Nothing you haven’t heard before. But a lot of people who haven’t heard it before are going to hear it. (The link goes to the New York Times article on the Cranston banner.)
I’ve been arguing with a few people, away from here, about this case. I don’t know–to me, it seems so cut and dried; why would any religious believer want to side with the notion of “yes, the government can choose which religion to promote.” Seriously, Jessica is fighting for their rights, even as they (figuratively, I hope) spit on her.
Cuttledaughter has been following Jessica’s story; it’s too late to hope she grows up to be like Jessica, but it is not too late to be proud that she takes Jessica’s side.
The whole thing is shocking to me. And I’m not particularly impressed with the religious leaders at last coming forward, to be honest. It’s good, but they should have been out on the front lines defending the separation of church and state. That people should oppose the bullying and threatening of a 15-year-old kid is so obvious it’s ridiculous.
Do RI Catholics think they were never a marginalized minority in New England or something? Never mind – they probably do.
***
Hang in there, Jessica.
Jessica came to visit the Auburn High School Freethinkers here in Alabama. They were very proud to have her. (Our daughter is among ’em).
It is so sad to see that nobody realizes that times change and tables turn and that you might have somebody else’s religion pushed on you next time. I think perhaps many of our founders migrated here to get away from state religion and realized just that.
Currently coddled Christians huddling together under the threat of Islam are ignoring their differences with each other.
SC, I was coming to comment on your comment, but Cazfans got there first. It should be, but apparently is not, crystal clear to believers everywhere that Jessica is fighting for their rights. Even in Rhode Island, there is no guarantee of a Christian (let alone Catholic, as is currently) majority. Jessica is the one defending their right not to be railroaded by a majority that does not agree with the religious majority. It could happen–it has happened. Ok, not in Rhode Island. Yet.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2012/01/24/christian-jailed-5-years-for-blasphemy/
Thanks. An excellent post – and poem – I’d missed the first time.
After going back and rereading the prayer, it strikes me that, once again, the Christers don’t mean a word of what they say. The prayer exhorts the students to be “kind and helpful”; this is not exactly a description of their treatment of Jessica, is it? L
…and good sports when they lose.
Part of the problem is Catholic priests who are preaching from the pulpit that Catholics’ rights are being trampled. Surely that’s taking them out of the tax-free zone?
And the Catholics respond by reasoning in sound-bites taken from WingNut Daily and by lying about their opponents–all “athiests” according to them.
It will probably never happen in Rhode Island, but why should they want to offend everyone else? What happened to compassion and empathy?
why would any religious believer want to side with the notion of “yes, the government can choose which religion to promote.”
Because they’re all positive that in the end their religion would win. Because it’s obvious that their religion is the right one.
The conservative Catholics are especially deluded by this. The conservative evangelicals have managed to convince the conservative Catholics that they agree with each other on the “important” things and that if they all just gang up against those horrible Muslims and atheists, they can come up with some nice Judeo-Christian prayers that everyone can agree on to be said in school (and that way they don’t have to think about how this infringes on Judaism either, which would invite Hitler comparisons and it’s better not to go there.)
The fact that these groups can’t agree on what constitutes the Ten Commandments or the wording of the Lord’s Prayer is apparently too much for the conservative Catholic fools in this alliance to contemplate. (Also most of them probably think that since RCs are the largest single denomination in the US they’ll come out on top – Catholics really, really don’t understand just how much of a minority they really are since you almost always see Protestant denominations broken out individually in the comparisons instead of just “Protestant”…)