May 4, 2004
CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS CONFIRMATION FIGHT:
Blessed Are the Lukewarm: Religion is okay with the courts, so long as it doesn't mean anything. (A Christianity Today editorial, 05/03/2004)
If congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, then understanding what religion is becomes very important. Tragically, judges are engaged in linguistic gerrymandering by redefining religion in ways that threaten the traditional understanding of our right to free exercise of religion.A March decision from the California Supreme Court is the starkest example. Even though Catholic Charities opposes contraception, the court said, it isn't exempt from a state law requiring businesses to pay for employees' artificial birth control because the church-affiliated social service organization isn't a religious employer. Here's how a California law defines religious employers: "Those organizations for which the inculcation of religious values is the sole purpose of the entity, that primarily employ only adherents of their own faith tradition, that primarily serve only people who share their religious tenets, and that qualify as nonprofit organizations."
Since Catholic Charities hires and serves non-Catholics, and because its evangelism is indirect rather than direct, it can't be a religious employer, the court majority said.
"This is such a crabbed and restrictive view of religion that it would define the ministry of Jesus Christ as a secular activity," wrote Justice Janice Rogers Brown, the sole dissenting judge in the case (her nomination to a federal judgeship, by the way, is stalled in the Senate). "Here we are dealing with an intentional, purposeful intrusion into a religious organization's expression of its religious tenets and sense of mission. The government is not accidentally or incidentally interfering with religious practice; it is doing so willfully by making a judgment about what is or is not religious. This is precisely the sort of behavior that has been condemned in every other context."
She'll be an excellent replacement for David Souter. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 4, 2004 10:20 AM
Yes David Souter, I remember him. Let's see wasn't he that NEW HAMPSHIRE Republican, who was slipped past conservatives by a former NEW HAMPSHIRE Republican Senator (Rudman) and a former NEW HAMPSHIRE Republican Governor (Sununu)?
Al Franken would be an improvement over Souter.
Never trust a single man.
Posted by: oj at May 4, 2004 11:50 AMOf course, once We've Evolved Beyond All That Religious Superstition, we'll have THE FEDERATION! with Warp Drive! and Transporters! and Replicators! and Holodecks! and Ice Cream and Candy for every meal...
(Cue cheezy Star Trek theme...)
Posted by: Ken at May 4, 2004 12:07 PMThanks for pointing the connection between Star Trek and Ill-Defined Socialism, where everything works because no details are provided (which could be picked apart if they were present).
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at May 4, 2004 1:13 PMYou just explained why, apart from when I was a boy of 12, I could never enjoy Star Trek and its innumerable spin-offs. Could never muster the suspension of disbelief.
Posted by: R.W. at May 4, 2004 1:26 PMIt's social science fiction.
Posted by: David Cohen at May 4, 2004 1:49 PMI have spent 29 years in various sorts of SF fandom. After a while you get to recognize the drooling fanboy wanna-bes. Especially when they hang onto you motormouthing about their SF universe for hours at a stretch.
I have found through these experiences that two characteristics of a fanboy's fictional universe are (1) Religion = Primitive Superstition, NO EXCEPTIONS; and (2) TOTAL SEXUAL FREEDOM (TM). The other aspects of Utopia -- no war, no crime, fantastic wealth, and no need to work -- are actually well behind these two.
And the Star Trek universe, once you get below the surface (and let it ferment a bit beyond the original Old Testament Trek), has both these characteristics. I concluded long ago (and was later confirmed by Joel Engel's unauthorized biography) that Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was a fanboy who made good.
P.S. I have heard apocryphal stories about Trekkies who are blind supporters of the UN because "It's what will become... THE FEDERATION!" (Just look at the Federation Flag in the old Franz Joseph Star Trek Handbook...)
Posted by: Ken at May 4, 2004 2:54 PMIs Souter the next to go? He's practically the baby on the court.
Or was that attack just a conservative hit that failed?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 4, 2004 4:53 PMOne of his former clerks told me that he keeps saying he's going to resign and come back to NH--the "mugging"can't help.
Posted by: oj at May 4, 2004 5:20 PM"Never trust a single man . . ."
OJ - C'mon! Bachelorhood used to be quite respectable.
And for those of us over 40 who would like to marry but haven't yet met our true love -- what? You got something on us? You know something?
Jesus, John, James, Ignatious Loyola and Francis of Assisi -- and Frank my dentist: all single men.
Posted by: Matthew Q. at May 4, 2004 5:48 PMWe were talking about supreme court judges, not presidents.
And Jesus was, to say the least, the Supreme Judge.
Posted by: Paul Velmieux at May 5, 2004 3:32 PM