All 50 states had sodomy laws as of the 1960s. But states began abolishing those laws with the emergence of the gay rights movement, and about half had done so by the early 1980s.

While nearly all states now have laws banning same sex marriage is it your contention that these laws were passed entirely by Christians?

If so that only further supports my contention that this country is a Christian nation who prides itself in Christian laws and fundamental principals.

And going back to my very original post…….those on the outside looking in…IE…Jews, Atheists,Gays etc…..have to get out the old hammer and chisel and begin chipping away at the foundations of this nations established laws and traditions one brick at a time. Much as the above two examples I pointed out.

No, I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.

George H.W. Bush, 1987

Christians have and are working hard taking away the rights of Gays and Lesbians, of women and children, of families that do not conform to their dogmas, in the legislature, in the workplace, at school, in the family, and in society.

Since you’re so concerned about ‘counting,’ I suggest you go and count the ways in which ‘good Christians’ have denied rights to others that they zealously claim for themselves.

Start with all the hateful bills, referendums, and amendments put forward by Christianist state legislators and voted in by good Christians.

I don’t think you can count that high.

I find this truly fascinating. I was not aware that Christians were taking away rights of people in this country. What rights do Christians have that Non Christians do NOT have in this country?

Also careful Doma it sounds as if you are saying the constitituon is a living breathing document which will have you falling out of grace with those you are trying to defend.

As for 1492, the impulse there was clearly colonial hegemony and the rivalry between Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, France and England. The rivalry was partly religious, between Protestant Holland and England and Catholic Spain, France and Portugal. But it was also very much about economic rivalry.

That the vast majority of the people who came to America were Christian is irrelevant, unless their Christianity was the DEFINING objective for their emigration. Yes, they had a sense of hope, which they may have understood in Christian terms. But that seems a far cry from the original point that people came here because of the religious freedom (not written into law until the late 18th century though culturally possible in NY and PA before that).

Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that you are correct about the predominance of Christianity in the early years of the country, what does that say about the principles by which the Constitution was written and the principle by which the country has developed since and is continuing to develop?

Your argument hinges on an implication that the PROCESS stopped at some point. Consequently, if Protestant Christianity was the predominant religion then, it should continue to be the predominant religion in perpetuity?

The Constitution codifies a guide for the future, and it is not merely a mirror of the country’s past up to the point of its writing. All the basic tenets for governing in the future (checks and balances, etc) revolve around guarding against the worst tendencies of HUMAN NATURE as the country develops and changes. So does the Bill of Rights.
I can only conclude then, that the Founders were quite aware that the PROCESS would continue.

Your anguish about your Christian rights being taken then, is a false anguish, because the role of Christianity is part of the PROCESS, like everything else.

The Founders were also all white men of property
It was a long and arduous PROCESS to incorporate women and people of other races under the same system of rights and freedoms.
At every step, what emerged was an outcry that granting rights to more, and different, people somehow takes away the rights of those who already have them.
Yours is the exact same reaction and argument.

Rights do not depend on a finite number of people having them.
No one is taking away the rights of Christians.
It’s just that others want to have the same rights as they do, as the PROCESS results in a more varied society.

Those like you just need to adjust to sharing the public square, instead of claiming it as your exclusive space.

I do not come to the ‘bible belt’ as an outsider. I know my native ground and my brothers and sisters and neighbors quite well, thank you.

This is the argument and it certainly is the stance that Christians take when those of you who want to remove OUR RIGHTS in favor of yours get out your hammer and chisel and begin chipping away.

So, there’s only room for your rights?

The idea that other people having their rights somehow takes away from you having your rights is one that slaveowning southerners (including some of my ancestors) fought for, and lost. I like Eugene Debs’ idea:

…years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

That is a more Christian statement–at least as my Baptist Granny would have recognized it–than what I hear coming out of the mouths of so called Christians these days.

No matter how you guys try to nitpick the truth and chip away at its foundations the process of Americas formation was steeped in Christian roots and not Deism or anything else.

The Great Awakening happened during the critical time in our history. Perhaps had not this event happened the formation of a separate nation from England might never have happened. Because it was this Awakening that caused men to start challenging events, authority and even god. It led to the Deists that had the guts to stand up and be Radical and rebel. Yet despite a nation whose constitution was written by Deists this was a nation that was as a whole driven and highly influenced by the religious and more certainly Christianity.

In this historical context then the founding was 13 states or colonies coming together and saying we will join your nation if you give us certain things. States rights. It was here that the influence of Christianity and religion is never more pronounced then in the FIRST AMENDMENT the founders included RELIGION and its place in America.

I dont think many argue that religion should be separate. The argument comes that Religion is being systematically removed from America despite 600 years of traditions. This is the argument and it certainly is the stance that Christians take when those of you who want to remove OUR RIGHTS in favor of yours get out your hammer and chisel and begin chipping away.

You are making a mistake in timing. You are assuming that the founding of this nation occurred in 1607 in Virgina.

The founding of this nation was a PROCESS that took almost 300 years from 1492 until the Declaration of Independence through to the Creation of the Articles of Confederation on to the Constitution of the United States of America.

The founding of This country was not 1492 or 1607 but was indeed a process that included as Holly pointed out the arrival of Jews…………..Not in the same breath or meant to impunge our Jewish ancestors but also Thiefs, thugs, Muslims and on and on. But predominantly those arriving on our shores were driven by a religious faith.

Seeking relief from the State sponsored churches all accross Europe and wishing to have the FREEDOM to choose where to live and WHAT faith to choose. Such was America in its founding. A nation with many different offshoots of Protestant Christianity as a direct result of the Reformation that had taken place under Martin Luther in Europe during the 1500’s and a Catholic church that was desperately trying to maintain a hold on its souls.

What I teach and have been taught is that the founding of this nation was a process and not a single event.

Therein lies the difference in agendas. It is very easy to look at Virginia 1607 and say nope they came for loot and treasure therefore America was founded on greed and avarice. Or you can look at the process which is certainly a more inclusive approach and determine that Religion and more specifically Reformation driven Protestantism was the driving force behind a VAST majority of pilgrims coming to our shores.

That statement alone pretty much amounts to establishing a theocracy and a very strict religious test, indeed.
He’s softening the blow only by allowing a few outsiders (Jews, Muslims?) into his exclusive club.
But the door of the club is firmly shut against those who don’t meet his religious requirements.

I try to remember that it was a political speech, and maybe it was just a case of romancing the fundamentalist evangelical vote. Still, as the words of a possible president, his words were extreme enough to be frightening.

The case for keeping religion out of politics, while not keeping religious people out of politics, is made pretty evident by this speech, IMO.

Carter, a devout evangelical, was elected without fuss or bother, precisely because he didn’t make his candidacy about his faith. Faith was just one factor of his life and personality that was there for all to see, but no one was challenged to either accept his faith as one’s own or to reject him because of it. That’s the kind of attitude to which I’d like to see this country return.

The day faith was brought to the WH and installed in its own special office, was the day faith became a reason for us to fight with one another instead of cooperate with one another on the very human issues that concern us all, the rich and the poor, the priests and the godless sinners.

Wait, didn’t you just say the word ‘tolerance’ for other religions? But wait, didn’t you just say ‘the new religion’ couldn’t be
tolerated?

There, he lost me.

At my post on Romney here on TMV a short scroll
back, was trying to understand, after listening to and then reading his speech:

I think a most striking lack of consciousness in this particular speech is the leaving out of good persons who are unaffiliated with any organized or corporate religion, or non-Christian ones… people who have their own way of understanding goodness, or not goodness, without the anlagen being God.

I think being president means making overt effort to see all the many different kinds of people in the US. and elsewhere.

This is the phrase that is exclusionary:
“Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.”

And this one I don’t think would pass basic geometric logic:
“Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”

There are other clangs.

I like what H.H. the Dalai Lama says: “…for it is the inherent nature of all human beings to yearn for freedom, equality and dignity, and they have an equal right to achieve that.”

He was speaking about human rights and what he calls “universal responsibility.

Some would say they dont want anyone of any religious anything, near politics. Others say no non-religious people in politics, no no no. I keep thinking the same simple, no doubt dull-minded thought, what about just a good person, regardless of religion or not?

dr.e

Aside from mentioning God 20 times, Jesus Christ 4 times (there’s a sneaky “Lord” in there), and the Catholic Church another 3 times, the FUNDAMENTAL thrust was “Us” versus “them.”

“Us” is “Christians” (and, two token mentions of Jews and Muslims.) “Them” is “jihadists” and “secularists” (and, seemingly, everybody else).

“Mormon” is mentioned precisely once (unless you want to count “faith of my fathers” as a reference to Mormonism and not as a moldy old hymn to give the impression that Mitt’s just like anybody who goes to church. (He’s not).

Mitt-Gott-Uns creates an astonishing little fallacious false, specious dichotomy by suggesting that ANYBODY who doesn’t accept that he’s a “Christian” is being religiously intolerant, mentioning Jesus Christ three times in the paragraph, and, therefore, it is implied, Mitt must clearly be a “Christian.”

This is a matter of astonishing theological ‘controversy,’ (er, NOT, since nearly all sects agree that the Mormon creed is a Bible-derived religion but NOT Christianity, just as Islam accepts the Bible but adds additional elements of ITS own).

But the REAL viciousness of the fallacy is that the “argument” is that if you do not accept their/Mitt’s self-definition, you are guilty of religious intolerance.

Gee, I don’t know. (I’m a Buddhist.) But isn’t there a HUGE difference between allowing people to practice their religion freely (religious tolerance) and being forced to accept the tenets and/or presumptions OF their religion (religious bullying)?

Why, if Mitt’s such a groovy guy, would he attempt to foist such a monstrously false dichotomy off on his listeners?

As for whatever y’all are arguing about: while it is certainly very interesting, I am not at all sure that it has anything to do with Romney’s carefully tailored sophistries: Us versus them.

He wants to include YOU in his “us” and we can all then fight “them.” Where have we seen this political gambit used before? Hmmm.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” George Orwell, Animal Farm

Someone,
I didn’t say that the early founders were not religious people or that John Smith and co. didn’t pray to God. I merely said that the purpose of their voyage to Virginia was not to “escape religious persecution.” It was to make money, and to bring people along that could help them do it. Churches outside the official Anglican Church never established a foothold in Virginia until the 1740s with the Great Awakening. Who might have been persecuting these Anglicans in John Smith’s colony in England? The indentured servants who came over were primarily young men kicked off the land in the enclosure movement and often tricked into signing an indenture. Religious freedom had nothing to do with their decision to come to America.

DLS,
The Puritans weren’t persecuted in England except insofar as they had failed to “purify” the Anglican Church by 1629. They’d struggled to turn the Church of England into a Calvinist body since the 1560s (when the Church of Scotland was established under Calvinist precepts). The Puritans (who called themselves Independents or Dissenters) had a strong following in Parliament and in East Anglia from the 1570s right up through the Interregnum of the 1650s. The emigration to America was more a frustration at the failure of Puritans to remake the Church of England and a desire to establish their own Calvinist utopia. They never claimed “religious freedom.” Not for themselves or for others. They believed there was only one acceptable interpretation of Christianity and if they were not going to be able to mold the Church of England into their own Calvinist institution, then they were going to go abroad and set their own up under congregational auspices. The King of England was plenty happy to be rid of them. The Puritan “Great Migration” only lasted from 1629 to 1641, when the Civil War began.

Holly is right that some Jews were early settlers of New Amsterdam – later New York after 1664. Many traced their routes to expellees from the Portuguese and Spanish Inquisition or traders through Amsterdam. But the first large-scale religious migrants to America – whose primary purpose was to escape religious persecution – were German Anabaptists (Mennonites usually) who settled in Philadelphia (Germantown) in the early 18th century.