Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
> Kevin Gowen wrote:
>
>> I never said that Scalia and Ashcroft were my heroes. I only seem to
>> recall stating Justice Samuel Kent as one of my heroes. Let's
>> pretend that I did say that Scalia and Ashcroft are two of my
>> heroes. How does this point to my being a religious bigot? Not that
>> I expect you to reply to me, of course. Please feel free to reply to
>> me by proxy through a reply to a third party as has become your MO.
>
> I do reply directly on occasion.

Yes, a practice you describe as being "weak" in http://tinyurl.com/encx

I thought power-lifters were supposed to be strong?

> I did mispeak on one point. While you
> have made admiring comments about Ashcroft and Scalia, you have never
> actually used the word "hero" in regard to them.
>
> Ashcroft is a slam-dunk. He is the guy that said "Civilized people --
> Muslims, Christians and Jews -- all understand that the source of
> freedom and human dignity is the Creator" on 2/18/2002, isn't he? I
> guess that around half the world (including myself) doesn't meet his
> base definition of "civilized."

I am surprised to learn that half of the world's population does not believe
in a creator.

> Still, I would seem that when he has
> those office prayers, leaving "Jesus" out assures that he only offends
> the uncivilised portion of his office.

I see. Where's the religious bigotry?

> Scalia is admittedly a little harder. I think he is smarter than John.
> He adamantly defends the right of the government to endorse monotheism
> (note the absence of any competitors in the quote "Government will not
> favor Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, but the tradition was
> never
> that the government had to be neutral between religiousness and
> nonreligiousness." 1/13/2003), but he never goes down the slope of
> portraying other folks as uncivilized or evil. He does, however,
> endorse discouraging the democratic process when it comes to his
> religious beliefs: ".. It seems to me that the reaction of people of
> faith to this tendency
> of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should
> be
> not resignation to it but resolution to combat it as effectively as
> possible, and a principal way of combating it, in my view, is constant
> public reminder that - in the words of one of the Supreme Court's
> religion cases in the days when we understood the religion clauses
> better than I think we now do - 'we are a religious people whose
> institutions presuppose a supreme being.'" (1/25/2002)

Where was the part where he talked about discouraging democracy when it
comes to his religious beliefs? What did he say about his religious beliefs
in the slightest?

> His whole philosophy is calculated to encourage, as a natural
> consequence, privileges and benefits to people whose religous beliefs
> are similar to his own. An intellectually sophisticated bigotry, but
> bigotry none the less.

I see. What privilege and benefit does he seek to confer on what group?

> Then the question comes to you. Do you admire these men? Yes, you do.

You're not doing well so far, KWW. Trying to use my admiration of Ashcroft
and Scalia (assuming that they are religious bigots, although you have
proved nothing of the kind) to prove me to be a religious bigot is like
using Bill Clinton's admiration of his mentor, J. William Fulbright, to
prove that Clinton is a racist segregationist.

> Do you believe that it is the proper place of the government to
> endorse belief in the god that you worship, and that there is no
> requirement for religious neutrality? You have said so, and there was
> no sign of it
> being a simple intellectual exercise.

When did I say there was no requirement for religious neutrality?

> Do you believe that it is correct for the government to include
> acknowledgement of this god as a portion of pledging allegiance to the
> government? You have said so, and there was no sign of it being a
> simple intellectual exercise.

Yes.

> Do you believe that there is a public need to honor this god at
> various
> times of day, in completely secular functions, so that people that
> object to participating in your worship would have to go out of their
> way to avoid it? You have spoken in favor of it in relation to school
> children and government office functions, and there was no sign of it
> being a simple intellectual exercise.

I never said anything about a "need". I simply said (as the courts have)
that it is legally permissible.

> When confronted with an Attorney General that leads his office in
> prayer, you thought it was fine.

Yup.

> You are smart enough to see that it
> creates an environment where people of different religious beliefs
> feel
> like they receive less justice and less protection than your group on
> a
> large scale (or reduced chance for professional advancement on the
> smaller scale of the office workers themselves),but you don't care.

Yes, I don't care if their feelings are hurt. I only care if the law is
being broken. If they in fact have a reduced chance for professional
advancement because of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) or are
receiving less justice/protection, then I think they should contact the EEOC
immediately, and then sue if they get a "permission to sue" letter.

> In short, you believe that your group has the authority, right, and
> justification to make the rest of us accomodate you, while you have no
> concommittant obligation to accomodate us.

Whoa! Now there's a leap that defies logic. What is my "group"? What
"accomodations" have I requested?

> Preferential treatment for
> the group which you belong,

What preferential treatment have I advocated?

> and an apparent belief that your group
> deserves this from some natural superiority...in other words, bigotry.

When did I evidence such a belief?

> If there is some other reason that your group deserves this exalted
> position, feel free to let me know.

I never gave a single reason for my "group" (whatever that is) for being in
an exalted position. Sorry that you think otherwise.

> Somewhere in that last Pledge debate, you slipped from being a source
> of amusement to being genuinely vile.

Can you please speak more about the genuine vileness? Is it more vile that
telling one's daughter that her choice to belief in a god would be extremely
disappointing?

> You don't seem to be arguing
> that a technical reading of the constitution could justify an absurd
> result; instead, you seem to be arguing something that you believe to
> be correct
> and desirable.

Please, talk about this again when you take your night school's
constitutional law classes. The courts were on my side on every point except
for the 9th Circuit pledge case. Why are all of these people absurd, but not
you? BTW, once you take con law in a few years you will learn how silly
"technical reading" arguments are, and I happen to be a strict
constructionist.

> If it is, as Robson claims, simply a piece of performance art, I leave
> you with a quote from Vonnegut:
> "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend
> to
> be. ."

Then allow me to respond in kind:
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations."
- Sir Winston Churchill, _My Early Life_

-- 
Kevin Gowen