The Velocitarian Church

Some may see the Hobby Lobby decision as a mortal wound to separation of Church and State -- and rightly so in my opinion.  Others see it as an opportunity.  I notice that this morning's newspaper contains a full page spread by the Hobby guys insisting that Christianity is the only true teacher of morality and provider of law and that the founding fathers agreed.

But an opportunity for would be religious tyrants is an opportunity for all and I think it's time for me to assert my own religious freedom by filing suit with the country so that I don't have to pay that part of my taxes that supports math and science education and of course Sex education. As Justice Bader-Gisnberg suggested, every man is now his own religion. I don't want to pay taxes for schools that are integrated religiously and racially and the Bible certainly supports that vehemently. I won't pay part of my Sales taxes that support executions, of my Federal taxes that support invasions of other countries.  It's against my religion.

And what is my religion?  Well that's my business because the government doesn't get to say one is real and another isn't.  In fact as an ordained Bishop in the Universal Life Church, I can roll my own because to us, everything is sacred and holy.

Enter the Holy Assembly of Velocitarians. Our scriptures are short and simple:

Get your motor running
Head out on the highway.

We demand exemption from speed limits and most traffic laws. That's my religion - what's yours?

Say, how many worms are in that can?

By Capt. Fogg

Americans like words like Freedom and Liberty and perhaps because those ideas scare us so much. We are terrified of coercion by a government we all choose but we love to coerce those who disagree with us and deny them the right to choose.  We certainly are rarely in agreement as to what it means to be a free country and I might dare to say that question is still central to political argument today.  How do we define freedom?

• " It's a free country and I can do what I want." 
• " It's a free country and I don't have to do anything I don't want to do."

Some would equate those statements, others would point out that the first is true within limits and the second isnot, but the idea that freedom carries no obligation and indeed that in a free country it never should seems common amongst extremists.  Unfortunately extremists have a stranglehold on the Supreme Court and perhaps on Congress.  The recent decision regarding the ACA mandate that employers provide insurance coverage for contraception shows that the court sides with the second example and that when it comes to the concept of  freedom of religion and perhaps freedom of speech, personal beliefs convey personal privilege, but because this is such a limited ruling, the inherent hypocrisy becomes apparent.

If  I believe interfering with the implantation of a fertilized egg is murder, it's because of a religious interpretation of murder other people do not share and an interpretation of humanity and human rights that borders on the ludicrous. Citing a definition of freedom I do not believe the Constitution shares, the God Squad on the court allows me to opt out of  having my corporation pay for insurance that might pay for a "morning after" medication and perhaps any form of contraception. That court and indeed all courts do not provide immunity for other religious or other personal opinions and specifically not to opt our of paying for wars and executions and that is proof that one specific belief is being given special rights and others are not.  This violates the constitutional prohibition against establishment.

How will we see yesterday's ruling when other religious groups decide they don't want indirect participation in executing prisoners, bombing foreign countries and a host of other activities?  Will the court have to say this opinion is privileged and that one is not?  Haven't they just done that?  Does an aversion to contraception become an excuse to opt out of  an obligation only if  it's tied to some organized faith or is a personal dislike sufficient?  That question was answered during the years we had the draft.  It was damned hard to establish personal aversion to war without showing long term affiliation with a pacifist religion and not just a pacifist philosophy.

There can be little doubt that our government is in the business of establishing religious belief and assigning special privileges, special rights to members thereof.  There isn't a damned thing we can do seeing that the independence we make a fuss about every July was so limited.  We severed ties with the United Kingdom but not with Christianity as a force that legitimizes government and those who demand and assert the "Christian Nation"  idea are no more patriots or advocates for freedom than the Hessian troops George II hired to kill our revolutionary patriots.

It will be very hard to cite this decision as limited to the case that prompted it, and there are so many worms in that can that everyone will be able to fish for whatever special dispensation from any obligation he dislikes and our reputation for sanity, if we ever had one, won't need any bit of lead to make it sink to the bottom.

No Reason Allowed

By Capt. Fogg

Here Comes Easter again. Easter and the media puff pieces about how it's really all true enough in one sense or another and how it's wrong to say that it's a borrowed holiday, re-badged from pre-Christian European fertility cults, egg laying rabbits and all.  The Easter holiday (is it OK to call this one a holiday?) carries a large basket of  baggage without my needing to illustrate its long history and I'm quite as content to let people celebrate it as they will as I am to let anyone celebrate anything at any time including life itself.  It's a wonderful life after all, and not just at Christmas.

In the true spirit of American small mindedness however, others are not so happy with your freedom when it comes to protecting their hermetically sealed belief bubble from questions or against having to be aware of other ways of seeing and appreciating life in our shared world.  But I'm OK with that too if only for the humor.  Seeing an image of  an all year "Prayer Station" set up in the Warren Michigan city hall looking for all the world like something from the Peanuts comic strip, put a smile on my face in a way that only irony-blind religious fervor can. Reason isn't funny and I do like to laugh.

Not so funny though when Warren resident Douglas Marshall proposed a "Reason Station" for the same venue and  the Mayor, Jim Fouts  not only rejected it, but banned any such display for a year because after all, Marshall is an advocate for separation of Church and State.    Using a government facility as a church and to promote Christianity ( assuming it isn't praying to Vishnu or the Chinese Kitchen God being solicited) is simply no problem in this Detroit suburb.  Atheism is not a religion wrote Fouts to Marshal and his Freedom From Religion Foundation, unwittingly asserting that only a religion can have access to public space and non-Christian interests need not apply. Besides it might disturb the faithful, which is, in his words, a Constitutional violation!

What about equal protection, freedom of speech and all that Godless, Commy nonsense?  Don't make me laugh.  This is Michigan after all and in Michigan reason can fend for itself and you can take your Jeffersonian Humanism straight back to Moscow where it belongs.