I am going to deviate away from music for this week. I read this article about a case against a judge in Ohio http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=23850. The case is about judge who displayed a poster of the Ten Commandments in his court room. The poster was titled "Philosophies of Law in Conflict" and it showed the Ten Commandments in a column listed as "moral absolutes" and secular humanist principles in another column listed as "moral relatives."
The Judge argued that he sees a conflict of legal philosophies in the United States between moral absolutism and moral relativism and that he believes legal philosophy must be based on fixed moral standards. At the bottom of the poster frame, readers are invited to obtain a pamphlet further explaining the Judge's philosophy.
The panel of judges ultimately decided that "replacing the word religion with the word philosophy does not mask the religious nature" and ordered the removal of the poster.
Reading this article brought to mind a number of things. I completely understand the ruling here and the separation of Church and State is an important part of our country's makeup. But it made me wonder if there was a way to have both. The judge in this situation was trying to pass of his religious beliefs as philosophy, and maybe would of been more believable if he hadn't hung a different Ten Commandments poster in 2000, but is there an argument that would allow the display of religious items? Cases and situations seem much more prevalent in the past decade or two with people speaking out against open religious displays especially when it is tied to the government at all. It feels to me, and I am not a very religious person, that if we keep moving in this direction where any form of religious displays or acts are not allowed that we will eventually not make anyone happy by trying to make everyone happy.
This has always been a really difficult argument as I see both sides. People want to display their beliefs and other people don't want to feel like someone else's beliefs are being shoved in their face. But my personal feeling is the more the merrier. I have always seen the freedom of religion in this country as that, freedom to worship in the way you see fit. If you don't want to say "under God" in the pledge of allegiance don't say it, or fill in any name you want for God but don't get rid of it all together. If you don't want to say "Merry Christmas" then don't, say Happy Holidays or Hanukkah or whatever but lets not hide from the fact that people have different beliefs. I think it should be celebrated.
I agree with the outcome in the case about the Ohio Judge as I don't think it has a place in the courtroom. This case just got me to thinking that more we chip away at what is allowed and what is politically correct and socially acceptable are we taking away from people's first amendment right of freedom of religion?
I completely agree with you on this point. If we prohibit people from openly expressing their religious beliefs, where will that leave our country? I do not understand how this country has come so far in the sense that we are finally starting to see that diversity is an asset to our communities, and yet our religions views continue to be stifled. This is just one more occurrence of diversity in America, but for some reason while other other varieties are being promoted, religion is becoming less and less politically correct.
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