Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 3:01:12 PM
Today, while running around, I heard Rush Limbaugh report on an airline that would not let an employee bring a Bible with her on a flight into Saudi Arabia. Here we scream if someone looks at us funny over something religious and an airline makes rules banning religious icons on a flight. That makes no sense.
I am not advocating that one approach or the other is right. I am trying to get to the point that there has to be some good middle ground. We should respect the rights of different religious groups to practice their religions. That does mean having their religious icons with them. They should also be allowed to pray when their religion deems it necessary. They should even be allowed to pray in whatever language they believe they need to use to communicate with God.
We should not bar the practice of any religion. As long as that religion does not advocate the overthrow of our government or the discrimination against any other religion, it should be able to practice whatever they want. This means that Muslims cannot advocate killing Jews or anything like that.
If we actually practiced that in the United States things would be much better. Advocates of no religion are trying to impose their non-religion on the rest of us. I have no problem with someone saying a prayer in public. This would include a prayer from a group I did not agree with. I do not have to agree with a prayer being said in front of a group that I belong to. If the group occasionally lets my preference give the prayer, I would have no problem with anyone else giving prayers either.
I have no problem with a religious group putting up a religious display on public property. This includes religious groups with whom I disagree with. Just give my group a similar opportunity and everything would be just fine. That would satisfy any advocate of the separation of Church and State, unless that person was really trying to impose their religion on the rest of us. If the religion is Secularism, that is OK for the government to impose on others. We all have to follow the tenants of Secularism. All other religions have to bend their religion to agree with the Church of Secularism.
Religious tolerance should be the order of the day. We are living in a society that celebrates religious intolerance. We call religious intolerance, religious tolerance. Names of things are getting all mixed up. Things and ideas are not being called what they are, they are called some other name. That is confusing, until you realize that confusion is the goal.