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Replying to post 8 by 2Dbunk]
As much as I loathe door-to-door salesmanship of religion, I think the way freedom of religion is protected in America has been the gold standard (maybe not so much today because of the growing tumor of school vouchers channeling money to religious oriented education).
Why is this a tumor? Why shouldn't people have the right to choose where their child goes to school? When they can't afford the better schools, vouchers allow them the opportunity they wouldn't have otherwise. When the better schools get the funding, then those schools are rewarded for providing a better education. People don't care if the school is religious. They just want their children to get the best education possible. These schools tend to provide a better product than their public counterparts. The best part is that you don't have to use your voucher at a religious school. You're free to send your kids to the public schools. What's wrong with freedom of choice?
There is no question that ALL religions (including cults) have benefitted from the protective cover of our Constitution. Whether someone wants to cut his testicles off, disembowel a goat or chase a comet is his privilege so long he does it on his own dime and not near any of the places I frequent.
I'm sure we could add forcibly removing babies from their mother's womb to that list as well, no? Given that the tax payer has to pay for that, there's really no reason to stop there.
With the erosion of separation church and state (as I mention above),
There is no erosion of the separation of church and state.
religions will claw and scrap until one claims domination -- then, lookout.
At the moment it looks as if that title is going to go to the politically correct crowd, but when they get to the point where they're aggressively calling for Inquisitions, the backlash is going to be horrendous.