Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to A Question for you.

No, no, and no.
Mary Anne — (archived)

What is against the law in the United States is to establish a religion as part of government, to discriminate against people based on their religion, and to force people to conform to a particular religion against their will because it is the religion of the majority.

Raising children as Christians is pointless, but not illegal. Children don't get it. You can teach children Christian behavior by example -- tolerance and practicing peace, for instance -- and you can teach them the stories associated with the religion. You can include them in rituals. But they have to choose Christianity, because it's a path. It requires great maturity and compassion, learned over years and years. Otherwise they wind up in adulthood as people who believe that they have the righteous duty to judge other people based on what they do on Sunday and whether they wear WWJD bracelets.

I know people who, at this time of year, will contend that allowing their children to be exposed to Hallowe'en is religious persecution because it's unChristian. Some of them will argue with me that I ought not to offer a Hallowe'en story time because it persecutes the Christians. (At this particular moment, I feel you have a lot in common with them.) I'll offer it anyway, as always with advance notice that Hallowe'en will be our story time at the end of October, that I will dress up, and here are the books we will read. In this way, they will be free to stay away from the things they think will rot their children's souls. But they are not free to tell the rest of us that we may not celebrate this holiday.

Mr. Monaghan intends not just to zone against pornography (a right and practice currently available throughout the United States), but against the sale of birth control. I ask you, what the hell business is that of his, to use his religion to limit other people's access to such personal products? Is that really what you want?

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