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Jewish World Review
Oct. 7, 2010/ 29 Tishrei, 5771
Hypersensitive Hogwash
By
Arnold Ahlert
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Call me skeptical, but I suspect the elitist defenders of the mosque near Ground Zero will be missing in action when it comes to defending the religious freedom of a bunch of Christian "nobodies" in an obscure Florida town. A dad whose son belongs to a team in the Holmes County Pee Wee Football Association has filed a formal request with the Vernon, FL City Council to end the traditional--and voluntary--practice of saying a pre-game prayer at the 50-yard line. Unsurprisingly, Louis Fromm, who also coaches in the same association, claims the First Amendment rights of he and his son are being violated.
"We have been saying prayers for four years and [Fromm] started complaining last year," league president Debbie Gunter told Fox News. "He has a problem with prayer, but while I don't have a problem with his non-beliefs, he shouldn't have a problem with ours." Gunter also mentioned that a petition supporting the prayer ritual has been circulating, and five hundred people have already signed it.
Fromm is undeterred. Despite the fact that the league is a private organization which receives no government funding, he insists that because the field on which the games are played is public property, the prayers must be stopped. He made his position clear at a meeting with the City Council:
"This reference is in formal protest to the manner and method in which the Bonifay PeeWee Association dictates prayer that is in question strictly based upon the establishment clause. So those of you here tonight to hear the terms and conditions required to appease a single upset individual, I say to you that you have been grossly misinformed and blinded by a small group of religious fundamentalists who would like to convince you that a single individual is attempting to take away, of all phrases, your 1st Amendment rights, when I am in fact here to make you aware that yours and your children's rights to religious freedom under the US constitution have already been hijacked by that very same group already."
Got that? Voluntary prayer is a "hijacking" of Fromm's Constitutional rights.
This is not the first, nor is it likely to be the last case in which freedom from is confused with freedom of religion. Considering the multi-decade success of Secular Humanists and their anti-religious leanings, such a profound misunderstanding of the First Amendment has become both widespread, and sadly, acceptable in many manifestations.
The issue can be reduced to a simple question: is the Holmes County Pee Wee Football Association guilty of "making a law respecting the establishment of religion," or is it engaging in the "free exercise thereof?" The issue is being handled by an attorney for the city.
Perhaps it is my suspicious nature, but I can't help feeling that if these peewee players and their families were setting up prayer rugs on the 50-yard line and bowing to Mecca, two things would happen: one, this story would get national media attention, and the virtues of community tolerance and enlightenment would be extolled; and two, Louis Fromm would be dismissed as an intolerant bigot.
I don't think Fromm is a bigot. Judging by his actions and his statement before the City Council, Fromm is a typical member of the American Whiner Class. These are people who believe anything which "offends" their oh-so delicate sensibilities must be prohibited. They are the same folks who recoil in disgust at the sight of a Christmas creche in the town square, and who doggedly insist that "Happy Holidays" is the only appropriate greeting for expressing good will in a "multicultural" society.
They are the same folks who believe other peoples' religious expression equals their persecution and/or stigmatization. They are tiresome self-righteous types who insist that the essence of the First Amendment's religious clause--live and let live--only applies when it aligns with their worldview.
Why do progressives disdain religion? Because it is antithetical to everything they believe in. A progressive utopia is one in which the state replaces God as the bestower of goodness and abundance. It is one in which individual morality in all its relativist glory replaces religiously-codified limitations on questionable behavior. It is a world where faith is considered organized ignorance which can only be countered by progressive intellectualism, and its attempt to save us from our "clingy" natures.
Yet historical attempts to achieve religion-free utopias demonstrate the complete bankruptcy of progressive ambitions. Take every despicable act committed in the name of every religion over the course of mankind's entire history and all of them combined don't even approach the one hundred million deaths attributed to the "workers' paradises" of Stalin's Russia and Mao's China.
Reasonable people might conclude that atheism isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Not progressives. Those who worship at the altar of "do your own thing" recoil from the idea that there is something bigger than themselves and that the universe might be something more than a series of scientific accidents. Better to believe that those who humble themselves before a "higher power" are ignorant fools. Better to whine when they display that "ignorance" on the 50-yard line, lest one's rights be violated by such an "outburst."
Mr. Fromm claims he and his son have been "stigmatized" as a result of his complaint. Good. This is one American who believes the hyper-sensitive among us shouldn't be immune from the consequences of their attitudes. Such consequences were once referred to as "shame."
Here's hoping it's poised for a big comeback.
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Previously:
10/04/10: ‘Comprehensive’ Con Artists
09/29/10: Why Dems Are Going Down in November
09/27/10: The Unholiest of Unholy Alliances
09/22/10: Two Words for Republicans to Remember: ‘I Won’
09/20/10: Purging ‘Me First’ Politicians
09/17/10: No More ‘Lesser of Two Evils’
09/15/10: ‘Recovery’ Arms Race
09/13/10: ‘Bigots’ in the Majority --- Again?
09/09/10: Giving Voters Something to Vote For
09/07/10: Irresponsible Dems, Incomprehensible Bills
09/02/10: War Weary Americans vs. Implacable Islamists
08/31/10: A ‘Dream’ Debased
08/25/10: American ‘Bigots’ Versus Media Propagandists
08/23/10: Recovery Bummer
08/19/10: An Unholy Alliance of Radicals
08/16/10: You've Lost America, Mr. President
08/13/10: The Twin Towers of Progressive Disconnect
08/11/10: A Far Better ‘National Discussion’
08/09/10: It's ‘Only’ One Dead Nun
08/06/10: Incremental Tyranny
08/04/10: Ground Zero Mosque: Context Counts
08/02/10: The Arizona Ruling: a Gift for November
07/29/10: The United Cities of America
07/26/10: JournoList: ‘Coordinated’ Ideological Bankruptcy
07/20/10: Go For Broke Or Get Out of the Way
07/14/10: You're a Liberal/Progressive if You Believe…
07/12/10: $33-an-hour--For Sleeping On the Job
07/08/10: Extortionist Government
07/06/10: ‘Commerce Clause’ Totalitarians
07/01/10: Another Public School Travesty in MA
06/30/10: Calling YOUR Bluff, Mr. President
06/28/10: A Trifecta of Progressive Corruption
06/23/10: Plug the Darn Hole --- In Our Border
06/21/10: Our Empty-Suit-in-Chief
06/16/10: Betraying Our Children
06/14/10: Who Gets the Benefit of the Doubt?
06/07/10: Politically Correct Warfare
06/01/10: Bill Maher's ‘Black’ President
05/25/10: A Mosque At Ground Zero
05/23/10: Libs Stand Tall --- For Mexico
05/19/10: The 'Unintended Consequences' of Liberalism
05/17/10: 'Los' Suns: Stuck on Stupido
05/12/10: Union Audacity: Yes We Will!
05/10/10: Greeks, Leaks and and Double-Speak
05/05/10: Twelve Million Illegals --- or Thirty?
05/02/10: Republicans: Playing Not to Lose Doesn't Cut It
04/28/10: Arizona: Progressivism's Waterloo?
04/26/10: Son of Amnesty
04/22/10: Mortgages and Moral Meltdowns
04/20/10: Bashing Christians — Or Gays?
04/15/10: Personal Integri-‘tea’
04/12/10: Fools, Tools and Ghouls
04/08/10: (Tea) Party On
04/05/10: The Triumph of Mediocrity
04/02/10: Two For the Road
03/29/10: The Innate Immorality of Liberalism
03/24/10: The Art of War
03/22/10: I Want My Country Back
03/18/10: A Perpetual Process
03/17/10: American Exhibitionists
03/15/10: A Light Bulb Moment of Clarity
03/10/10: Little Things Mean A Lot
02/03/10: Budgetary Fork in the Road
02/01/10: Liberal Economic Illiteracy
01/27/10: ‘Roe-ing and Wade-ing’ Back to Reason
01/25/10: Arrogance When Up, Denial When Down
01/20/10: Connecting the Educational Dots
01/19/10: The Next Tea Party?
01/15/10: The Myth That Keeps on Giving
01/13/10: Airport Security Begins Away From the Airport
01/11/10: Secrets and Lies
01/08/10: Embracing Bigotry — or Rejecting Bullying?
01/06/10: Hanging by an Ideological Thread
01/04/10: Our ‘Wonderama’ Bureaucracy
12/30/09: A Day Off
12/28/09: Dangerous Myths
12/25/09: I, Me, Mine
12/23/09: A Very Harry Christmas
12/21/09: My Opinon
12/18/09: The Party of Repeal
12/15/09: Privileged Exemption
11/30/09: ‘Settled’ Science and Unsettled Children
11/30/09: American Sharia Law
11/23/09:The Trial (Travesty) of the Century
11/04/09: American Vampires and Their Political Enablers
11/01/09: ‘Opting Out’ of Insanity?
10/28/09: Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer. Brain Required
10/26/09: Communism: Nazism With Better PR
10/21/09: Just Asking
10/16/09: Cost Projections vs. Actual Costs, or Hope and Change vs. Reality
10/14/09: News you can use …
10/07/09: Incremental Insidiousness
10/05/09: MIA: Common Sense and Common Decency
09/30/09: Iran: Bad Options and Unpreparedness
09/21/09: Crying Racism: the Last Refuge of Scoundrels
09/11/09: 9/11 Cannot Be Sanitized
09/08/09: ‘Truthers’ and Consequences
09/01/09: A ‘Paper Trail’ Challenge for the Mainstream Media
08/31/09: Drowning in Amorality
08/26/09: The Republican Recovery Program
© 2010, Arnold Ahlert
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