Wall Street Journal
March 10, 2004
Secular Absolutism
Secular absolutism is becoming the most potent religious force in America. Just ask the Boy Scouts and Catholic Charities, which both fell afoul of secular orthodoxy and then found judges willing to punish them for it.
Start with Catholic Charities. The California Supreme Court just ruled that the social-services arm of the Roman Catholic Church must include contraceptives coverage to women as part of any prescription drug benefit it extends to employees. When Catholic Charities insisted that as an avowedly Catholic organization it fit the religious exemption provided by the law in question, the court simply said it was not a religious organization. Catholic Charities?
Leave aside the irony that of all America's Catholic institutions, Catholic Charities is arguably the most liberal and sympathetic to secular crusades. Even that didn't protect them. Nor did its practice of employing people outside the Catholic faith — which was used here as reason for denying its religious claims. If the state can order a Catholic organization to include contraceptive coverage as part of its health benefits or drop all drug coverage, it's not hard to see where that's leading. This is what passes for civil liberties now.
The lone dissent in this 6-1 decision came from Justice Janice Rogers Brown. Judge Brown, nominated by President Bush for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, has been pilloried for refusing to bow before this increasingly stifling liberal orthodoxy. As she tartly noted in her decision here, the California high court has "such a crabbed and constricted view of religion that it would define the ministry of Jesus Christ as a secular activity."
Compare this ruling with what's going on with the Boy Scouts. Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the Scouts' appeal of a Connecticut decision to kick them off a list of charities on its state-worker voluntary-donation plan. Meanwhile the American Civil Liberties Union has routed the Scouts in San Diego.
In a settlement reached earlier this year with the ACLU, San Diego agreed to revoke a Scouts lease for public campgrounds, where the Scouts have had a presence since 1918 and a formal lease since 1957. The city also agreed to pay the ACLU a whopping $950,000 for its efforts.
The Boy Scouts are suing, and they will not actually be evicted until the courts have ruled on all the outstanding issues and the litigation has been settled. But their opponents cite previous briefs in which the Scouts used the words "religious organization" to describe themselves as an association of believers and explain why they could not admit atheists. Never mind that by this broad definition, the Continental Congress that signed the Declaration of Independence would be a "religious organization."
Twisting these words, the ACLU contends that leasing the Scouts public lands is tantamount to the public establishment of religion. Silly as that might sound — and the civil rights division of the Justice Department agrees with the Scouts here — the argument received a huge boost when a federal judge decreed that the Scouts are a religious organization and that the leases do raise Establishment Clause concerns, a decision that no doubt led to the city's decision to settle.
Never mind that the Scouts have not discriminated against, or even been accused of discriminating against, anyone who has sought to use the campgrounds they maintain. Their real crime is to have won the Supreme Court case involving their First Amendment right not to admit an openly homosexual Scoutmaster. Ever since, a liberal jihad has been launched to strip them of any public association. As another federal judge put it in that Connecticut case the Supremes have just refused to hear, the Scouts "pay a price" for exercising their First Amendment rights.
All this is being done notwithstanding that the results will leave people worse off than they were before. The easiest way for Catholic Charities to comply, for example, would be by withdrawing all its prescription drug benefits. Its female employees will end up with fewer benefits than now. And you can bet the people of San Diego will be worse off with the Scouts no longer maintaining those campgrounds.
What's going on here is an effort by liberal activists and their judiciary enablers to turn one set of personal mores into a public orthodoxy from which there can be no dissent, even if that means trampling the First Amendment. Any voluntary association that doesn't comply — the same little platoons once considered the bedrock of American freedom — will be driven from the public square. Meet the new face of intolerance.
For a summary of the legal attacks on the Boy Scouts, see the list here. The Boy Scouts are a hated organization. They have been under continuous assault by the legal parasites ever since they won the case affirming their right not to allow homosexuals to be in leadership roles in their organization in the Supreme Court. The ACLU and various Atheists have been on the attack ever since.
13 comments:
Interesting that you would say that atheists have been attacking the BSA "ever since" the Dale decision, as all the litigation over 'god' at the bsalegal website is dated before the Dale decision.
A lot of the litigation (or threatened litigation) post-Dale has concerned how the government can support the BSA, as the BSA is now recognized as an organization that practices religious discrimination.
For example, public schools used to be the largest sponsors of cub scout packs; the BSA wasn't honest enough to recharter these packs after the Dale decision, and the ACLU had to threaten to sue any public school that discriminated on the basis of religion before the BSA acted.
This wasn't an "attack," though, because public schools can't discriminate against atheists by running private clubs like cub scout packs.
Atheists could have formed their own school sponsored groups if they had wanted, but they preferred to punish the Boy Scouts by driving them out. This is the real agenda. Atheist boys didn't wind up with a group of their own. It was never about providing character development for the Atheist boys.
That was never the driving force, it was a dodge behind the real agenda, which is to drive God out of the world of the Atheist. A show of intolerance if ever there was one.
"Atheists could have formed their own school sponsored groups if they had wanted, but they preferred to punish the Boy Scouts by driving them out."
No, PUBLIC SCHOOLS were running these cub scout packs; it's exactly the same as if a public school had a school chess club, but didn't allow, say, Jews to join. Public schools can't do this, period.
Every time I bring this up, people like you fail to distinguish between a school-sponsored club (like a cub scout pack that is chartered by the public school), versus an outside group that simply meets in the school. Many cub scout packs still MEET in public schools, but they can't be sponsored by the school, because to do that, the school must practice religious discrimination and exclude atheists.
" It was never about providing character development for the Atheist boys."
No, it never was. It was about stopping public schools from violating the civil rights of atheists by running "no atheists allowed" private clubs. Public schools can't do that.
You fail to see the point. Atheists needn't have been considered discriminated against if they had taken advantage of the open policy of school sponsorship and started their own groups. But the Atheists didn't really want into the scouts, nor did they want any group at all (what sort of group would promote relativism amongst young boys?).
The Atheists just wanted to punish the scouts for being deist and "character forming". They didn't want their fair share, they wanted no one to have a share. They were being "Dogs in the Manger". Do Atheists have a civil right to be Dogs in the Manger? Apparently so, under the current secularization movement - designed to make over the nation to the satisfaction of Atheists only. The campaign against the Scouts is a hateful thing.
The interpretation of the First Amendment as elimination of religion is an artifact of secular relativism. The amendment says,
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
At no point does a school system pass congressional legislation.
The Atheist religion (Atheism is legally a religion, and so is Secular Humanism) wants to dominate all government operations. The Atheist religion wants to eliminate all the previously designated "virtues" and "character" parameters in favor of total relativism in all government operations. Secularization is the mantra, except when it is "discrimination".
So now, Atheism is the only religion allowed in the newly-secular government school system. The ACLU will see to it.
"You fail to see the point. Atheists needn't have been considered discriminated against if they had taken advantage of the open policy of school sponsorship and started their own groups."
Wrong.
Public schools can't run "atheist only" groups, either. Public schools can't practice religious discrimination, whether it's running a "no atheist" group like a cub scout pack, or a hypothetical group that only allows atheists (or Jews, or Catholics, etc). You simply don't know the law.
"But the Atheists didn't really want into the scouts, nor did they want any group at all (what sort of group would promote relativism amongst young boys?)."
Sorry, the Randall twins really wanted to be scouts (as they WERE in the scouts), yet the BSA wanted to throw them out anyway. And your conflating of atheism and relativism is spurious and irrelevant.
"The Atheists just wanted to punish the scouts for being deist and "character forming"."
Wrong again.
Atheists, at least THIS atheist, wants public schools to respect the civil rights of atheist students; public schools that own & operate private clubs that exclude atheists are violating the rights of their own students.
"At no point does a school system pass congressional legislation."
It would help if you had any inkling of court rulings.
The first amendment applies to state governments via the 14th amendment. Public schools are agents of their respective state governments and cannot violate the first amendment.
If your simplistic comeback had any weight, public schools could vote to exclude Jews or Catholics or Muslims or atheists or have any other sort of religious qualifications to attend that school. PRIVATE schools can do this, but public schools cannot.
However, you aren't interested in the civil rights of atheists, that's clear.
The Fourteenth Amendment reads as follows:
Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.
1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Undoubtedly you mean to refer to section 1 of this amendment. And undoubtedly that section means - to you - that you have the right not to be supportive of anything with which you disagree. By the same logic, I have the right not be supportive of anything with which I disagree.
However, this interpretation institutes intolerance. That is neither the spirit nor the stated objective of this amendment.
It does not in anyway violate the fourteenth amendment to allow all beliefs to have supportive structures within the school systems. This would be the inclusive approach, consistent with the intent of the amendment. However, with secularization - the Atheist religion - only Atheism is now allowed, under the legal corruption of the underlying meaning of both the First and Fourteenth Amendments. This is the exclusive interpretation, used to the exclusive benefit of the Atheist/Secularist.
(Interestingly, the Fourteenth Amendment also strongly implies that only males are considered "voters").
This is your concept of "Atheist Civil Rights"... a totalitarian system which structurally supports only your particular worldview. It essentially codifies intolerance.
If a person wants to be a part of an organization, but demands that the organization change its very basis for existence in order to accommodate this person, then what organization would ever do so?
Would the Secular Humanists agree to say a prayer at every meeting, just because I demand it? The issue of membership for dissenters is not the reason for attacking the Scouts.
No; the membership issue is a ruse. It is a Red Herring attempting to disguise the real agenda, which is remaking society totally Atheist, in the image of the Atheist, at the whim of the Atheist.
The stated motives behind the attacks on the Scouts are transparent; the actual agenda is obvious.
I received the following response from the Smithsonian:
"Your inquiry of October 2, 2008, regarding a Boy Scout event at the Smithsonian has been received in the Smithsonian's Public Inquiry Mail Service for response."
"We believe you are referring to an incident which took place in February 1997 where a Boy Scout troop's request to hold their honor court at the National Zoo was initially denied."
"Then-Secretary I. Michael Heyman subsequently reversed that decision
saying "I believe that our Special Events Policy clearly allows the
sponsorship of events by all groups, including religious groups, that are consistent with the mission and tradition of the Smithsonian. This event certainly complied with that standard and its denial on that ground was in error."
"We appreciate your interest in the Smithsonian Institution."
I consider this response (reversal of the rejection) to be reasonable and rational, unlike the denial of access supported by the Atheist community.
Either I misunderstood the radio newscast, or it was incomplete or in error. First, the Scouts apparently were allowed, ultimately, to have their honors banquet; second, this was not new news, it was old news.
"Undoubtedly you mean to refer to section 1 of this amendment. And undoubtedly that section means - to you - that you have the right not to be supportive of anything with which you disagree."
Undoubtedly, you're wrong.
But that doesn't stop you from setting up straw men.
"It does not in anyway violate the fourteenth amendment to allow all beliefs to have supportive structures within the school systems."
It does when doing so causes public schools to discriminate against some students merely due to their religious beliefs, such as running a private club that excludes atheists.
"However, with secularization - the Atheist religion - only Atheism is now allowed, under the legal corruption of the underlying meaning of both the First and Fourteenth Amendments. "
"This is your concept of "Atheist Civil Rights"... a totalitarian system which structurally supports only your particular worldview. It essentially codifies intolerance."
More straw men than a Wizard of Oz convention.
Sorry, you can't even argue issues. You just set up straw men.
Since you have refused to acknowledge the meat of my statement, that total non-discrimination could have been achieved in an inclusive manner, rather than in the exclusive manner chosen by the Atheist antagonists, I assume that the discussion is closed.
This is decorated by the use of a non-specific charge of fallacy, the last resort of someone with no further basis for discussion.
So, discussion is now closed.
"Since you have refused to acknowledge the meat of my statement, that total non-discrimination could have been achieved in an inclusive manner, rather than in the exclusive manner chosen by the Atheist antagonists, I assume that the discussion is closed."
I acknowledge it; I reject it as wrong. Public schools can't practice religious discrimination, even on a "separate but equal" basis.
Schools practice discrimination and segregation all the time, based on sex, age, intellectual capabilities, physical capabilities and so on.
The "discrimination" complaint is an argument from personal indigation and is not a real issue. It has been shown to be possible to accommodate different organizations with differing memberships in such institutions as the Smithsonian, the original subject of all this.
Public schools have become the battleground for the war on culture, and the agression of Atheism via secularism visited on the most vulnerable citizens, our children. Atheist organizations such as the ACLU attack schools with the fear of financial damage if the schools don't cave into the Atheist agenda. The courts purposely inject Atheist agenda into constitutional statements that have no such thing stated.
If all outcomes are to be based on personal indignation, then warfare is guaranteed, because there is no possible path of amicable resolution, only capitulation, as your posts have indicated. There is no inclusion. Only exclusion.
That is why secularism must be fought; it is exclusive, and it is totalitarian.
"Schools practice discrimination and segregation all the time, based on sex, age, intellectual capabilities, physical capabilities and so on."
Yes, but NOT ON RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, because that would be unconstitutional.
"The "discrimination" complaint is an argument from personal indigation and is not a real issue."
You might want to consider why the BSA didn't even try to fight this.
And you don't get to set other people's priorities. Atheists have equal civil rights, and yes, we actually sue when our rights are infringed. I know you don't like that, but that's your problem, not mine.
"And you don't get to set other people's priorities.
But you, of course, do. The Atheist use of lawsuits is specifically to rid the USA of non-secular activity. It is fiscal bullying, it is based in totalitarianism.
This is beating a long-dead horse.
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