MemeMachineGo!

When it was current, I saw a bunch of approving comments on Barack Obama’s speech advocating not being so darn persnickety about keeping religion out of school and government.

I’d been meaning to comment on it, but my response has been pretty much summed up by Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s.

We’ve had a Jewish family run out of a Delaware town for contesting the blatant harassment and Christian proselytizing the children were facing in public school. The freakin’ Air Force Academy isn’t looking any better than that Delaware school.

In disagreeing with Obama, it’s not that I’m afraid that what he proposes would lead us down a hypothetical slippery slope. The problem’s that we’re already way, way down that slope, and have a lot of uphill climbing to do.

Here’s a real toughie:what with defining this as a freedom of religion issue, how would you Christians crying oppression feel about any religion other than yours having the “freedom” to be represented in public schools and government? A Satanist student group using school resources to gather. Civil functions beginning with a Pagan invocation of the spirits of the Four Winds. A Muslim military commander harassing reports for being of a different religion. Got any problems with any of this?

Me too. Thing is, I don’t find the situations improved by filling in a different religion.