Where's yer Kappa? Can't afford it?

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Can you make the ACLU oodles and oodles of money if they fight for your cause?
If so, you may just be the man they're looking for. Or hermaphrodite. Or woman. Or child of any gender, race, creed, color...
I'm fucked.
They're gonna sue me now, on the basis of not mentioning every single culture, gender, and variable within the human race.

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I agree with just about everything wirthling said in this post, but I find this a little dubious. You have as much power over your religion as you do over the way you happen to want to look. If you want to have long hair, then whether it's for religious reasons or just because you like having long hair is irrelevant. Why is religion always ranked alongside race and health as some intrinsic part of you which is outwith your control?

I agree with just about everything wirthling said in this post, but I find this a little dubious. You have as much power over your religion as you do over the way you happen to want to look. If you want to have long hair, then whether it's for religious reasons or just because you like having long hair is irrelevant. Why is religion always ranked alongside race and health as some intrinsic part of you which is outwith your control?

Actually, I thought about that while I was writing that. I think the key is that the U.S. Constitution explicitly spells out that religion is protected. Other beliefs are not as strictly protected when it comes to the workplace. For instance, a nudist can be barred from coming to work nude. As long as an employer does not discriminate on the basis of those factors set in law, employers can discriminate as much as they please. I don't necessarily agree with that, but that is the legal precedent that has been established in American law, at least as far as I know.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

How does the Constitution define a religious belief, though? If you think it's morally wrong to wear clothes, why is that any less religious than someone who thinks it's morally wrong to shave?

How does the Constitution define a religious belief, though? If you think it's morally wrong to wear clothes, why is that any less religious than someone who thinks it's morally wrong to shave?

I think the way that most people would make that differentiation is that a religion implies a group with some kind of structure built around a shared spirituality. What separates a religion from a cult or what may appear to be a cult but is really the early stages of a large-scale religion? I don't really know. Unfortunately, as far as what is legally defined as religion, I think it comes down to what a judge or a panel of judges thinks a religion is. I think a nudist could get away with being a full-time nudist if he or she could persuade a judge that the nudity is religion-based.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

But look at the short list of religions you brought out. I know you can name more, but it didn't happen. Why can't people who worship UFOs and want to drink poisoned Kool-Aid to join the mothership hang up a sign on the school too? It sounds just as nutzo to me. And believe me, there are a lot of places in America where Jews better not try to hang up a sign praising god if they don't want their house burned down.

I put the KKK in that crowd. I'm pretty sure the cases exist where they are warranted.

Yes.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

They CAN. That's my whole point. They're not legally considered a religion, so there is no federal law that prohibits them, only school discretion. So basically, everyone has free speech BUT religious students:

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Ingebretsen v. Jackson Public School District , 864 F.Supp. 1473 (S.D. Miss. 1994), aff'd, 88 F.3d 274 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 117 S.Ct. 388 (1996)

In this lawsuit on behalf of parents, students, clergy and other concerned Mississippi citizens, PFAWF and the ACLU of Mississippi, working with Robert McDuff of Jackson, obtained a preliminary and then permanent injunction against implementation of a 1993 Mississippi school prayer law that would have required all public schools in the state to authorize so-called "student-initiated, non-sectarian, non-proselytizing prayer" at all school events, compulsory as well as non-compulsory. [u]This lawsuit was the first in the country to challenge a "student-initiated" school prayer law.[/u]

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[Click to view comic: 'The ACLU']

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins. "

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.

What if you're punching him in the teeth?

My right to sodomize ends where the other man's donkey begins.

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What others say about boorite!

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Ever think that discussions on the internet are doomed from the get go? I've yet to see someone sincerely influenced or convinced by another's opinion that differs from their own. Except in the polemical political forums, where it is usually a ploy. Just a general observance.

P.S. Donkey sodomy.

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And for those of you interested in the ongoing battle, see Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. I sent 'em my $25.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

:)-)

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

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:)-)

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With all the women's shoe stores in Chicago you wouldn't think it was so tough to find employment for such a handsome, normal guy!

Thank you W!

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[Click to view comic: 'George's Big Plan']

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

I wonder what W thinks about the faith-based initiative that took down the WTC.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Damn, spooky. I just lost a bunch of online friends over this very issue the other day. A friend of mine wrote an article arguing that the US attack of Afghanistan is a violation of international laws and treaties. I posted a copy of it to a mailing list I have been on for a couple of years, and... well, two days later I was no longer subscribed to said mailing list. Depressing, eh?

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

Heh. You multiple mailed that to me and many others on ICQ.

Interesting argument. A Decent lawyer could pick it apart , then again , a 6yr old could pick apart the arguments the US uses to support its bombing of Afghanistan.

Some people were meant to be politicians , and some Lawyers.

And the rest of us to look at them both and shake our heads.

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

I wonder when the law was passed that required you to be a democrat to be open-minded. It's an easy out to just call someone close minded when they disagree with you, which is ironically a close-minded practice.

[Click to view comic: 'Untitled']

I remember getting a similar message through ICQ from you. Maybe they were like me and didn't want to hear about what we shouldn't be doing as we're mourning our dead and checking our mail for anthrax every morning.

Close-minded? Maybe. But in the same way a widow wouldn't want to hear at the funeral how her husband REALLY should have had life insurance.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

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Maybe they were like me and didn't want to hear about what we shouldn't be doing as we're mourning our dead and checking our mail for anthrax every morning.

Close-minded? Maybe. But in the same way a widow wouldn't want to hear at the funeral how her husband REALLY should have had life insurance.

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Speaking of articles... this one is particularly good:

This Is a Religious War by Andrew Sullivan, New York Times Magazine.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

Also, on a slightly different subject... I recommend the book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. I'm reading it right now and it is absolutely fascinating.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.