Speaking of "banned" books
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Speaking of "banned" books
This particular quote is from a Molly Ivins column, but I have read this information in other, reliable places:
"The Republican National Committee sent a mailing to West Virginia Republicans that claims banning the Bible is part of the "liberal agenda." It features quite a striking picture of a Bible with the word 'BANNED" across it. No, no, no, fellas. Liberals are the ones who oppose censorship and book burning."
Haven't heard of it. I don't think that republicans are in favor of book banning that I know of. Of course forcing things and issues on my children I do not agree with, but it is the parents job to filter. Not the governments. I do not want the gov. raising them. I am for less gov.
Juli, I respectfully suggest that you missed the point, which is that the Republican National Committee sent out false and inflammatory information claiming that Democrats want to ban the bible - not that Republicans are in favor of book banning.
Just a bunch of silly politics before election day, thats all it looks like to me. 
I have no proof that the republican national commitee sent that out. I would like to know your sources because we cannot rely on some of the media to give us accurate information. It may have been another rumor from else where
From the New York Times:
"September 24, 2004
Republicans Admit Mailing Campaign Literature Saying Liberals Will Ban the Bible
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush.
The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians.
A liberal religious group, the Interfaith Alliance, circulated a copy of the Arkansas mailing to reporters yesterday to publicize it. "What they are doing is despicable,'' said Don Parker, a spokesman for the alliance. "They are playing on people's fears and emotions."
In an e-mail message, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, confirmed that the party had sent the mailings." (emphasis added by Ginny)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/campaign/24bible.html
My original source, as I stated, was Molly Ivins, a columnist of national reputation who is known for doing careful research and providing sources. She didn't provide a source in her column on this one but, as you can see, I found another reliable source. Molly is also nationally known as a liberal and as one who dislikes President Bush, but also as a careful researcher and a writer who does not mis-state facts to suit her personal preferences.
I also have done the research.
For curiosity, I did a Google search and found the article to which Ginny refers, written by liberal columnist Molly Ivins.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=17763
Ginny, you chose to omit the remainder of the spokeswoman's remarks:
http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6382686
Here is the complete explanation:
Quote:" ...it addressed the issue of "activist judges."
"When the Massachusetts Supreme Court sanctioned same sex marriage and people in other states realized they could be compelled to recognize those laws, same sex marriage became an issue. Activist judges also want to remove the words 'under God' from the pledge of allegiance," spokeswoman Christine Iverson said in an e-mail.
No where in the pamphlet does it specifically refer to "democrats", only "activist judges".
I only found one other columnist who wrote about this. And, other than the New York Times, I found no other news agency that made any point of including this story as newsworthy (probably due to the debate and Vioxx.) Therefore, it seems to me that the only ones who are throwing a fit about this are liberals and/or democrats who are trying once again to smear Bush and the Republican party. To be honest, it's getting annoying. The way democrats keep twisting things around and spinning them so that they look like helpless victims and the R's look like devils is getting pretty old.
Lisa, I did not include the quote from Christine Iverson, Republican Party spokesperson, that you cited above from the Reuter's article. Yes, that quote was also in the NY Times article I cited. My point and my concern was that the Republican Party sent out a mailing which contained blatantly false and inflammatory information and I don't particularly care about the motivation - which is, I assume, to attempt to sway voters.
Ms. Iverson's reference to "activist judges" is what every politician (and individual) says when a judge rules against what they want to happen. Certainly that is what a lot of Democrats said after the Supreme Court ruling about the Florida vote recount. That charge has been being thrown around for decades. The simple fact is that most of the time judges rule according to existing law and cite the existing law(s) in their opinions. If one does not like the manner in which courts interpret existing law, the appropriate tactic is to seek to change the law.
I recognize that politicial parties and candidates of all stripes put "spin" on everything, misquote and take quotes out of context. But aren't you even a little bit offended by something so drastic and so false?
As to whether it is newsworthy, that is a matter of opinion.
What is the difference between this and "Rathergate?"
Aren't both parties lying just to better themselves?
I really don't like when any party slams the other it not only belittles the other party but themselves. I really get tired around election time. It gets too childish.
I also don't mean to butt in but it did state the term 'liberals' it did not state democrats specifically. There are a lot of liberals who are not even politically motivated to any party but themselves. And I wouldn't be surprised someday if the Bible is not banned in schools and the same way with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Many schools are no longer allowed to pray or speak of God at Graduations, football games, etc. (what happened to FREEDOM OF SPEECH?, must have gotten lost somewhere, huh?) We do not know what will happen in the future. They want to separate church and state and if people push for it, it may just happen.
And what about the two democrats who spread around that Bush was going to reinstate the draft. Dan Rather even did a story about it and that information was just about as accurate as the banned bible story. So I think it goes both ways. Oh and Dan Rather is about as reliable as say ....John Kerry
I recognize that politicial parties and candidates of all stripes put "spin" on everything, misquote and take quotes out of context. But aren't you even a little bit offended by something so drastic and so false?
As to whether it is newsworthy, that is a matter of opinion.
Personally, I'm not offended because (1) I don't think it's particularly newsworthy and (2) saying that Molly Ivins carefully researches and documents is as true as saying Rush Limbaugh does---and I'm sure that they both do. They are just looking for research with a very particular slant as they are both seeking to advance their own personal agendas. In the USA it's possible to "prove" almost anything you want to. Furthermore the quotes you gave did say "liberals" or "activist judges," not democrats. This would be the same as hearing the term term "religious right" and assuming republican. I *generally* do vote republican, but I don't associate myself at all with the religious right. Similarly I know several pretty conservative democrats.
It's unfortunate that campaign mud-slinging has become the norm.
Juli, which two democrats "spread around that Bush was going to reinstate the draft"? I have read many debunking articles which included emails which say things like "Congress" or lawmakers, but don't point to any particular person saying Bush will reinstate the draft. I personally doubt very much that Bush, Kerry or Congress would reinstate the draft - they'd never last past the next election. Though I personally am not rigidly opposed to a draft, as I said in the thread on that subject - it would depend on a lot of conditions.
Pam, I didn't give any "quotes" about liberals or activist judges, though the article I cited did include those words. And yes, I know some fairly conservative Democrats myself. I don't know about Rush Limbaugh, but I do know that Molly Ivins lists her sources for statistics, leglislation and direct quotes in her columns. Given my bias, I have never listened to Mr. Limbaugh's program.
First of all, I don't believe in taking any columnists' articles as proof of any fact. They are what they are- opinions, and that's what they get paid to write- opinions.
Second, no, not all democrats are liberals. There are some liberal republicans and some conservative democrats, and some in between. However, speaking in general terms for future reference, most democrats embrace liberal ideals and most republicans embrace conservative ideals.
Third, to the question of the allegations made in the pamphlet- were they inflammatory? Well, I suppose. Were they false? That, again, is a matter of viewpoint. Let's do some research.
1) Prayer at graduation ceremonies; Cole v. Oroville Union High School District, 228 F.3d 1092 (9th Cir. 2000); a valedictorian composed a speech which included many references to Jesus Christ. The school principal, who reviewed all student speeches to be given at graduation ceremonies, forbade the valedictorian from delivering the speech as written, and instructed him to purge the "sectarian" language. The valedictorian refused to do so and the principal accordingly refused to allow him to deliver his address at the ceremony.
The Ninth Circuit held that the principal's censorship was required to avoid an Establishment Clause violation. The court held that because the school district retained "plenary control" over the graduation ceremony, any religious speech occurring from the podium would be attributable to the state and would therefore constitute an impermissible endorsement of religion.
In the Ninth Circuit court of Appeals, there are 47 judges. Of those, 27 were appointed by democratic presidents, 14 by President Clinton alone. http://www.ce9.uscourts.gov (This is not the complete url for this page on which I found my info- the entire url is so long it made the page go wide when I previewed it, and I think that would make the entire post more cumbersome to read. Go to the right of the web page above and click on the link "Court of Appeals Active and Senior Judges")
The Ninth Circuit's decision in Cole violates established free speech principles and is nothing less than judicially-endorsed viewpoint discrimination. And Ms. Ivins claims that liberals oppose censorship.
2) Ten Commandments in Public Places; November 14, 2003, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's placement of the 2.6-ton granite monument [of the Ten Commandments] in the state building two years ago violated the U.S. Constitution's principle of separation of religion and government.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/27/ten.commandments/index.html
Judge Thompson was nominated to the District Court by President Carter in 1980.
3) Under God in the Pledge of Allegiance; Once again, the ninth circuit court ruled against religion. In June of 2002, a federal appeals court ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is an unconstitutional "endorsement of religion" because of the addition of the phrase "under God" in 1954 by Congress. http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/26/pledge.allegiance/
This is the case that the U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped a ruling on last March on a technicality that resulted in the pledge remaining as is, for now. http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/14/scotus.pledge/
4) Partial Birth Abortion/Dilation & Extraction Procedure; There are two judges who blocked the ban that President Bush signed to law.
--The first one is here at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,121435,00.html (I couldn't get this to work in a link becuase of the commas)
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge Tuesday ruled that President Bush's Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (search) is unconstitutional and infringes on a woman's right to choose.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton's (search) ruling came in one of three lawsuits challenging the legislation Bush signed last year.
"The act poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion," she wrote.
[Note- Judge Phyllis Hamilton was appointed by Pres. Clinton in February of 2000]http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=2863
--The second one is here at
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/26/abortion.ap/index.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- In a highly anticipated ruling, a federal judge found the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday because it does not include a health exception.
U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a law that prohibits the performance of a particular abortion procedure must include an exception to preserve a woman's life and health.
[NOTE: Judge Richard Casey was ALSO appointed by Pres. Clinton. in July 1997] http://www.fjc.gov/newweb/jnetweb.nsf/hisj Click on the letter "C" and scroll down to Casey, Richard Conway.
I am attempting to establish a pattern of liberal judges ruling in accordance with their beliefs as opposed to upholding the law as it was meant to be read. Liberal judges have an agenda in this country. They have been appointed based on their liberal views. They are in power to direct our nation away from God and towards a destructive path of social choas. In my humble opinion.
The law in this country is that government shall not support an "establishment of religion", which has been interpreted by courts for decades to mean that any government sponsored event at which some or all participants have little choice about attendance cannot impose religious activity on the participants.
This does not violate established free speech principals, according to the courts. Free speech is always under some kind of constraints, and one of them is that at government sponsored or controlled events (federal, state, city, school board - anything sponsored by a government entity or controlled by a government entity) and persons who are seen as representing the government entity cannot impose their personal religious beliefs on the participants. At the same time, schools are required to allow religious groups to meet in the school buildings on the same basis as other groups, as participation is voluntary and not government controlled or mandated.
If you lived in a country which is predominately Roman Catholic, would you want your children forced to participate in the saying of the Rosary or the prayer to Mary? If you lived in Israel, how would you feel about the areas of Jerusalem where there is no public transportation on Saturdays and restaurants and other public places are closed?
I moved to Pennsylvania when the "blue laws" were still in effect, and one could not buy a drink or alcohol, or a host of other products, on Sundays. For persons whose holy day was Saturday and who were religiously observant, this meant that their businesses were closed for two days of the week. This was clearly government establishment of religion because it set aside the Christian holy day as a day when all business owners and customers, Christian or other, were controlled by state law.
As for Judge Roy Moore - well, I don't have much respect for a man who sneaks a monument to his personal beliefs into a public, tax-supported courthouse without permission or advance notice.
According to all statistics I have read, this nation - which by law mandates separation of church and state - has a higher level (percentage of population) church membership and participation in worship that most "western" countries where there is a state religion. Which says something about the value of freedom of religion and freedom of worship, and doesn't seem to me like a nation being directed away from God. Some have speculated that one of the reasons for the strength of religious participation in this country is BECAUSE people have to do it themselves and cannot simply leave it to the government, and therefore value their religious institutions and participation more highly.
This particular amendment to the Constitution was inspired by the experience of the drafters with government established religion in England, where one had to pay a poll tax to support the established church (the monarch of England is the head of the Church of England) whether they attended or not, yet in most churches if you could not pay a pew rental fee you still couldn't attend or had to stand or sit at the back. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism (my church) was an Anglican priest who started Methodism as a means of bringing opportunity for regular worship to those who could not afford to attend or though Christian were not welcome at the Anglican churches in their community. Most other Protestant faiths began in rebellion against the established (Roman Catholic) religion in their countries.
The "liberal" judges are upholding a legal principal and a tradition which the drafters based on their personal knowledge of the danger of having government be involved in or having any control of religious observation or worship. As a person to whom faith and belief are extremely important, I am very glad that government is barred from interfering in how I worship, where I worship, or how I chose to observe the tenets of my faith.
Some would like to see the government embed particular tenets of their religious beliefs into law - and this has, in fact, been done, more by regulation than legislation. But they havn't stopped to think about what might happen if a majority developed that espoused different beliefs and worked to get those beliefs imposed by the government.
None of which has anything to do with my original point, which was that the Republican party deliberately sent out false, misleading mailings intended to inflame the fears of people who are willing to believe that someone would actually try to ban the Bible.
Okay, I read this morning that Howard Dean was dumb enough to say, a couple of weeks ago, that if he was re-elected Bush would reinstate the draft. I figure that if Dean was dumb enough to say it (though as we know, Dean is often pretty dumb), a couple of other Democrats were equally dumb enough.
I have no doubt that you sincerely believe that the government is genuine in that it wants to protect our right to worship any way we wish. I, too, am very thankful that I live in a country that doesn't tell me what I am required to believe and to whom I am required to tithe. Also, I understand the reasons why that protection has been put into place in our constitution.
So, our judges are left the task of deciding where the "line" is to be drawn between establishment of religion and freedom of religion. Picture a football field. At one endzone, the Establishment of Religion. At the other, Freedom of Religion. The "line", let's say, is at the 50 yard line. What worries me, and what I have seen from my research, is that some judges have moved that line too far in the direction of Freedom of Religion so that those freedoms are not as guaranteed as one might think. Too many cases that I would interpret, being conservative, as being guaranteed under Freedom Of Religion are instead interpreted by mostly liberal judges as an Establishment of Religion and therefore, take up too much of the field. As a result, some citizens have actually been forbidden to worship as they wish, or some have been forbidden to show pride in their religion because of what a judge has said regarding the position of the "line".
I understand that the Establishment of Religion applies to public arenas only.
Quote:...government sponsored or controlled events (federal, state, city, school board - anything sponsored by a government entity or controlled by a government entity) and persons who are seen as representing the government entity cannot impose their personal religious beliefs on the participants.
If this were absolutely true, then what would happen if my state were to elect, say, a congressman who worships in Islam or Buddahism? What of a congressman who is atheist? Is not the opening prayer in congress a government sponsored event? Are not all the participants being imposed upon during the opening prayer?
If I were to move to a totally different country, the right thing to do, IMO, would be to behave respectfully of the declared religion. However, I would carefully weigh whether or not worshipping my own religion would put me at risk for breaking the laws of that nation. If my family is not Catholic, I would hope that my child could exclude himself from saying a Rosary, as students here have the right not to say the words "under God" if they do not believe in God.
In the case of a place like Jerusalem, I would have no choice but to get all my shopping done before Saturday, in respect for their customs and religion. Likewise, in America, those who do not celebrate Christmas must be sure to get all their necessary shopping done before the close of business on December 24 each year, and in some cities or towns, Easter Sunday as well.
Furthermore, all government offices and Wall Street shut down for the above said Christian holiday. Yet, I am quite sure that Christianity is still not a government established, endorsed, nor sponsored religion.
Regarding the statement that schools are required to allow religious groups to meet in the school buildings on the same basis as other groups, as participation is voluntary and not government controlled or mandated, I ran across a case pertaining to just that in my research where a local church group was forbidden to meet after hours in a school building to view a family oriented religiously based film.
http://www.aclj.org/ussc/SupremeCourtCases/Lamb%20Reply%20brief%20in%20Opp.pdf
Quote:The Second Circuit sustained this explicit discrimination against religious speech, placing the Second Circuit in direct conflict with the decisions of at least four other federal circuits.
I am unable to find any information on this case in the second circuit court or who the judges were at that time (1992) who were serving on the second circuit court. However, at this time, 15 out of 23 have been nominated by republican presidents. President Clinton alone nominated the each of other 8 judges.
As for Judge Moore, some people think that in order to prove a point, they must violate certain rules. While I am not excusing that, I also see this behavior from any number of other liberal activist-types, such as environmentalists who refuse to vacate a tree and therefore are arrested for civil disobedience. Was Judge Moore any more right to do what he did than they were? Depends on what you value most, as I see it. (This is a good one for the "Ends/Means" thread.)
Anyway, my whole purpose here has been to demonstrate that the writers of the pamphlet may very well be on to something. It can be demonstrated that many more liberal judges have been appointed by democratic presidents and have indeed had an influence in the removal of religion from the public arena which, in the opinion of many conservative as well as non-conservative citizens, may not be a good thing after all.
I do not agree with the action of the republican committee that distributed the pamphlets. Why only those two states? And why not back up the allegations with some facts, as I have attempted to do here? I wish that those who partake in political debates would find a few facts before spewing accusations.
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