Deseparation of Church and State

[asterroc]

kadath has a better rant about it, but the House decided to pass a resolution (no real actions, just a statement) stating that Christianity rocks. 372 Representatives passed it, 9 against, 10 abstentions, and 40 didn't vote. Mine was one of the ones voting for - find and write to your Rep here, and look up how they voted here, and modify or copy this no thanks for voting letter, unless of course you wish to write your own.

Subject: H RES 847 - Recognizing the Importance of Christmas and the Christian Faith.

I was sorry to hear of your recent vote in support of House Resolution 847 (Recognizing the Importance of Christmas and the Christian Faith). I live and vote in your district, in $Town$, $State$. I am a Professor of Physics at *** Community College in $Town$, and I earned my Master's degree in Astronomy from $University in Your State$.

I am multi-cultural in background, with a Jewish father and Chinese Christian mother. My family has always valued all cultures and religions, celebrating both Hanukah and Christmas, as well as respecting our ancestors as in traditional Chinese culture. I myself am atheist and believe strongly in the separation of Church and State. As a science educator I find myself concerned whenever religion motivates politics.

I was quite disappointed when I learned that you had voted in support of Christianity and Christmas. I feel it was in particularly poor taste to do so during the celebration of Hanukah, not to mention in light of the increasing phobia of Americans against people of different backgrounds. I take it as a personal attack upon my own beliefs, as well as those of my family members, and am offended that no effort has been made to reach out to different cultures.

I hope that in the future you keep in mind that by legislating official support for Christianity, you are legislating against XX% of the population in $State$, and you are sending a message that those outside the mainstream are not acceptable in this nation. Actions such as these are what lead to other countries' animosity towards the United States. When you meddle together the affairs of the government with religions matters you are going against the wishes of our founding fathers, and taking steps towards repeating tragic historical acts where one religion persecuted people not of that religion and beliefs outside that religion.

Please consider the opinions of your voting constituents when you make decisions such as these in the future.

Sincerely,

Zandperl

Comments

[oh-chris.livejournal.com]

...what the cockshitting fuck part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" do these people not get?
(besides the "no" part)

[kadath.livejournal.com]

"Cockshitting" is my new favorite curse.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing "establishment". Technically this resolution #1 has no power, and #2 only says Christianity is nifty.

Off-topic, I've been reading Transmet on your recommendation and another's and it's ... interesting...

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Do you think it means that shit is coming out of a cock, or that someone is shitting and cocks are coming out?

Ew, the images...

[oh-chris.livejournal.com]

i'm (obviously) a fan. i just ordered most of it for my library.
my favorite story, though, out of all 60, is still issue #8, about the Revival.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Someone else on my friendslist brought this up yesterday.

One of the responses was something to the effect that it's a nonbinding resolution, i.e., there's nothing really being done here except emitting warm fuzzies (which, of course, are not viewed as being warm or fuzzy by everyone): http://gwyd.livejournal.com/579450.html?thread=1228410#t1228410

So I'm kind of two minds on this point.

I'm definitely concerned about making sure that church and state are kept separate. To the extent that such resolutions provide slippery slopes toward their combination, they should be avoided.

On the other hand, it might be more to the point to worry about what sorts of crap our elected representatives are wasting their time on rather than directly addressing the critical issues that are currently before them.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

*nods* You make good points, but I'm still not happy about it. It's the way they're only expressing warm fuzzies for the mainstream that bothers me most - if there were similar resolutions for Judaism and Islam I suspect I wouldn't've posted this at all.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

if there were similar resolutions for Judaism and Islam I suspect I wouldn't've posted this at all

Well, that's a bit tricky, really. My mind immediately leapt to "what about Buddhism? And Baha'i? and...and...and...".

Even if they'd said something nice and inclusive about religions in general, I might have grumbled about their implied criticism of atheists and agnostics. ("What, our ethical systems aren't good enough for you?")

Really, I wish they'd just stayed out of this topic entirely. But arguably the graver offense, given how much exposure these things usually get, is in the wasting of their time.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Good point on the many other religions too. I mentioned Judaism b/c my dad's Jewish so I always think of that one, and Islam b/c there's so much anti-US sentiment in the Islamic world. Honoring Islam might help our cred there, and honoring Judaism as well would keep tempers a bit less flared in the Palestinian conflict. Maybe. maybe not. You're right if they just said "religions" I'd be irritated.

somewhat related

[demigoth.livejournal.com]

The passage of that resolution gave me about as many warm fuzzies as this article did (which is to say, none, or possibly anti-warm-fuzzies):

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/12/subway.attack/index.html

*sigh*

Re: somewhat related

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, kadath linked that in her post too. I find it quite disappointing and surprising that it'd happen in NYC. It was encouraging however that a Muslim would come to their defense.

Re: somewhat related

[demigoth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that part gave me the warm fuzzies, but overall it was a net negative for warm fuzzies.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

They actually did recognize Diwali. And Ramadan. Which makes it even weirder that I can't find any evidence of them recognizing any Jewish High Holidays in the past several years!

Also if you look at the text of those recognitions, they're limited to a single holiday and, while they express "support" for Islam and "respect" for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains, they clearly don't express it in as sweeping terms as the Christianity thing. And the thing with Ramadan spends wayyyyyy too long talking about how not all Muslims are terrorists... my lady doth protest too much.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting.

(FWIW, your first link says search results are only available for a limited amount of time, and your second link isn't one.)

ETA: But so, your point is that recognizing a religion isn't too strange for them, and therefore we should only get pissed on behalf of unrecognized atheists, and possibly at their time-wasting.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

sorry about the links!

I guess my point is both that recognizing religion isn't strange, but you're right, they don't recognize atheists, and when they do recognize religions they seem to show biases in what they say about them. I am somewhat pissed that they acknowledged Christianity in sweeping, historical language and only acknowledged Islam by saying "most Muslims aren't terrorists." Also, for Ramadan, they were still just recognizing RAMADAN, whereas for Christmas, they were recognizing CHRISTIANITY itself.