Suing for baby Jesus
The Olympia realtor who demanded a creche in the state Captiol is now suing over the issue, with help from a Big Stinky-funded group.
It's not clear from the article if Wesselius had any previous involvement with the Alliance Defense Fund or other uber-conservative causes, since Wesselius did not respond to a reporter's phone call requesting comment, according to The Olympian. Wesselius is entitled to his day in court, so we'll see how that shakes out. If the courts rule that having a creche is constitutional, then that's fine. More likely, the courts will find that a nativity scene depicting the birth of the Son of God is an overt endorsement of one religion, seeing as it such a pivotal part of Christianity.
The more salient point, of course, is that the ultra-orthodox Christianists in this country won't stop there. They will want creches and crosses and anything else they want everywhere they look, all the time. In the schools, in the malls, in the airports, and most importantly, in the government. Sadly for our country, they had their chance to rule wisely the last six years, and they proved beyond all doubt that mixing religion and government too closely is a recipe for disaster.
The U.S. will never be a theocracy, nor could it function as such. It's such an obvious point that it pains me to bring it up, but what happens when say, the Southern Baptists and devout Catholics have a small difference of interpretation? You can't have things like that screwing up the government, it's insane.
Why the religious fundamentalists in this country cannot see that the First Amendment protects them rather than oppresses them is beyond me. Frankly, they don't want to see it, because then they would have to admit that other people are allowed to believe as they wish. Deep down, actions like this are not attempts to affirm Christianity but rather a churlish resentment of the respect now afforded other religions in our society.
Wesselius sued the state on Tuesday with help from the Alliance Defense Fund, which hosts a Web site called Save Christmas and advocates public displays of religion during the holidays. The Arizona-based organization frequently takes up religious speech cases.Hmmm... I wonder who funds the Alliance Defense Fund? Off to Media Transparency.org once again....just the usual suspects, including the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation. Richard Devos is the founder of Amway and yet another ultra-wealthy mover in the GOP.
Like the F.M. Kirby Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation supports the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institue for Public Policy Research, and the Media Research Center. The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation also supports the State Policy Network, an association of 40 conservative state agencies nationwide.As is clear from the Olympian article, one of the problems with Wesselius's request was how late in the year it came. While it may be frustrating to parse out what constitutues an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and what does not, that is how our system works.
It's not clear from the article if Wesselius had any previous involvement with the Alliance Defense Fund or other uber-conservative causes, since Wesselius did not respond to a reporter's phone call requesting comment, according to The Olympian. Wesselius is entitled to his day in court, so we'll see how that shakes out. If the courts rule that having a creche is constitutional, then that's fine. More likely, the courts will find that a nativity scene depicting the birth of the Son of God is an overt endorsement of one religion, seeing as it such a pivotal part of Christianity.
The more salient point, of course, is that the ultra-orthodox Christianists in this country won't stop there. They will want creches and crosses and anything else they want everywhere they look, all the time. In the schools, in the malls, in the airports, and most importantly, in the government. Sadly for our country, they had their chance to rule wisely the last six years, and they proved beyond all doubt that mixing religion and government too closely is a recipe for disaster.
The U.S. will never be a theocracy, nor could it function as such. It's such an obvious point that it pains me to bring it up, but what happens when say, the Southern Baptists and devout Catholics have a small difference of interpretation? You can't have things like that screwing up the government, it's insane.
Why the religious fundamentalists in this country cannot see that the First Amendment protects them rather than oppresses them is beyond me. Frankly, they don't want to see it, because then they would have to admit that other people are allowed to believe as they wish. Deep down, actions like this are not attempts to affirm Christianity but rather a churlish resentment of the respect now afforded other religions in our society.
