Welcome to America! Where we tell you what religion you can or cannot practice.

[Suki Wingy]

My religion is the ways of nature and the forses of nature and animals already. It is my own religion.

[smokey the elder]

Judicial activism at its worst! There is WAY too much of that. A judge's job is to INTERPRET the law. It is not for them to make laws.

I don't want to pick on any particular group, but I'm afraid we're entering a very critical time for the spiritual health of the US and the world. In a lot of ways I think we're going backwards. Heinlein, in his Future History stories, tells of a fundamentalist totalitarian government which is uncomfortabley resonant with what our system seems to be evolving (devolving?) toward. Symptoms of this are illiteracy (general and especially scientific), rabid fanaticism, and other alarming social behaviors.

Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the broom closet...

[dukedogsmom]

Originally posted by ramanth
I'm starting the Church of Pets, where you can worship your pets, free of persecution.

Here ya go:

Taken from here: http://www.churchsigngenerator.com/index_1.php

[lizbud]

Originally posted by smokey the elder


I don't want to pick on any particular group, but I'm afraid we're entering a very critical time for the spiritual health of the US and the world. In a lot of ways I think we're going backwards. Heinlein, in his Future History stories, tells of a fundamentalist totalitarian government which is uncomfortabley resonant with what our system seems to be evolving (devolving?) toward. Symptoms of this are illiteracy (general and especially scientific), rabid fanaticism, and other alarming social behaviors.

Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the broom closet...

So true, but people tend to prefer not seeing what's going on,
or at least putting it out of their mind.

[davidpizzica]

Originally posted by ramanth
I'm starting the Church of Pets, where you can worship your pets, free of persecution.

Kimmy, can I become a chief priest??

[Cincy'sMom]

Originally posted by ramanth
I'm starting the Church of Pets, where you can worship your pets, free of persecution.

I believe this may be a branch of the church I started a few years back...

See, a girl I worked with is now a misionary in Chile. At the time, it was perfectly okay for her to sit at her desk and read the Bible. Others at work (myself included) were asked not to read the newspaper, novels or non-work related things at our desks. (We were all reasearch chemists...somedays you would start several reactions and having nothing to do but wait!)

Anyway, I decided that from that day on, I belonged to the Church of Dog, and bought this book to keep on my desk...


Dog Fancy, became my monthly church newsletter. I was just waiting for someone to say something to me for reading a magazine...but I changed jobs shortly thereafter!!

[Suki Wingy]

haha, smart!

[ramanth]

Val: that's great! Thanks for the link.

Amy: Huh wha!? So the co-worker could read a Bible but nothing else was allowed!? *headdesk*

I loved your shortcut though!


Seriously though... it's so scary to think such things could be put into effect. A fellow law librarian said he feels the ruling wouldn't hold up in an appeals court.

Still...what's to keep another Judge from doing the same? Or other religions being scrutinized?

I feel as if we're regressing and not learning from our own history.

[ILoveReptiles]

So much for land of the free indeed.

Chipping away... slowly but surely.

[Luvin Labs]

Originally posted by ramanth
I feel as if we're regressing and not learning from our own history.

Yup, back to the Crusades and the Salem Witch Trials...

**banghead**

[lizbud]

I ran across an update of sorts and more background on this
judge's decision & other commentary about it as well. Very
interesting...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/27/8412/78054

[ramanth]

Thanks for the update Liz!

[lizbud]

Hey ramanth, the case decision was overturned. Guess the
American system works right most of the time.


Court Overturns Judge's Order In Wicca Case
Divorce Decree Had Instructed Parents To Shield Son From Beliefs

POSTED: 4:33 pm EST August 17, 2005

INDIANAPOLIS -- A judge exceeded his authority by ordering an Indianapolis Wiccan activist and his ex-wife to shield their 9-year-old son from what his decree called their "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals," the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

The appeals court threw out the order from Marion Superior Court Judge Cale Bradford, citing a state law that gives a custodial parent the authority to determine a child's upbringing -- including religious training -- unless certain exceptions are met.

Divorcing parents can agree to allow such orders, or judges can find that certain limitations on upbringing are needed to protect the child from physical and emotional harm.

The Indiana Civil Liberties Union, representing Thomas E. Jones and Tammy Bristol of Indianapolis, had challenged the religious provision of the divorce decree.

Jones, a Wiccan activist who has coordinated Pagan Pride Day in Indianapolis for at least six years, said earlier this year that he and his ex-wife were stunned when they saw the language in the judge's dissolution decree on Feb. 13, 2004.

"We both had an instant resolve to challenge it. We could not accept it," Jones said when the appeal was filed this year.

A court commissioner wrote the unusual order into the couple's dissolution decree after a routine report by the court's Domestic Relations Counseling Bureau noted that both Jones and his ex-wife are pagans who send their son, Archer, now 10, to a Catholic elementary school.

The decree said "the parents are directed to take such steps as are needed to shelter (the child) from involvement and observation of these non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals." The splitting parents challenged that section of the decree, but Bradford let it stand.

The order was criticized by various religious and advocacy groups.

Wiccans consider themselves witches, pagans or neo-pagans, and say their religion is based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.

Wiccans contend their religion is becoming more mainstream. The parents' appeal said there were about 1 million pagans worldwide in 2002, more than the numbers who practice Sikhism, Taoism and other established religions in the United States.

Among other things, the appeal claimed the decree was unconstitutionally vague because it did not define mainstream religion. But the appeals court based its ruling on state law.

ICLU attorney Ken Falk said nobody fought the parent's challenge, so an appeal was very unlikely.

"I think the bottom line is the court said a parent has the right to determine the upbringing of their child absent some compelling or strong reason," Falk said. "I have to tell you in reading all the cases, I've never found a case where both parents agreed yet a court directed some other type of religious upbringing."

[mugsy]

Leave it to conservative IN to make a judgement like that, but, like LH said....when it gets to a "real" court they will throw it out....we do still have freedom of religion here regardless of what some idiot judge in family court says.

As far as "In God We Trust" being on coins and money....what I tell the athesists that have a problem with it...don't use it....

And this coming from a woman with a Darwin fish on her car!!

PS....I am a Christian too, but, believe that everyone has the right to worship in what ever way they choose.

OOPS....I POSTED AS LIZ WAS POSTING....

SEE!! I told you that they would overturn it!!

[RICHARD]

Practice?

Kids playing t ball practice,
Kids in a school play practice.
Sport teams practice.

Why??

To get it RIGHT!!!


I don't want a lawyer who "practices"
I don't want a doctor who "practices"
I dont't want anyone, who has a voice in how my life is run
"practicing"



Therefore......

If your faith is rock steady..nothing can shake you from it.


Faith is something that you carry inside you and nothing can take that away from you....So when someone makes a stupid law or passes a judgement, you rely on you strength and faith to move on, to overcome that barrier....


No practicing faith........It;s the real thing.