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They were arrested for being STUPID and INSULTING festival participant. The courts ruled they were allowed to be there, but BULLHORNS and SIGNS were a wee bit BIGOTED..
Have you seen the video they took? Have you seen how they acted? They weren't doing that. They were nice, and polite.
The city had to apologize, by the way, from what I understand, and admitted they were wrong.
But a community deciding to limit liquor sales before noon on Sunday is certainly not wrong. Nor would it even be wrong to suggest that one can't open a restaurant for a time during Ramadan. THat is up to that community.
Your knowledge of our freedoms is strikingly incorrect. Laws must have a secular purpose. Religious reasons can NOT be the only reason for a law. You are wrong about restricting the opening of a restaurant on Ramadan because that is a purely religious purpose.
Your knowledge of our freedoms is strikingly incorrect. Laws must have a secular purpose. Religious reasons can NOT be the only reason for a law. You are wrong about restricting the opening of a restaurant on Ramadan because that is a purely religious purpose.
Yet, communities across America make such laws and have such laws in effect. Weird.
It's not an endorsement of any religion. If that's what the PEOPLE of a community want, they can decide to do that. It's a secular reason. No one is suggesting that they reference a Koran or a Bible to determine law.
Yet, communities across America make such laws and have such laws in effect. Weird.
It's not an endorsement of any religion. If that's what the PEOPLE of a community want, they can decide to do that. It's a secular reason. No one is suggesting that they reference a Koran or a Bible to determine law.
Until they are challenged in court and struck down. That's the way the system works. Bigots get to make and enforce whatever law they want until told they can't. A better way would be having bigots recognize that they should not.... like THAT'S going to happen.
Until they are challenged in court and struck down. That's the way the system works. Bigots get to make and enforce whatever law they want until told they can't. A better way would be having bigots recognize that they should not.... like THAT'S going to happen.
The fact that you toss that word around so loosely tells me a lot. No one is advocating hatred based on race or creed. No one is suggesting discrimination.
The fact that you toss that word around so loosely tells me a lot. No one is advocating hatred based on race or creed. No one is suggesting discrimination.
bigotry is not just hatred, it is the conviction that you are right regardless of the evidence.
"Definition of bigot. : a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance." Merriam Webster
Yet, communities across America make such laws and have such laws in effect. Weird.
It's not an endorsement of any religion. If that's what the PEOPLE of a community want, they can decide to do that. It's a secular reason. No one is suggesting that they reference a Koran or a Bible to determine law.
Even assuming what you say is true -- and communities across America make such laws and have such laws in effect -- doesn't mean they are acting in good faith toward the Constitution.
You seem to think that just because a law was able to get passed, it is both legal and constitutional. In fact, that simply isn't the case.
Keep in mind that children were forced to pray in a public school for 200+ years; it wasn't until the 1960s when atheists finally put a stop to that.
What the schools were doing was illegal -- and it was illegal from the day they started doing it, or from the day the Constitution was ratified, whichever came first.
I can pretty much guarantee that if any atheist group or even another religious group decides to sue these communities for enforcing illegal religious laws, the community will lose.
The problem is that individuals and communities will often try to put religious laws on the books in the hopes that no one will bother challenging the legality of having them. If these laws truly exist -- I'd sure like an example of one -- it could be that the residents agree with the law or don't care about the law and therefore do nothing to challenge it.
But guess what, that still doesn't make the law legal or constitutional.
Unfortunately, the ultra-religious are always trying to sneak draconian, oppressive religious laws through local and state legislatures all the time. For instance, Louisiana tried passing a bill that would require every girl in the Louisiana public school system to take an involuntary pregnancy test; those girls found to be pregnant would have been immediately expelled. Nice, huh? Such warmth and compassion from the Christian right. At any rate, it took a third party lawyer to sue the state in order to get the bill declared unconstitutional -- which it was by leaps and bounds.
The lesson for the day is: Just because a town might have a religious law on the books does *not* mean it passed constitutional muster. Quite often, there are illegal laws still around. I think 8 states still have a requirement in their constitutions saying you must believe in God or a higher power in order to hold public office. That's a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, but they remain in existence because those laws aren't enforced, so no one has bothered expending the time, energy, and money to get those laws removed. That doesn't mean it's perfectly okay for a state to require belief in a higher power to be eligible for public office.
Even assuming what you say is true -- and communities across America make such laws and have such laws in effect -- doesn't mean they are acting in good faith toward the Constitution.
You seem to think that just because a law was able to get passed, it is both legal and constitutional. In fact, that simply isn't the case.
Keep in mind that children were forced to pray in a public school for 200+ years; it wasn't until the 1960s when atheists finally put a stop to that.
What the schools were doing was illegal -- and it was illegal from the day they started doing it, or from the day the Constitution was ratified, whichever came first.
I can pretty much guarantee that if any atheist group or even another religious group decides to sue these communities for enforcing illegal religious laws, the community will lose.
The problem is that individuals and communities will often try to put religious laws on the books in the hopes that no one will bother challenging the legality of having them. If these laws truly exist -- I'd sure like an example of one -- it could be that the residents agree with the law or don't care about the law and therefore do nothing to challenge it.
But guess what, that still doesn't make the law legal or constitutional.
Unfortunately, the ultra-religious are always trying to sneak draconian, oppressive religious laws through local and state legislatures all the time. For instance, Louisiana tried passing a bill that would require every girl in the Louisiana public school system to take an involuntary pregnancy test; those girls found to be pregnant would have been immediately expelled. Nice, huh? Such warmth and compassion from the Christian right. At any rate, it took a third party lawyer to sue the state in order to get the bill declared unconstitutional -- which it was by leaps and bounds.
The lesson for the day is: Just because a town might have a religious law on the books does *not* mean it passed constitutional muster. Quite often, there are illegal laws still around. I think 8 states still have a requirement in their constitutions saying you must believe in God or a higher power in order to hold public office. That's a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, but they remain in existence because those laws aren't enforced, so no one has bothered expending the time, energy, and money to get those laws removed. That doesn't mean it's perfectly okay for a state to require belief in a higher power to be eligible for public office.
You really don't do yourself any favors when you ignore and don't address substantive points like these. Shirina is a trained historian, an intelligent human being, and if I don't miss my guess, posts many of these messages at some significant cost in personal discomfort. People see your non-responses like this and note it accordingly.
Disagree all you want ... but do it with honest, symmetrical engagement. Otherwise you're simply allowing your position to be dismantled without demonstrating any reason it should not be.
The lesson for the day is: Just because a town might have a religious law on the books does *not* mean it passed constitutional muster. Quite often, there are illegal laws still around. I think 8 states still have a requirement in their constitutions saying you must believe in God or a higher power in order to hold public office. That's a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, but they remain in existence because those laws aren't enforced, so no one has bothered expending the time, energy, and money to get those laws removed. That doesn't mean it's perfectly okay for a state to require belief in a higher power to be eligible for public office.
Quite so. There are a lot of laws that no one bothers to enforce because they are unenforceABLE. It's only ignorance of these things that allow those laws to have some effect.
To cite an example that should be fairly non-controvertial here, I can't tell you how many times I've signed boilerplate contracts to do work for clients where I am barred from accepting work from any of their competitors, for periods ranging from 1 year to forever. I always laugh uproariously and sign the contract with no intention of necessarily abiding by that provision. Because it's well established law that you can't prevent someone from earning a living -- which you would be doing by attempting to control who they can or can't accept future work from. So long as you don't do CONCURRENT work for a competitor, or re-use work paid for by one client for another client (and so long as we're talking actual code, rather than "methods and algorithms") -- these provisions are entirely unenforceable. They're just there because a certain percentage of signatories will think it's valid, or will fear that it's valid -- and because sometimes a large client with lots of legal resources can make your life miserable even though they can't ultimately actually win -- should you lack the discretion to keep your client list and the nature of your projects private in the first place.
Bottom line -- laws getting passed <> laws being enforceable.
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