personal experience and minimal acquired knowledge.
I pointed out that Christianity has been used, in the US, to justify killings, beatings, bullying, denial of civil rights, denial of human rights, etc. I’ve argued with Christians who claim their faith requires them to deny lesbian and gay people health insurance, seriously.
Thanks to the US invasion of Iraq, letting the Islamic equivalent loose there, LGBT Iraqis are being hunted down and murdered, and the US occupation neither interferes nor even speaks out against this. Nor has the US reached out any helpful hand to let LGBT Iraqis seek asylum from the Islamic killers the US loosed on them. What, after all, would the powerful Christians in high places in the US say about preferentially letting queer Muslims into the US?
Not seeing you speak out against that either, McKinney. Just using people of my sexual orientation as an excuse to slam Islam, without actually wanting to do a thing about any specific evils named.
“It was very close to being done in Uganda very recently, with the active involvement of Christian clergy.”
But you’re comparing Iran (which is generally considered to be a very advanced, fairly modern country) to Uganda, which is barely a functioning country at all.
“But you’re apparently one more conservative who insists that the difference between Christianity and Islam in this regard is fundamental, when it’s actually just a question of degree.”
Of course it is just a question of degree. But when the question of degree is getting yelled at by religious a-holes, which btw I have been for being gay, or being chased down the street by a gang, which btw I have been for being gay, or being taken up by the government of your allegedly modern country and executed, which thankfully I have not been subjected to for being gay, the *degree* is rather important.
Iran is supposed to be a pretty good model of how Islam works in a modern country. In Iran it was not only legal for the government to kill you just for being gay, but they actually did it as recently as this year.
And before we get too excited about the degrees of religious behaviour, we should note that gays haven’t fared too well in the recent explicitly anti-religious countries either. Gays were persecuted in the USSR and most of the Communist bloc European countries including being beaten to death in the great purge and sent to the gulags upon discovery after that. Government castration of gays was also permitted. Government persecution of gays became very pronounced immediately after Castro took over Cuba, and it continues to this day.
Homophobia can and does exist without religion. It even exists in anti-religion.
But you’re comparing Iran (which is generally considered to be a very advanced, fairly modern country) to Uganda, which is barely a functioning country at all.
Right — No True Scotsman and all that.
Holy Freaking God. Just listen to yourself.
Pathetic.
Iran is supposed to be a pretty good model of how Islam works in a modern country.
According to who? In what way “works”?
Culturally, and religiously, Iran is “a” model, but not a good one from a Western/liberal points of view.
I’d prefer Turkey. Or Indonesia. Or Morrocco.
I’d take Iran over Saudi Arabia, mind you, but Iran is far from good – on this issue in particular.
Sebastian: But when the question of degree is getting yelled at by religious a-holes, which btw I have been for being gay, or being chased down the street by a gang, which btw I have been for being gay,
Or having the political party you support use denying you civil rights as an electoral tactic.
Or having the leader of a world religion declare you and others of your sexual orientation be as big a threat to the world as global warming.
or being taken up by the government of your allegedly modern country and executed, which thankfully I have not been subjected to for being gay, the *degree* is rather important.
True. If you’re dead, it doesn’t really matter that the Pope or the President have decided to use you as a metaphorical chew-toy, or that the local homophobes inspired by the Pope or the President have decided to beat you up. But I’m curious to know why, since the Pope and the POTUS have had much more direct effect on your daily life than has the government of Iran, you’ve never – not once – uttered one word of complaint about Catholic homophobia or Republican homophobia?
Incidentally, if Turkey ever gets to join the EU, one of the conditions of entrance is providing legal recognition to same-sex couples. The US couldn’t join the EU, so long as DOMA is on the books…
“Right — No True Scotsman and all that.”
Come on, you’re invoking the true scotsman fallacy over the barely functioning state of Uganda, but won’t give me Iran?
And the anti-religious countries? You aren’t giving me them either?
I would say that Cuba is at least as relevant as Uganda. Both have nasty practices right this second. And certainly the USSR is more so. (Or China).
“Culturally, and religiously, Iran is “a” model, but not a good one from a Western/liberal points of view.”
That isn’t really the question. The question is whether or not it is considered a good model from the Islamic point of view. And it gets lots of praise outside of Iran for being an Islamic republic. And much of the ire it draws is along the Sunni/Shiite split not for its treatment of homosexuals.
I’m not so sure that Indonesia is as comforting as you think. The Aceh province (considered to be the most militantly Islamic) just last year changed the punishment for homosexuality to 100 lashes or 8 years in prison. Now Indonesia operates under an interesting Republic system (that is really a massive oversimplification) so it shouldn’t be judged just on the Aceh province. But its Islamic character tolerates the “100 lashes for homosexuality” punishment in a way that say Texas would not be allowed to.
Turkey is an interesting case that we can’t really judge yet. Until this decade it had effectively an anti-Islamic state structure which it kept in place by being very anti-democratic. Now that the explicitly Islamic parties are coming to power, there has been a growing schizophrenia on social issues like gay rights, and it isn’t obvious at all how that is going to play out. And for whatever anecdotes are worth, I have two gay friends who used to visit Turkey every 5 years (for about 30) who are afraid to go back now and whose gay friends in country have all left for Europe.
So I would say on balance, if you’re gay and want to live even marginally out of the closet, living in one of the modern Christian countries is likely much safer than living in the modern Islamic ones. And living in the modern Christian countries is safer than living in the modern anti-religious countries (China, Cuba).
Well, this thread seems to have gone off the rails. I thought the point (well, one point, anyway) was that here in the good, ol’ US of A, Christianity is the primary justification for anti-gay policies and practices, and that pointing to Islam as a scary anti-gay influence here in US was 1 – just silly in the face of vastly more influential Christian anti-gay forces and 2 – hypocritical in the face of the Christian anti-gay bigotry advocated or tolerated by the very same people decrying scary Muslim anti-gay bigotry.
Sebastian, I’d no idea you wanted to live out of the closet. You’ve never said anything to indicate you objected to being classed with global warming by the Pope, or regarded as suitable material for an electoral hate-campaign by the Republican party. Seriously. Not one word. So I figured you liked being abused and used and mistreated for your sexual orientation. It’s news to me that you don’t. What are your views on the Republican Party’s systematic denial of your civil rights? On the Christian Right’s campaigning against your civil rights? No negative thoughts there?
But more seriously: the safest place for am LGBT person to live, across cultural standards, is usually going to be a country with a secular government. The more religious influence on a government, the less likely it is to acknowledge that LGBT people have the same human rights as straight people.
The US is a bad country to live in for LGBT people for the strong influence of Christians against equal civil rights for all: the Vatican’s views against human rights for LGBT people carry a lot of weight with the Italian government (the majority of Italian city-states now recognize same-sex domestic partnerships: no one knows when the national government will stand up to the Vatican and formalize this). One reason for the support for gay marriage in Spain is that the Catholic Church was such an enthusiastic supporter of Franco’s government that many Spaniards feel that if the Catholic Church doesn’t like gay marriage, it must be a good thing…
Organized Islamo-Christian religion is bad for LGBT people. I’d say Abrahamic, but while the one thing Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Jerusalem could get together to do was oppose Jerusalem Pride, practically speaking the only example of a Judaic country is good for LGBT people.
Come on, you’re invoking the true scotsman fallacy over the barely functioning state of Uganda, but won’t give me Iran?
See, “modern” and “functioning” suddenly popped up out of nowhere, Sebastian, because you had to swat down the inconvenient counterexample of Uganda, and because there was nothing –literally nothing — you wouldn’t do to accomplish that little feat of goalpost-shifting.
And before we get too excited about the degrees of religious behaviour, we should note that gays haven’t fared too well in the recent explicitly anti-religious countries either.
Oooh, look over there! Something irrelevant, but shiny!
“Tenacious and loyal,” that’s our boy.
I suspected you were going to either ignore my arguments (not a word about Jamaica, then?) or wriggle around them, but I never expected anything quite so transparently feeble as “Uganda doesn’t count — it’s not a real country.” I mean, really — I’m gobsmacked.
I was wrong to attribute any good faith to you, Sebastian — you’re just a compulsive contrarian and nothing more.
And in the grand scheme of things, there’s nothing really wrong with that. The joke’s on me — I’m just another sucker who got played.
You win. Congratulations.
Before I get side tracked, Eric your point on honor killings is taken.
And I agree further that the vast majority of Christians in the US who opposed gay marriage does so on religious grounds–a position I oppose here and, more importantly, where and when doing involves paying a price,.
What is problematical is the ease by which Jes, for example, makes an overly broad and incorrect statement about Christians, which if made about Muslims, would have brought about the virtual equivalent of a biblical stoning. Yet, no one says a word.
The second problematical issues is the hyper-defensiveness to any question being raised about Islam, which produces all kinds of mind reading, imputation of bad motive, etc.
The third issue is the speed and thoughtlessness with which supposedly tolerant and thoughtful liberals throw out the “bigot”, “racist”, “homophobe” label, effectively bringing any reasonable discourse to an end.
Self-righteousness hypocrisy is hardly the province of the religious right. It is far from isolated on the left.
Jes, for example, makes an overly broad and incorrect statement about Christians, which if made about Muslims, would have brought about the virtual equivalent of a biblical stoning. Yet, no one says a word.
Really? Where did I make this statement? Quote and cite, or apologize and retract.
The third issue is the speed and thoughtlessness with which supposedly tolerant and thoughtful liberals throw out the “bigot”, “racist”, “homophobe” label, effectively bringing any reasonable discourse to an end.
Speed? Thoughtlessness? McKinney, I am 43 years old, I have been encountering bigoted homophobia since before I came out, which was 26 years ago. I was reading headlines in the tabloid press about the “gay plague” back when I had a paper route.
Your presumption that I identify homophobia too fast is unbelievably arrogant. I identify homophobia fast because I’ve have over a quarter of a century of practice. You haven’t, because you have had no reason to develop this level of expertise.
Trying to claim that when homophobic bigotry is publicly identified as such this “brings reasonable discourse to an end” is on the level of the mostly-Christian bigots who object to having homophobia identified as such because they want to believe that thinking LGBT people are inferior and can be denied civil and human rights is normal.
The third issue is the speed and thoughtlessness with which supposedly tolerant and thoughtful liberals throw out the “bigot”, “racist”, “homophobe” label, effectively bringing any reasonable discourse to an end.
![](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/25/64925425_460eecde71.jpg")
Oh, boy, this one never gets old. “If you guys are so tolerant, how come you don’t tolerate bigotry? Huh? Huh? Answer me that, Mr. Tolerance?” I’d expect that from a 6-year-old or someone with an IQ somewhere south of 100. You’re allegedly a very successful and wealthy attorney. Do better.
If you can’t see the inherent problem with a current lieutenant governor, and possible future governor, picking on a religious minority and suggesting they be stripped of their Constitutional rights for no good reason, and think it’s no worse than someone whose real name we don’t even know (but almost certainly is not an MP) picking on Christians, on the Internet, I just don’t know what to say.
What is problematical is the ease by which Jes, for example, makes an overly broad and incorrect statement about Christians,
Wait, I’ll accept overly broad — certainly the Episcopal church in the US, and other Protestant denominations, do pretty well on LGBT issues — but what did she say that was incorrect? To the extent that Christians do express anti-gay attitudes, those attitudes are based in Leviticus. They certainly can’t point to any New Testament justification for it.
The second problematical issues is the hyper-defensiveness to any question being raised about Islam,
Iran is supposed to be a pretty good model of how Islam works in a modern country. In Iran it was not only legal for the government to kill you just for being gay, but they actually did it as recently as this year.
WE. DON’T. LIVE. IN. IRAN.
Or Saudi Arabia. Or Yemen. Or Afghanistan. Or Pakistan. Or Somalia.
We live here.
The Iranians who want to live in an Islamic theocratic state tend to stay in Iran.
The ones who come here are the ones who don’t.
McKT:
Which statement of Jes’s was overly broad and incorrect about Christians and would incite “the virtual equivalent of a biblical stoning” if made about Muslims? I can’t tell if I agree with you unless I know, and she’s made a lot of statements.
Arguments have been made repeatedly about why your mention of Islam was reasonably construed as meaning that Islam was at risk of conflicting with the Constitution MORE than other religions which are practiced in the U.S. If you didn’t read HSH’s 10:18 comment, I’m quoting it here:
“You’ve said, McKinney, that your point wasn’t that there was something special about Islam or Muslims with regard to our constitutional protections of freedom of religion, but it certainly could have been taken that way. The most obvious reason to bring up Muslims in particular when the protections apply to all religions is to point out that there is something special or different or unique about Muslims with regard to constitutional protections.
Let’s say we’re at a party and everyone is wearing red. If I start going on about how much nerve it takes for Eric Martin to be wearing red (Eric the Red, heh), despite that fact that everyone is wearing red, wouldn’t you think I might have something against Eric that I don’t have against everyone else. And if you pointed out that everyone else was also wearing red, would that then make you a hypocrite (because, supposedly, you were acting just like I was)?”
Rather than accusing us of hyper-defensiveness, mind-reading, and imputing bad-faith, can you please respond to the above analogy? Do you think the analogy is not, in fact, analogous? Why not?
So I would say on balance, if you’re gay and want to live even marginally out of the closet, living in one of the modern Christian countries is likely much safer than living in the modern Islamic ones.
I think this is true, with the one caveat that when you say “Christian countries” you mean countries with a predominately Christian population. In which case, Turkey is as much a Muslim country as any of those. But you are right that it is shifting.
Eric the Red, heh
Incorporate into my email addy in honor of my Swedish grandfather 😉
Jes is in bold and I am in italics:raising the question of the free exercise clause being fair game. It certainly does not imply that the free exercise clause would apply only to Islam.
For Christians, the commandments of Leviticus are primarily used as a stick to beat people Christians don’t like
I put it to everyone here: isn’t this a very broad and possibly bigoted over-generalization? Stumped by this one? I’ll rewrite the quote, For Muslims, the commandments of the Koran are primarily used as a stick to beat people Muslims don’t like.
Had I written about Muslims what Jes wrote about Christians, I would have been excoriated, and rightly so.
I decline to retract. It’s fair comment. More than fair.
HSD requoted, in part, by Julian:
The most obvious reason to bring up Muslims in particular when the protections apply to all religions is to point out that there is something special or different or unique about Muslims with regard to constitutional protections.
No, as I said somewhere up there, I brought up Islam because that was the topic raised by Eric’s post. Also, here is what I said that got this s**tstorm started, “raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game. Freedom to believe is virtually unlimited, not so freedom to act on those beliefs. Honor killings, the role of women, polygamy, etc. are all within Islam, or subsets thereof.
Ok, nothwithstanding that Eric has clubbed me a half dozen times over honor killings, the sentence, even with that one distinction, the context was simply
If this is going on and on about Islam, when the topic of Islam is exactly what was raised by the post, then I guess I just don’t know the rules around here.
My follow on comments were in direct response to questions/challenges deriving from what is quoted above. Julian, it was you who said much earlier that I was afraid of Muslims coming to the US. Where did I say that?
Jes, a life of putting up with homophobes cannot have been anything but awful. That doesn’t make everyone who disagrees with you a homophobic bigot.
No, as I said somewhere up there, I brought up Islam because that was the topic raised by Eric’s post.
Er, the real topic of Eric’s post was, “Does the GOP have an anti-Muslim bigot problem?” To wit:
You were the only person who jumped in to say, “Hey, maybe this Ramsey dude has a point here!”
And you did so in the context of:
a) Bringing up the irrelevant matter of how Islam is practiced in places other than the US.
b) Being the first person to bring up Christianity, and getting a slam in on “progressives” whilst doing so.
c) Definitely trying to contrast Islam and its First Amendment implications vis a vis other religions: Referring to anyone’s religion as a cult is bad manners . . . That said, raising the question of whether aspects of Islam fall under the “free exercise” clause is fair game. Yes, Eric’s post was “about” Islam (because that’s where GOP bigotry is directed!), but it would have cost you nothing to say, “Referring to anyone’s religion is a cult is bad manners, but that said, raising the question of whether particular religious practices fall under the ‘free exercise’ clause is fair game.” Deliberately or not, your comment was phrased in such a way as to call out Islam uniquely as having First Amendment implications that other religions don’t.
d) Implying that “the left” doesn’t care about Constitutional protections anyway, because here’s some irrelevant crap!
e) Saying, once again, that maybe Ramsey has a point. (“Perhaps one person blithe disregard is another’s careful discernment.”)
I mean, if that’s where you want to hang your hat, OK, fine, but that does nothing to disabuse me of the notion that Eric’s got the GOP pretty well nailed; nor that you believe Islam presents unique First Amendment challenges.
If high-up elected GOP members and candidates had been in the habit of exhibiting anti-Semitic bias in recent years, and Eric came in here to post about some ugly comments a gubernatorial candidate made about Jews and how maybe Judaism shouldn’t be considered a religion at all, would you have jumped in to say, “Hey, maybe he’s got a point. Judaism as practiced by the Orthodox has a lot of First Amendment implications!”
Answer honestly.
But, McKinney, the topic involved Islam because the topic was a bigotted statement a standing lieutenant governor and leading gubenatorial candiate made.
When you then comment that his comment was partly right or almost right in that Muslims might try to do stuff that goes against our laws, thereby raising 1st Amendment issues, and you are then challenged by others who note that those issues are really no different for Muslims than they are for any other religious adherents, you don’t say, “Well, yeah, that’s true. I didn’t mean to say that Islam was any different.”
Instead, you go on about all the ways Islam around the world is practiced radically and in ways that violate human rights and that it is adopted by oppressive governments as a state religion. But you can’t imagine why that would imply that you thought Islam was different from all the other religions protected under the free-exercise clause. Are you just playing games, or what?
Maybe your bolded comment above, which you think was innocuous enough, started this whole thing, but you could have ended it rather quickly by clarifying it right away instead of writing a bunch of stuff that kept everyone arguing against something you later claimed you didn’t really mean. Now we’re rehashing the whole thing in meta-space, arguing about the argument instead of having the argument.
McKinney: For Christians, the commandments of Leviticus are primarily used as a stick to beat people Christians don’t like
Which particular commandments of Leviticus are you asserting are routinely used for any other purpose by Christians?
Chapters 1-10 and 16 of Leviticus consist entirely of commandments with regard to the making of offerings at the alter, procedure thereof. Chapter 11 of Leviticus is a list of animals that observant Jews may not eat: Chapter 17 is instruction on how to kill clean animals properly. Chapter 12 of Leviticus is instructions for circumcision and offerings to be made by a woman after childbirth. Chapters 13-14 are instructions about identifying leprosy. Chapter 15 is instruction about the uncleanness of discharges from the penis and of menstrual blood.
Which bits of Leviticus are you thinking of, exactly, and can you cite the Christian resources which refer to them as frequently as they refer to the verses in Leviticus 18 and 22?
Had I written about Muslims what Jes wrote about Christians, I would have been excoriated, and rightly so.
Many Islamophobic bigots are fond of picking out Quranic verses that read badly and quoting them to “prove” that Islam really is that bad.
The Surah 9:5 verse (“slay the idolaters wherever ye find them”) is notorious in that respect. However, when I googled on it, I found that the sites where it was most frequently referred to weren’t Islamic sites: they were Islamophobic sites referencing this verse as a justification for their belief that Islam was inherently violent.
Had you cited Surah 9:5 I might well have picked up on that and cited you at this Muslim Access page which gives the historical context.
But I didn’t do that. I cited a specific example which has been routinely cited over and over again in justifications by Christians in the US and elsewhere as a reason why LGBT people don’t deserve civil rights – two verses from a book of Jewish law which is, in my experience of Christians citing the Bible chapter and verse, rarely if ever cited in any other context.
I decline to retract. It’s fair comment. More than fair.
Well, it’s certainly a more reasonable comment now you’ve identified which specific statement you were referring to.
But the only example I can think of from the Book of Leviticus that is cited at all regularly by Christians for any other reason but to berate others, is a few verses from Chapter 25, 10-13, which have been used by left-wing socialist liberation-theology type Christians as an argument for Jubilee Year, relieving Third World countries of their debt.
Jes, a life of putting up with homophobes cannot have been anything but awful. That doesn’t make everyone who disagrees with you a homophobic bigot.
You might notice that I’ve disgreed with virtually everyone on Obsidian Wings at some point or another. To claim that when I disagree with them, I call them a homophobic bigot, is … plain false. Your attempt to disregard what I’m saying to you by going “oh poor you” is noted.
HSH, you need to get out of my head, man.
Shrimp platter.
“I cited a specific example which has been routinely cited over and over again in justifications by SOME Christians in the US and elsewhere as a reason why LGBT people don’t deserve civil rights”
Fixed that, I believe that McK was objecting to the generalization used by the Christianophobes by quoting them to “prove” that Christianity really is that bad.
Phil, I am fine with having a conversation, even a heated one. Gratuitous insult, e.g.answer honestly, doesn’t make for useful discussion.
To try to answer your question: AFAIK, Orthodox Judaism is practiced privately, in the home. That is about all I know. All of the Jewish people I know are reformed, sort of the Jewish version of Episcopalians. But let’s say that Orthodox Judaism translated into workplace inequality for women. If that were the case, I would say that there are definite free exercise issues. Does this answer your question?
HSD–you go on about all the ways Islam around the world is practiced radically and in ways that violate human rights and that it is adopted by oppressive governments as a state religion. But you can’t imagine why that would imply that you thought Islam was different from all the other religions protected under the free-exercise clause. Are you just playing games, or what
I guess the answer is, “or what”. Actually, I noted aspects of how Islam is practiced around the world by some societies and governments, I then noted specific examples, e.g. women, gays, etc. I then said that, given the foregoing, raising the question of whether aspects of Islam are reached by the free exercise clause is fair game.
My reasoning was: given A and B, it is fair to ask whether C is implicated.
Your quote above has me saying: given A and B, C has a unique application than it would otherwise have. I said no such thing. I simply said, C is implicated.
Put differently, if Ramsey point blank had said that Islam was outside of and unprotected by the First Amendment, I would have said, That statement is completely wrong, which is not to say that some aspects of Islamic practice raise free exercise questions.
Implicit in the notion of what must occur to raise or implicate the free exercise clause is the following: an act that is civilly or criminally wrong, followed by a defense to suit or prosecution grounded on the free exercise clause and concluded by a judicial determination that the free exercise clause does not extend to the underlying conduct.
To claim that when I disagree with them, I call them a homophobic bigot, is … plain false. Your attempt to disregard what I’m saying to you by going “oh poor you” is noted.
Fair point. After rereading my words, they came across differently than I intended. Patronizing grates, and I did not mean to do that. I apologize.
I am not disregarding what you say. I am saying that I am not homophobic, just the opposite, and our disagreements lie in other areas.
Jes: slay the idolaters wherever ye find them
There are so many examples so much worse than this in the Bible that it’s a shame to pick only one, but this is a good one:
Well, that all sounds like a lot of harmless good fun and horseplay.
I believe that McK was objecting to the generalization used by the Christianophobes by quoting them to “prove” that Christianity really is that bad.
What generalization?
In 1977, Anita Bryant set out to campaign against “the homosexuals” in Florida and nation-wide. She claimed – and her supporters still back her – that Leviticus was sufficient justification for discrimination against LGBT people. And she succeeded in that Florida is the only state in the US where lesbians and gays are legally banned from adopting: they’re allowed to foster children, and do, but not to adopt them legally.
McKinney claims that saying Leviticus is only referenced by Christians as a justification to prove LGBT people don’t deserve civil rights is a sweeping generalization.
Well, I don’t offhand know any Jews who cite that verse as a mitzvot that should be applied in secular law, unlike all the rest. Nor any Muslims: anti-gay justifications in Islam are mostly found from citing positive verses about how everyone should get married. Nor is there any particular reason why people of any other faith should cite that verse. So that really does only leave Christians who do it.
And quibbling over “it’s only SOME” is real quibbling. Of course it’s only SOME. In any religion there are always people who care about berating others, and people who don’t.
“In any religion there are always people who care about berating others, and people who don’t.”
So leaving out the SOME or citing specifics, as in Anita Bryant, is an inaccurate generalization, right? Or is it just not PC to avoid that broad brush on Christians? A brush that, if used against Muslims, would create a huge backlash.
A brush that, if used against Muslims, would create a huge backlash
On this site.
But in American society at large, not at all.
Fair point. After rereading my words, they came across differently than I intended. Patronizing grates, and I did not mean to do that. I apologize.
*deep breath* Apology accepted. Thanks.
(When I started to write my 3:37 PM comment, you had not yet posted.)
I am not disregarding what you say. I am saying that I am not homophobic, just the opposite, and our disagreements lie in other areas.
This whole argument about LGBT civil rights started because you asserted in part-justification for your argument that Islam is worse than other religions was your citation of Islamic countries treating LGBT people badly. What I was trying to point out, and am still, is that Christianity is also used as a justification to treat LGBT people badly – in the US, in other countries. Any religion has been used for an evil purpose. Any religion can be used for a good purpose.
Trying to pick on one religion and saying discrimination against that religion is not bad because look at what those religionists over there are doing! – is going to fall over because you can point out religionists from any religion who are doing bad things.
AFAIK, Orthodox Judaism is practiced privately, in the home.
True in the US, for the most part, but even here you can find some constitutional issues.
And in Israel…not true at all.
McKT, I do not possess your flair with bold and italics (I always screw them up here), but:
Jes: “For Christians, the commandments of Leviticus are primarily used as a stick to beat people Christians don’t like”
McKT: “I put it to everyone here: isn’t this a very broad and possibly bigoted over-generalization? Stumped by this one? I’ll rewrite the quote, For Muslims, the commandments of the Koran are primarily used as a stick to beat people Muslims don’t like.”
You make a false equivalency there. Jes points that out in her 2:59 comment. Leviticus is a book in the Bible and is not analogous to the Quran, which is the whole book of Islam (not sure if the Quran has the hadith in it or if they’re considered to be separate). So, the Quran has parts in it that are uncontroversial, and parts that are used almost exclusively by extremists to justify antigay / antiwhatever violence, and parts that aren’t honored by anyone any more, etc etc. That’s my general impression. The Quran is like the Bible in this respect.
Leviticus is a specific book of the Bible to which no practicing Christian adheres, or mentions, except to quote as a “justification” for mistreating gays.
AFAIK, Orthodox Judaism is practiced privately, in the home. That is about all I know. All of the Jewish people I know are reformed, sort of the Jewish version of Episcopalians. But let’s say that Orthodox Judaism translated into workplace inequality for women. If that were the case, I would say that there are definite free exercise issues. Does this answer your question?
Not really. My shorter version of the question is: “If Lt. Gov Ramsey were making those kind of statements about Orthodox Judaism, would you have jumped in to say, ‘He makes a good point about Orthodox Judaism?'”
As far as “practiced in the home,” well . . . you should see the stares my wife and I get when we’re outside doing yardwork or using the car during Shabbos. (Or that she gets for wearing shorts. Or pants. Or leaving her hair uncovered.)
not sure if the Quran has the hadith in it or if they’re considered to be separate
Separate I believe.
Your quote above has me saying: given A and B, C has a unique application than it would otherwise have. I said no such thing. I simply said, C is implicated.
No. My quote above has you failing to be clear about what you were really trying to say and allowing an at least partly pointless argument to go on and on and on based on an obvious inference from what could easily have been thought to have been implied given the context of the discussion.
You may have “said no such thing” but you waited and awfully long time to tell anyone that you didn’t really mean any such thing, when it was very obvious what everyone thought you meant, for what should have been very obvious reasons, again, given the context of the discussion.
How you continue to fail to see why everyone thought you were making a point that was special to Islam and why you took so long to clear that up is a mystery to me, McKinney. (But I still like you.)
your argument that Islam is worse than other religions was your citation of Islamic countries treating LGBT people badly. What I was trying to point out, and am still, is that Christianity is also used as a justification to treat LGBT people badly – in the US, in other countries.
Jes, there are two parts here. Part 1 is your perception that I said Islam is worse than other religions in its treatment of gays. Part II is your statement that Christianity is also used as a justification for the same bad treatment.
I don’t think I said Islam is comparatively worse than other religions. What I think I said was that a number of Islamic governments overtly discriminate against gays. I suspect this is also true among a wide number of adherents world wide.
Now, your second part is one that, at first blush, I was prepared to challenge, and then on further reflection, given the Ugandan situation and the US situation on the religious right (differences in degree and kind, but still ugly enough here), I am going to have to turn over my king. I will refer back to some of Seb’s comments that degree matters: denying civil rights falls short of killing, but still, it’s embarrassing (and other words as well) for an American Christian (Episcopalian, semi-heretic subset) to see and hear from supposed Christians the venom aimed at gay people. the Ugandan thing is barbarous.
Julian, if I knew enough about the specifics of the Koran, I would have been more specific.
“If Lt. Gov Ramsey were making those kind of statements about Orthodox Judaism, would you have jumped in to say, ‘He makes a good point about Orthodox Judaism?'”
I would not say anything the way you paraphrase me, but taking your question in substance, if I knew of some aspect of Orthodox Judaism that was problematical if practiced outside the home and if imposed on others, what I would say is, Ramsey goes way too far, but that going too far doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues that may arise.
In other words, pretty much what I’ve been saying all along.
How you continue to fail to see why everyone thought you were making a point that was special to Islam and why you took so long to clear that up is a mystery to me, McKinney. (But I still like you.)
Well, there is the slight possibility I am a bit dense. Let me also suggest that there are several other factors at play. Like most of us here, I work and comment simultaneously. As a consequence, I don’t read all of the comments directed to me as closely as I should and I tend to micro-focus on certain points in certain comments. That produces mis-communication.
HSD, I don’t come here just to argue. I come here to argue, or agree with, people I respect and have come to care for. Respect and care for a great deal, in many cases.
Well, there is the slight possibility I am a bit dense.
I’ll go with this.
(Kidding, of course, but how could I resist. I’m just a man, after all.)
In many cases, but not in Hair Shirt heDonist’s?
Get his acronym right.
j/k lol!
Julian, no kidding. HSH. S**t! Cocktail hour in 70 minutes. Not a minute too soon.
Like most of us here, I work and comment simultaneously. As a consequence, I don’t read all of the comments directed to me as closely as I should and I tend to micro-focus on certain points in certain comments. That produces mis-communication.
I am DEFINITELY guilty of this.
Such that I begin to resent my day job. Not healthy 😉
Off to the New Shea Stadium to watch the Mets with my brother – a poor Mets fans. Happy hour(s) indeed!
Cocktail hour in 70 minutes.
Beat you to it, bro.
Eastern Standard Time at russell’s house!
I am thinking a vodka on ice to start.
I would not say anything the way you paraphrase me, but taking your question in substance, if I knew of some aspect of Orthodox Judaism that was problematical if practiced outside the home and if imposed on others, what I would say is, Ramsey goes way too far, but that going too far doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues that may arise.
Fair enough.
I just finished my 8 mile bike ride home. It’s drinking time. If any of you are whiskey/bourbon fans and have not tried Makers Mark’s new “46,” you owe it to yourself to find a liquor store posthaste.
Damn you East Coast liberal elites and your “timezones”.
A rather pleasant South African white wine.
(FWIW, I opened a sister bottle of red wine from the same wine company last week. I practice apartheid with wine: I never mix colours in the same drinking period.)
*toasts* It’s Friday. I’m sure we’ll all be waking up to new injustices and despair on Monday morning, but there will also be a new XKCD cartoon to make nonsense of them all.d
6:52 p.m. in NYC. A nice frosty Plymouth martini, with a twist. Fairly wet; vermouth is not an afterthought, it’s an integral part of the drink, dammit.
Cheers, and thank the deity, life-force, or absence thereof of your choice…it’s Friday.
But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t leave y’all with something to add fuel to the fire:
“See, “modern” and “functioning” suddenly popped up out of nowhere, Sebastian, because you had to swat down the inconvenient counterexample of Uganda, and because there was nothing –literally nothing — you wouldn’t do to accomplish that little feat of goalpost-shifting.”
Well surely we all expect that you can find someone somewhere doing some thing bad. For pretty much any proposition of bad acting in the whole world we can find SOMEONE who did it.
But the fact that you have to reach all the way to states which are barely part of civilization at all in order to do so says something about your argument.
You have to go to all the way to completely broken states for your example, but I only have to go as far as Iran.
Which is not a completely broken state. It is in fact one of the top two or three Muslim states around.
The problem I have with the analogies being thrown around here is that you garner evidence for them they way Jonah Goldberg proves that liberals are all communists.
If I say that the left would rather have control over people’s lives and let them starve, rather than let them be free, and invoke North Korea as an example, I’d be jumped all over. And why?
A) Because ‘the left’ in North Korea has at best a passing-when-your-eyes-are-very-squinted-and-you’re-drunk resemblance to the ‘the left’ in the the West;
B) There are lots of checks to stop it;
C) When actually in power the left in the West doesn’t typically do such things;
D) the analogy just isn’t that close;
E) North Korea is a crazy lawless outlier.
The analogy you want to make is Uganda : typical Christianity :: Iran : typical Islam.
But that is pretty obviously wrong when you put it straight out there like that. Right?
There are lots of countries where Christianity is ascendant that aren’t anything like Uganda.
Many of us even live in some of them. And at the very least you could appeal to a typical example. Like the US. Or Spain. Or I’d even give you Mexico.
Iran is one of the more modern Muslim countries around. It is also one of the more powerful. Uganda is not one of the more modern Christian countries around. It also isn’t very powerful.
Of course I introduced “modern” and “functioning”. But that isn’t because I moved the goalposts. That is because you engaged in really crappy analogizing.
I’m a gay man who doesn’t have any illusions about how tolerated I am in the United States. I live in California, and was still chased down the street by 5 college-aged thugs who were looking for someone to beat the crap out of near a gay bar.
I’m from a fundamentalist Christian family where my parents believe that I’m going to hell.
I’m not under any delusions about US tolerance of gay people. And the US is pretty much the most Christian of the modern civilized world.
But I’m much more welcome here, than I would be in Turkey, which is the most tolerant major Muslim country. And which appears to be getting more intolerant of gay people. Not less.
I’m MUCH MUCH more welcome here than I would be in Iran, where I’d be risking the death penalty, or in Indonesia where I’d be risking long prison sentences.
So if you compare the most modern Islamic countries to the most modern Christian ones, on the subject of gay rights, the Christian ones are well ahead. And I mean very far ahead.
You’ll note that I didn’t invoke Sudan as a typical Muslim country. It is a majority Muslim country. It has been in control of the government for about 50 years. And it is about as appropriate to this conversation as Uganda.
But the fact that you have to reach all the way to states which are barely part of civilization at all in order to do so says something about your argument.
Or it says something about your feelings about Uganda. Where American fundamentalist Christians go to preach what secular public opinion in the US would object to.
So if you compare the most modern Islamic countries to the most modern Christian ones, on the subject of gay rights, the Christian ones are well ahead. And I mean very far ahead.
The top ten – ie, largest national Christian populations – are the US, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, China, Germany, Philippines, the UK, Italy, France, and Nigeria: and those ten countries give a fair representation of the range of penalties against LGBT people across the world, from the recognition of same-sex couples in partnerships almost identical to marriage but not quite, to the death penalty for consensual homosexuality. In each country (with the exception of China, which ranks fifth numerically for only 5% of the population), opposition to equality for LGBT people comes from either Christian or Islamo-Christian (in Nigeria) sources.
When you brag of “modern Christian nations” being well ahead of … non-Christian nations? … in fact the single group of nations which really is well ahead of any other is the European Union, where specifically secular forces have taken on religious discrimination and, for the most part, won.
All of the EU countries are “Christian nations” in the sense that a significant majority of the country identify as Christian. But all of them have vastly improved in acknowledgement of the human rights of LGBT people in direct relation to their not being “Christian nations” – where Christianity is not allowed to trump secular human rights values.
The US allows human and civil rights as a secular nation, not as a Christian one.
And the top ten Muslim nations? Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, Morrocco.
If you were ranking them in order for LGBT acceptance with the top ten Christian nations that you listed, how far down the list of 20 before you get to the first of the Muslim countries? Morrocco, Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria. So it isn’t any of them. (And in Nigeria, the Muslim portions carry death by stoning for homosexuality).
In Egypt homosexuality is persecuted under the public morals laws. Indonesia persecutes gays, but it isn’t illegal in all of the provinces.
So you are left with India and Turkey.
I would feel safer in either of those two countries than I would in Nigeria, and…
I’d be safer in any of the other Christian countries. Even Russia, which frankly isn’t very pro-gay.
So while the Christian countries aren’t as far as you’d like, you’d be safer in all of them than in any of the Muslim countries. Except Nigeria, where the Muslims would still be the ones who would kill you.
But, Sebastian, following up on Eric’s distinction — which you and McKTX largely have ignored — are the differences religious or cultural? Given that each of the three religions centered on the worship of the same Middle Eastern sky god proscribe homosexual behavior you have to wonder, don’t you?
Or do you have some cogent and consistent reason why the difference must be religious, rather than historical and cultural? That (culture vs religion) is the main point of contention here, and the reason why so many have been pointing to Uganda as a counter example and pointing out that many US Christian leaders are happy to endorse Uganda’s anti-homosexual policy. Their *religion* does not prevent them from seeking to kill or imprison homosexuals, their *government* does.
That’s pretty much everyone’s objection in a nutshell.
Do you agree with this reasoning or disagree?
Or do you have some cogent and consistent reason why the difference must be religious, rather than historical and cultural? That (culture vs religion) is the main point of contention here, and the reason why so many have been pointing to Uganda as a counter example and pointing out that many US Christian leaders are happy to endorse Uganda’s anti-homosexual policy. Their *religion* does not prevent them from seeking to kill or imprison homosexuals, their *government* does.
Word. (And thank you, nous, for summarizing a long and at times painful discussion so cogently.)
ILGA produces a map (from on the front page: ilga.org) which depicts LGBTI rights / lack of them around the world in a visual form. It’s not a simple JPG, you click on an area on a menu at the top of the map, for example “punishments for male to male relationships” and watch the nations change: green for “no law”, and shades of red or black for laws against. The pattern on the map – blotches of red and black all over Africa, drops of red in the Pacific for Burma and New Guinea and Indonesia, and a cluster of countries all together in Asia just off the African coast, and a single drop of red in South America for Guyana – doesn’t so much suggest religion, as the leftover tracks of colonialism.
As I know from my own background, wherever the British went to set up colonialist governments, they passed laws against male/male relationships just like the laws they had at home in dear old Blighty. Often the British came to countries which had a long-standing cultural tradition of tolerance and acceptance of same-gendered relations (with regard to Islamic countries: q.v. One Thousand and One Nights) and left behind, after decades of colonial rule, a legacy of laws and tradition of punishments that had created intolerance where none existed.
(It’s a complex topic, and I wouldn’t suggest that’s the only reason, just the one I happen to know more about historically.)
But still: the map says it visually. Countries which have an abiding legacy of damage tend to be bad for LGBT people too. Countries working to overcome that legacy of damage to create human rights for all, tend to be good for lGBT people.
I’ll leave it for the American reader to discuss what abiding legacy of damage the US could be failing to deal with that leaves it lagging behind other nations…
I am confused. Europe and other Christian countries are better, but not because they are Christian but because they are governed secularly, but doesn’t that reflect the basic Christian tenet of separation of those two things.
Isn’t it inherent in Christian dogma to “turn the other cheek” and “judge not lest ye be judged”? Isn’t the very heart of this discussion that most Christians don’t believe in having a “Christian law” government beyond the very basics as shared across all religions? Or is my lifetime of Christian teaching and worship wrong that Jesus himself said give unto Caeser that which is Caeser’s, and declared that he was NOT here to be a king on this earth.
All of this is Christian doctrine that creates secular governments in Christian nations. Thus much of the positive aspects discussed by Seb.
but doesn’t that reflect the basic Christian tenet of separation of those two things.
What?
What gave you the notion that there’s a “Christian tenet” about separating church from state?
Seriously, Marty, I’m not being funny: this is nonsense.
Isn’t it inherent in Christian dogma to “turn the other cheek” and “judge not lest ye be judged”?
Well, for some Christians.
But tell that to every right-wing Christian that ever campaigned for laws against sodomy, gay marriage, abortion, contraception, and adultery. The Christian promoters of those laws do not regard “judge not lest ye be judged” as an inherent part of Christian dogma: they think it’s just fine to judge others. Also to convict, fine, and jail others.
The “inherent Christian dogma” of “turn the other cheek”? Sure: that’s why every prominent Christian in the US stood up right after 9/11 and told George W. Bush that attacking Afghanistan would be unCHristian and wrong. Some Christians did say that. But your notion that this is inherent Christian dogma is just wrong: plenty of Christians wouldn’t dream of turning the other cheek, except maybe when taking a “wide stance” in airport restrooms.
Isn’t the very heart of this discussion that most Christians don’t believe in having a “Christian law” government beyond the very basics as shared across all religions?
No. Most people – whatever their religion, or none – who live under a secular government, are smart enough to see the advantages of it. But you only have to pay attention to the Christian Right in the US to know that there are a stack of Christians out there who believe in Christian government and who very much want to impose “Christian law”.
George W. Bush’s global gag rule was an imposition of Christian law on women and doctors around the world, and most of the people who opposed it weren’t doing so as Christians but as human rights activists. The people who supported this imposition was invariably Christians.
Or is my lifetime of Christian teaching and worship wrong that Jesus himself said give unto Caeser that which is Caeser’s, and declared that he was NOT here to be a king on this earth.
Your lifetime has clearly not been spent in a country in which Christians ruled that black and white people couldn’t marry because God meant the races to be separate, in which Christians ruled that same-sex couples couldn’t marry because God doesn’t like gays, in which Christians ruled that women can’t have access to abortions or contraceptions because God sees women as breeding machines. So you’ve obviously never lived in the US of A or paid any attention to what American Christians do – which planet are you from, Marty? Remind me.
And those European Christians, Jes? Or the Christians who have worked tirelessly as a part of trying to change every one of your American examples? There is a world you seem to live in that does not exist in America, where “Christian” has a single voice, the most negative. There are bad people posing as espousing the word of God everywhere, in all religions. But in the Christian churches I have spent my life attending we were taught that we were to live OUR lives to the Christian ideals, not impose them on others.
There are preachers (and radio shock jocks) full of pride and arrogance and hate, there are also fine truly Christian pastors.
And those European Christians, Jes?
Indeed. The religious lobby – which in the EU mostly means the Christian lobby – has been campaigning for the right to impose their Christian values on others by the force of law. Christians in government in the UK ensured that same-sex couples were offered only civil partnership, not equal marriage.
I didn’t intend to imply that it’s just American Christians who do these things – though the Christian global gag rule was a particularly atrocious worldwide example of Christian values being imposed by the US on others – but because I am aware that you are an American and so your claimed ignorance of the US Christian right’s success in getting Christian law imposed on others struck me in terms of things US Christians do.
”
There is a world you seem to live in that does not exist in America
You’re trying to claim DOMA doesn’t exist in America? That the majority of US states that have passed laws banning same-sex marriage don’t exist in America? These are Christian values – these negative attacks on others, that have been given the force of law, have been publicly claimed and promoted by American Christians as inherent to Christianity. This exists in America, Marty, for all your apparent blindness to it.
But in the Christian churches I have spent my life attending we were taught that we were to live OUR lives to the Christian ideals, not impose them on others.
That’s nice. So the Christian churches you attend support lifting the ban on same-sex marriage, support the right of access to abortion and contraception, oppose forced pregnancy and forced adoption, supported and affirmed the Supreme Courts ruling against the sodomy laws. I’m glad that’s what the churches you go to in the US are like – seriously, I am.
But it takes some doing not to be aware of Christians who do the exact reverse – Catholic priests who preached against Kerry because he’s pro-choice, Christians who have campaigned and funded anti-marriage campaigns, Christians who claim that the state has the right to deny women abortions or that a pharmacist has the right to deny women contraception, as a matter of the pharmacist’s religious freedom.
“That’s nice. So the Christian churches you attend support lifting the ban on same-sex marriage, support the right of access to abortion and contraception, oppose forced pregnancy and forced adoption, supported and affirmed the Supreme Courts ruling against the sodomy laws. I’m glad that’s what the churches you go to in the US are like – seriously, I am.”
The churches I have attended, in fact I attended those churches for this reason, taught that individuals should find there way to making the right decisions on all of those issues based on their realtionship with Christ. They didn’t support all of them, in fact there is considerable variation in the teachings on homosexuality, while little variation on opposition to abortion, but they didn’t support government mandate of their religious beliefs.
Since you brought up DOMA, I was encouraged that the GLAD folks in Mass won a case overturning Section 3, now they hope the Justice department will appeal to create a broader precedent.
I didn’t see a thread here on it but it was a very exciting day for the folks at GLAD, but tempered with the need to get a broader ruling.
Isn’t it a fairly obvious point that, while not all Christians in America (or wherever) are judgmental, anti-gay (and otherwise) bigots, enough are that they aren’t a rarity or an extreme fringe? Haven’t prominent Christian leaders in the United States made statements suggesting that AIDS was God’s method of killing off gays, or that hurricane Katrina was God’s way of punishing New Orleans for immorality, or that 9/11 was a punishment from God for America’s tolerance of gays?
Some Christians are cool, though. I tend to like Quakers, though I don’t know if they have any sort of official position on homosexuality. As far as I know, they don’t really have official positions on anything, not being hierarchical in the way most faiths are. Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s time to Google.
HSH,
There are prominent Christian leaders that have said all of those things, it might be important to note that there are Christian leaders that haven’t said any of them. No they aren’t a fringe group, but then many of them are quoting the Pope who might be considered to be an influence beyond America.
I don’t really know how important it might be to note that there are Christian leaders who haven’t said any of those things, at least not to make the point I’m trying to make. You can note anything you like, of course, not that what you have noted refutes my point at all.
I really don’t know what you’re talking about with regard to the Pope or how it would be relevant, even if it were true.
Giraffes have long necks, you know.
“Or do you have some cogent and consistent reason why the difference must be religious, rather than historical and cultural? That (culture vs religion) is the main point of contention here, and the reason why so many have been pointing to Uganda as a counter example and pointing out that many US Christian leaders are happy to endorse Uganda’s anti-homosexual policy.”
Is that really the main point of contention here? I haven’t seen the cultural/religious divide explored as a difference much here at all. And in fact I’m pretty sure Uganda was not raised as a cultural difference. It was and at least until now is being used to suggest a similarity between Ugandan and American Christians.
But to the extent that this was an issue, it is clear that I think it doesn’t have to be a religious distinction, as I have raised the anti-religious governments repeatedly and suggested that they too have tended to be very nasty to LGBT rights. Which suggests to me that a propensity to be vicious to gay people isn’t particularly tied to religion (A point which I haven’t seen Jes or others address).
Though I’m not at all certain it is so easy to make a clean divide between religion and culture. I suspect that culture is one of the primary methods for transmitting religion. And most societal cultures either have a very strong religious component, or like Communism are virulently anti-religious. (Which is to say that I’m unaware of many large scale societal cultures which are religion indifferent).
Which is the long way of saying that religion and culture are intertwined. Christianity, as a religion, really does have a separate spiritual and secular side built deep into the framework. Islam is much more deeply about having the two be exactly the same.
And if we are going to talk about religious/cultural expression, we should probably think about distribution. Christianity has a wide range from Quakers all the way to the exclusively hate-oriented Reverend Phelps. I’m not sure what Islams equivalent of the Quakers is, but I’ll assume it exists and then ranges all the way to Al Qaeda.
Yes, Phelps exists. Yes Ugandan Christians exist. But their place on the distribution and influence of Christian behavior is not the same place as that of those who control Iran. The LGBT example is instructive. In the range of the top ten large Muslim populations, nearly all of them make homosexuality illegal, and many punish it with the death penalty. Of the ones that don’t allow making it illegal, one has been explicitly anti-Islam-in-government (Turkey) and the other has an even larger non-Muslim population (India). And in Turkey, as Islam has been allowed into power, gay rights have suffered.
In the top 10 Christian nations, the only one where it is illegal is the one in which there is a larger Muslim influence than Christian.
Yes the range of opinions overlap at tails, but that is a distribution with a big difference.
The analogy you want to make is Uganda : typical Christianity
Nope, I never said that Uganda (or Jamaica) were “typical” of Christianity. Nor did I suggest or imply it. Nor did Jes or anyone else, for that matter.
This isn’t a matter of stretching the truth or a difference of interpretations — it’s a lie. You’re reduced to reinventing my argument from scratch in order to “win.”
How low will you go, Sebastian?
Your entire comment:
You also wrote
I note that at this point in the conversation you’ve already accused me of dishonesty while your original post on the subject quotes me with the distinction already in play.
So, having gone back to your original quote, I’ll admit that you aren’t claiming typicality.
But, on the other hand, neither MckinneyTexas nor I have claimed “that the difference between Christianity and Islam in this regard is fundamental, when it’s actually just a question of degree”
So far as I can tell, that is your contention, and it is at least as guilty of reinventing my argument from scratch in order to win as anything I did.
In fact, we have explicitly argued that it is indeed a question of degree, and that the degree is quite important.
Before you even enter the conversation, MckinneyTexas wrote:
“Is this true of every other religion? Yes, but in the US, it’s a matter of degree. Our social contract–widely accepted across nearly the entire political and ideological spectrum–holds that everyone is free to worship as they please but not to engage in universally proscribed acts: discriminate against women, practice polygamy, genital mutilation, etc.”
And Slarti talked about the fact that prohibitions against homosexuality in Judaism didn’t actually get played out as stonings while they do in Islam
He wrote “You rarely do see Jews stoning each other, though, so the degree to which Leviticus is taken literally is, well, limited.”
And immediately after your comment, I wrote:
In fact I think you’d be pretty hard pressed to find any of the conservative commentors arguing the proposition that you ascribe to us. All of the relatively conservatives here have argued that it is a matter of degree, and that the matter of degree is important.
So from the very beginning *you* have been reinventing arguments from scratch, though I won’t pretend to be able to get deep into your mind for a reason.
But if forced to guess, I’d guess, simple misunderstanding.
You might ascribe less charitable motivations to yourself.
If any of you are whiskey/bourbon fans and have not tried Makers Mark’s new “46,” you owe it to yourself to find a liquor store posthaste.
Excellent. I love bourbon – am a Basil Hayden junkie, like Woodford too, and am always up for something new.
I am confused. Europe and other Christian countries are better, but not because they are Christian but because they are governed secularly, but doesn’t that reflect the basic Christian tenet of separation of those two things.
Is that a Christian tenet? If so, how do you explain the history of Europe, with regimes like the Holy Roman Empire? And Papal influence over regimes in almost every nation from Italy to Spain, France to England.
Secularism matters, but it is a recent, enlightenment development that in many respects grew up in opposition of Christian influence in politics, not the other way around.
Actually I wouldn’t put the enlightenment in opposition to Christianity, I’d put it in opposition to Catholic structures. Sort of. The Protestant Reformation set much of the groundwork.
Seb- Is that really the main point of contention here? I haven’t seen the cultural/religious divide explored as a difference much here at all. And in fact I’m pretty sure Uganda was not raised as a cultural difference. It was and at least until now is being used to suggest a similarity between Ugandan and American Christians.
If that is your reading of it then I can see why you are confused. As I understood it the Uganda example was brought up because a number of American evangelical leaders, finding themselves thwarted in their efforts to stem the tide of homosexual activism here, have exported their efforts to a place where their bigotry has greater cultural purchase and less governmental interference. As such, your insistence on treating Uganda as a progress marker of sorts ignores or misses the linkage with US evangelicals.
Christianity, as a religion, really does have a separate spiritual and secular side built deep into the framework. Islam is much more deeply about having the two be exactly the same.
Now. At this moment. In these cultures. What you describe here is not due to any inherent or essential difference in the two religions from the perspective of theology. Go back to the 30 Years War era in Europe and try to make those same arguments you make above about Christianity. You can’t. European tolerance is born out of a vicious and bloody chapter in its cultural history. And it’s one that is still somewhat tenuous and far from universal — look at the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Does this help you see the other side of it better?
As for your insistence that degree matters, it does indeed. But I would argue that the way to change things is not to point to Islam as the problem but to encourage more cultural contact so that their religious perspectives gain a broader cultural base.
Seb (again) – Actually I wouldn’t put the enlightenment in opposition to Christianity, I’d put it in opposition to Catholic structures. Sort of. The Protestant Reformation set much of the groundwork.
Too general, I think. There was plenty of tension between other Christian groups as well. The UK was a powder keg of radical protestantism for years and the Nordic countries had the rise of Pietism, etc. There’s a shocking amount of violence (at a level somewhat short of civil war) against fringe and non-Christian groups.
And then there’s the whole ‘Jewish question,’ which has nothing to do with Catholic structures at all.
“Is that a Christian tenet? If so, how do you explain the history of Europe, with regimes like the Holy Roman Empire?”
Because Christian tenets and Catholic dogma don’t match. The ritual and arrogance of the Catholic church would not be my view of how Christ envisioned the church.
However, the claim to killing people in the name of religion is not unique to the Catholics, the Church of England, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Shia or the Sunni. People gain power and influence through religious institutions and abuse it, sometimes with terrible consequences.
And the top ten Muslim nations? Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, Morrocco.
If the metric is “how many Muslims live there” the top three are actually Indonesia, Pakistan, India.
My understanding is that Indonesia is, legally at least, fairly tolerant of homosexuality, except in Aceh, where the hard-core fundamentalist Muslims live.
In India, homosexuality was recently decriminalized, although I think it’s not broadly accepted socially.
And, yeah, it probably sucks pretty mightily to be gay in Pakistan.
None of this has a damned thing to do with whether Islam is a religion, or whether a mosque should be built in lower Manhattan.
Just a couple of points of fact.
Marty: Because Christian tenets and Catholic dogma don’t match.
There is a certain kind of bigoted Protestant you meet in the UK who will assure you strongly that Catholics are not Real Christians: I hadn’t realized they had their counterparts in the US.
Since you brought up DOMA, I was encouraged that the GLAD folks in Mass won a case overturning Section 3, now they hope the Justice department will appeal to create a broader precedent.
So was I: and I hope so.
Seb: Actually I wouldn’t put the enlightenment in opposition to Christianity, I’d put it in opposition to Catholic structures. Sort of.
nous: Too general, I think. There was plenty of tension between other Christian groups as well.
Yes. Generally speaking “the Enlightenment” is dated from 1750-1800, and is agreed to have arisen across multiple countries in Europe, some Catholic in structure, some Protestant in structure, some – like England – oddly mixed, with the head of state also the pope of the state church.
Thomas Paine, who wrote The Age of Reason, noted as one of the key authors of the Enlightenment, was against all organized religion, Protestant or Catholic.
russell: None of this has a damned thing to do with whether Islam is a religion, or whether a mosque should be built in lower Manhattan.
Yes, quite a threadjack…
“What you describe here is not due to any inherent or essential difference in the two religions from the perspective of theology.”
I don’t think this is true. The Christian faith has always had a very strong strand of Caesar’s coin and God’s coin being very separate things. The explicit Christian control of secular institutions was grafted on later, and always had lots of tension. Islam on the other hand has been about religious domination of secular institutions from the very beginning, and is very comfortable with it. From the perspective of theology, Christianity is mixed on secular power, Islam is much less ambivalent about it.
“As for your insistence that degree matters, it does indeed. But I would argue that the way to change things is not to point to Islam as the problem but to encourage more cultural contact so that their religious perspectives gain a broader cultural base.”
At least you notice that this is one of my big points. 😉
I’m not sure what you mean. Islam historically has had all sorts of cultural contact, and it doesn’t seem to have tempered much. And I don’t really know what you mean by ‘gain a broader cultural base’.
And when the degree we are talking about involves killing homosexuals in many of the countries, and imprisoning them at the very least, I’m not sure how that intersects.
“If that is your reading of it then I can see why you are confused. As I understood it the Uganda example was brought up because a number of American evangelical leaders, finding themselves thwarted in their efforts to stem the tide of homosexual activism here, have exported their efforts to a place where their bigotry has greater cultural purchase and less governmental interference.”
Well this is also a different point than what others have raised. And to the extent that this is the point, it isn’t a very good one. “a number” is very few, so far as I can tell tied very closely to three individuals and pretty much no one else. And interestingly, for whatever it is worth, even those three claim that their views have been horribly misused by the Ugandans.
NYTimes cite
Now you can argue that they are lying about this, or whatever. But at the very minimum, they are definitely not exporting some new thing to Uganda, as portrayed.
Their actual influence doesn’t strike me as very enormous since very extreme persecution of homosexuals, including the death penalty can be found all over Africa, including the neighboring Kenya, where the persecution is based largely in traditional African religions and they were invited by Ugandan groups that had already been persecuting gays for years.
The Christian faith has always had a very strong strand of Caesar’s coin and God’s coin being very separate things.
And equally, always (or at least since the early 4th century and the reign of Constantine) Christianity has always had an extremely strong strand of Caesar’s armies and Caesar’s laws being used to enforce Christian doctrine on all Caesar’s subjects.
To pretend this never happened would be to ignore 1600 years of Christian history.
Christianity is mixed on secular power, Islam is much less ambivalent about it.
Ignorant crap. I mean, genuinely, Sebastian, you’re not just coming across as ignorant about Islam. You’re coming across as thoroughly, unbelievably, markedly ignorant of sixteen centuries of Christian history!
And when the degree we are talking about involves killing homosexuals in many of the countries, and imprisoning them at the very least, I’m not sure how that intersects.
I have no idea what you mean by “intersects” in this context. There exist governments in the world that think that LGBT people don’t deserve human rights. Uganda, Iran, the Vatican, the US government under Bush – when the UN resolution to decriminalize homosexuality came up when Bush was in power, the US voted with the countries that said homosexuality should remain unlawful.
Yet you, as I’ve noted before, are never critical of how Christians in power, or Republicans in power, treat LGBT people.
There is a certain kind of bigoted Protestant you meet in the UK who will assure you strongly that Catholics are not Real Christians: I hadn’t realized they had their counterparts in the US.
Oh, dear. It’s a genuine article of faith among large swaths of the American evangelical community that Catholics are not Christians. (See here and here, e.g.) Mormons, too, for that matter.
“It’s a genuine article of faith among large swaths of the American evangelical community that Catholics are not Christians”
And if you are not a practicing Catholic you can’t participate in the Eucharist, have your child baptized, etc. in the Catholic church. Not sure what the point is here.
I said the dogma and ritual of the Catholic church is different than the underlying Christian tenets, a position held by many as far back as Martin Luther. Everyone’s religion is uniquely the way to heaven to someone, but it certainly wasn’t my point.
So, should we treat Muslims differently from members of other religions in the United States or not? Does anyone here think we should, after potentially endless presentations of variously shaded characterizations of examples and counterexamples of actions taken by large swaths of humanity over millennia or by a few people here and there over the last few decades?
Maybe we can all argue about whether there’s more round stuff or square stuff, and whether the stuff that isn’t quite round or square is more round than square or more square than round.
No one’s going to win here, and if someone did, it would be highly questionable how that win would apply to, well, anything, really.
So I go back to my original question – should we treat Muslims differently from members of other religions in the United States or not?
So I go back to my original question – should we treat Muslims differently from members of other religions in the United States or not?
No.
That was easy. (Thanks, hsh.)
Time to go out and play.
Not sure what the point is here.
Me neither, but then again, you brought it up.
Marty: Not sure what the point is here.
*shrug* That there exist Protestants who believe Catholics aren’t Christians. I note Phil’s demonstration that this is an article of faith amongst certain US Christian sects, and, well, *shrug*.
I’m reminded, considering hsh’s return to the original question, of a remark Rabbi Lionel Blue made at the close of Thought For The Day (a short religious broadcast on a morning radio news program on the BBC), about the Christian clerics who would be following him over the coming weeks: “I would ask you to remember that each of them worships God in their own way… while I worship Him in His.”
So I go back to my original question – should we treat Muslims differently from members of other religions in the United States or not?
No.
That was easy. (Thanks, hsh.)
Time to go out and play.
Seriously.
This thread has been jacked so far out of bounds that the original question is like some weird, faint echo from the past.
Show me the 22 communities in the United States that are currently living under sharia law, and maybe I’ll worry about Muslims undermining American civil society with their crazy headscarves and halal dietary rules.
Until then, I’m going to treat the Muslim people I work with and live near, and whose businesses I patronize, and who I sit next to on the bus, train, or airplane, like I treat everybody else.
Want to build a mosque? Build a mosque, and mazel tov.
There are billion and a half Muslims on the planet. If they were really all out to get us, we’d already be dead.
“So I go back to my original question – should we treat Muslims differently from members of other religions in the United States or not?”
No we shouldn’t. This question also has little to do with the original post. There are things and times when decisions are made on specific criteria, not generalities. We should respect and honor the religious beliefs of Muslims equally with all other religions.
In this particular set of circumstances it would be a better idea not to build this mosque overlooking the WTC site. There are mixed emotions and thoughts about that.
Each person has a right to how they feel and think about these particular circumstances without being accused of bigotry or hate against a whole religion, just as Muslims have a right to have emotions and thoughts about many of our actions without being accused of bigotry and hatred against Cgristians or Americans.
The Protestant Reformation set much of the groundwork.
Not, surely, because Protestants were more enlightened than Catholics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
What set the groundwork for the Enlightenment was that Protesants and Catholics spent those two centuries fighting each other to a bloody and exhausted draw. That was the background for the adoption of official religious tolerance–intolerance was too expensive and destructive (of, among other things, civil order, which is very high on the list of any state’s interests). It’s not a basic Christian tenet; it’s a secular adaptation to the historic tendency of many Christians to want to kill each other over doctrinal differences.
Maybe what’s different about Islam is that they haven’t had, until recently, the opportunity to learn that lesson, partly because for some time now Islamic countries have been on the defensive against historically Christian countries like the US and UK and officially atheist countries like the Soviet Union. (Or, if not on the defensive, in collusion in ways that have promoted corrupt despotism.) If it weren’t for all that oil, maybe they could have evolved in that direction, instead of the extremes of secular repression and hyperreligious backlash.
it would be a better idea not to build this mosque overlooking the WTC site.
As if anyone were proposing to build a mosque on a site overlooking the WTC, rather than expanding an existing Muslim center some blocks away and out of sight.
“some blocks away and out of sight.”
At two blocks away and 13 stories it will overlook the site.
At two blocks away and 13 stories it will overlook the site.
No, it will not, as the views are obscured and the buildings will be much bigger than 13 stories. You might be able to catch a glimpse at an angle, but no way “overlook.”
In this particular set of circumstances it would be a better idea not to build this mosque overlooking the WTC site. There are mixed emotions and thoughts about that.
Each person has a right to how they feel and think about these particular circumstances without being accused of bigotry or hate against a whole religion, just as Muslims have a right to have emotions and thoughts about many of our actions without being accused of bigotry and hatred against Cgristians or Americans.
See, I can’t come up with a reason other than ignorance or bigotry to oppose the expansion of the community center that is already there.
1. It is not a mosque per se.
2. It is an expansion of a multifaith religious site that is already there.
3. What is the legitimate objection that should override the sensitivities of Muslim victims’ loved ones, and those, like me, that lost friends and would consider it painful to have bigotry and ignorance win the day.
“that should override the sensitivities of Muslim victims’ loved ones, and those, like me, that lost friends ”
Other people who lost friends and loved ones feel differently, others in America, who weren’t as close but perhaps just as scared by the event, feel differently. But this is about emotion and feelings and sensitivities. They think their sensitivity is just as legitimate as yours.
I actually empathize with both sides, erring on the side of those who feel the sacrifice of their loved ones diminished somehow by the proximity.
Someone Eric quotes: In this particular set of circumstances it would be a better idea not to build this mosque overlooking the WTC site. There are mixed emotions and thoughts about that.
Someone or other has harbored mixed emotions and thoughts about every group that has ever been singled out for unequal treatment. The purpose of having something like the First Amendment is to protect freedom of worship (among other things) even in the face of other people’s hostile emotions and thoughts. That’s the point.
“So I go back to my original question – should we treat Muslims differently from members of other religions in the United States or not?”
No we shouldn’t. This question also has little to do with the original post.
Did you even read the original post? I can only suppose you didn’t, because it was about a Lt. Governor claiming that he was mindful of First Amendment religious protections, but contemplating the possibility that those protections don’t apply to the “nationality, way or life, [or] cult” that is Islam.
So not only does HSH’s question have much to do with the original post, it’s the whole point of the original post.
Seriously, dude.
“So not only does HSH’s question have much to do with the original post, it’s the whole point of the original post.
Seriously, dude.”
After several pages of comments I did lose track. You are correct. And the answer is we should not treat them different.
But to the extent that this was an issue, it is clear that I think it doesn’t have to be a religious distinction, as I have raised the anti-religious governments repeatedly and suggested that they too have tended to be very nasty to LGBT rights.
Two quick points in response:
i. Imposing atheism on people is as much a form of intolerance as imposing Islam or Christianity.
ii. I don’t think that it’s an accident that some of the most secular societies on Earth (Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands) are also among the absolute best when it comes to gay rights.
Each person has a right to how they feel and think about these particular circumstances (okay so far) without being accused of bigotry or hate against a whole religion (opps – not really), just as Muslims have a right to have emotions and thoughts about many of our actions (yes) without being accused of bigotry and hatred against Cgristians or Americans (darn it – not really, again).
Yes, we all have the right to think and feel whatever is we are inclined to, which means that anyone else can think and feel whatever it is they are inclined to about whatever others think and feel. People even have the right to be wrong-headed bigots. People also have the right to call others out about being wrong-headed bigots. No one has the right to be free from the opinions of others. They do have the right not to be discriminated against or persecuted, but that’s not quite the same thing. But, again, people are free to be bigots, and people are free to call other people bigots, even if they’re wrong about it.
The better form of argument against wrongful accusations of bigotry is to demonstrate why those accusations are wrong, rather than asserting that people just can’t call each other bigots based on the rights of the accused bigots to think and feel what they like.
Well HSH, since I believe I was being very specific to this discussion, I believe I did at least suggest why people could object without beings bigots.
The assertion that the only reason to object to building the mosque was out of bigotry is what I was addressing.
As was pointed out to me, we got a long way from the original topic. I probably would not have commented to add my “me too” to agreeing the original statement was bigoted.
The assertion that the only reason to object to building the mosque was out of bigotry is what I was addressing.
And I’m fine with that, Marty. It’s just not a question of rights, rather a question of right or wrong. People can object to building any particular thing for innumerable reasons and may be as free of bigotry in doing so as is humanly possible. That’s why I allowed for the possibility of wrongful accusations of bigotry and suggested a valid way of addressing them that didn’t rely on non-existent rights.
Marty: I actually empathize with both sides, erring on the side of those who feel the sacrifice of their loved ones diminished somehow by the proximity.
Why sympathize with the bigots over the victims, Marty? Or don’t the Muslims whose loved ones died in the WTC or in the planes merit your “empathy”? You decided that you are more sympathetic to Christians who hate the idea of a mosque near WTC than you were to Muslims whose relatives died in the WTC… and what does this say about you? Certainly not that you have any universal empathy for people who lost loved ones on that day, since you so emphatically disregard the feelings of those who were Muslim.
Three of the Muslims who were killed in the WTC or the airplanes:
I believe I did at least suggest why people could object without beings bigots.
No, you really didn’t. You just clarified that to you, Marty, the only victims of 9 11 whose loved ones deserve any sympathy are the bigoted Christians who hate all Muslims enough that a mosque near the site is offensive.
Right.
others in America, who weren’t as close but perhaps just as scared by the event, feel differently.
Call me callous, but I really am manifestly uninterested in what these “others in America,” who don’t even live in NYC and probably generally hate it as much as they do liberal godless Hollywood, think about this topic.
Well HSH, since I believe I was being very specific to this discussion, I believe I did at least suggest why people could object without beings bigots.
Yes, I specifically allowed for ignorance as an alternative.
However, outside of ignorance and bigotry, there is really no other rationale.
Unless you care to construct one?
The basic objection, I see, is that people feel that a cultural center expansion somewhat near the WTC site diminished their loss because of a Muslim imprimatur.
But the only way you get from point A to point B is the belief that all Muslims are alike, and that the Cordoba group is of a kind with al-Qaeda, which is quite far from the truth.
So, yes, ignorance or bigotry.
Even if this was not personal for me, I would side with tolerance and inclusiveness over bigotry and/or ignorance.
Other people who lost friends and loved ones feel differently, others in America, who weren’t as close but perhaps just as scared by the event, feel differently. But this is about emotion and feelings and sensitivities. They think their sensitivity is just as legitimate as yours.
Of course they do, but that tells us very little. People who hold opinions feel that their opinions are right and legitimate.
OK, now that we’ve established that tautology, let’s get to the more interesting, if more difficult part, of creating an inclusive, free society based on mutual respect.
I actually empathize with both sides, erring on the side of those who feel the sacrifice of their loved ones diminished somehow by the proximity.
Again, I do not side with ignorance and bigotry, especially where it serves to alienate American Muslims, playing right into al-Qaeda’s clash of civilizations narrative.
I get so freaking tired of all this.
Echoing Jes, I have lived my entire adult life (and I’m a lot older than Jes) with the knowledge that if I walk down the street as myself (using “walk down the street” as a stand-in for all the activities of daily life that straight people take for granted as unquestionable rights), I am at risk of discrimination and violence because of other people’s emotions and thoughts and precious sensitivities about me.
There are ways in which it is wise and sensible to take other people’s emotions and thoughts and sensitivities into account; if we didn’t do that, we could never live in couples or families, much less pluralistic democracies. But there are other times when people use their emotions and thoughts and sensitivities as a club to beat other people with, to keep other people in subjection, to work out their own issues and make other people victims in the process. At those times, it is far from wise to let other people’s thoughts and emotions and sensitivities make our collective decisions for us, since they lead to injustice, violence, and discrimination.
There are a lot of “errors” (for lack of a better word) of thinking and feeling that come under the words “ignorance” and “bigotry.” One of them, as Eric has pointed out, is tarring all Muslims with the sins of a few. If we’re going to make our decisions based on that kind of reasoning, why aren’t we paying any attention to the fact that all the people who commandeererd and crashed the planes on 9/11 were men? By that logic, we should be talking about banning men from coming near Ground Zero, not just Muslims.
Oh, there were men killed that day too, you say? Men dying in the attempt to rescue people? Same goes for Muslims, as has been pointed out over and over and over again.
If you want to do something about the tender feelings of people who believe that their “sensitivities” should dictate second-class citizenship for whole swaths of the population, maybe instead of enabling them you should put your energy into remedying the ignorance and bigotry that lets them lazily direct their thoughts and emotions at the wrong targets.
“I get so freaking tired of all this.”
No more tired than I am of having the concerns of the people focussed on one mosque, on what seems to be an understandably sensitive topic, turned into “bigotry against wide swaths of people”.
No more tired than I am of having the concerns of the people focussed on one mosque, on what seems to be an understandably sensitive topic, turned into “bigotry against wide swaths of people”.
Again, bigotry OR ignorance.
Also, again, this is NOT a mosque. This is an expansion of a community center, with some prayer space allotted. However, it is NOT a mosque. There are no minarets, there are no calls to prayer, etc.
Also, Marty, could you possibly construct a rationale for opposing the expansion of this community center that does not rest on either bigotry or ignornace?
Explain the rationale itself, not the vague reference to “sensitivities” and “emotions.” Explain what it is that triggers the emotional response.
the answer is we should not treat them different.
Glad we cleared that up.
Next topic, please.
Marty: Other people who lost friends and loved ones feel differently, others in America, who weren’t as close but perhaps just as scared by the event, feel differently. But this is about emotion and feelings and sensitivities. They think their sensitivity is just as legitimate as yours.
I actually empathize with both sides, erring on the side of those who feel the sacrifice of their loved ones diminished somehow by the proximity.
There is one thing that all of us who are regarded as monsters by people like those whom Marty “errs on the side of empathy for” have in common: our heartbeats are a sword at their throats.
It’s not what we do: it’s that we live at all that makes us monsters to them.
No more tired than I am of having the concerns of the people focussed on one mosque, on what seems to be an understandably sensitive topic, turned into “bigotry against wide swaths of people”.
But, Marty, you’ve already said that you don’t think Muslims should be treated differently than others, so how do you extend that to opposing or allowing the building of a Muslim community center in Tennessee? Or a mosque in lower Manhattan? Do you agree or disagree with those who are opposed to these things? And what do you attribute their opposition to?
More specifically (if you haven’t already said), given the quotes from the Lt. Governor of TN in Eric’s top-level post, what do you attibute the Lt. Governor’s position to? Do you see nothing bigotted in his statements?
Also, these people have been using the same site for over a year, also, this is a moderate group that OPPOSES Al-Queda, also the site is currently used for a closed store, and there’s a bars on the same street. It’s not like they’re say, building a Wal-Mart at a historic Civil War site or something.