Yea, This Is One Reason We Separate Church And State

Look at what's surfaced in Oklahoma:

Voters in Oklahoma could be literally stuck in a rock and a hard place with Tea Party candidate Scott Esk.

Esk, who is running for a seat in the state’s House, reportedly discussed the stoning and killing of homosexuals in July 2013 Facebook conversations, which were discovered and posted by Oklahoma-based website The Moore Daily Tuesday.

The link gets us to this facebook conversation.  In it candidate Esk cites Romans 1:26-27, Romans 1:32, Leviticus 20:13 to justify the stoning and the killing, even though (and these are his words):

I think we would be totally in the right to do it. That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I'm largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.

He also says:

Men were commanded to put guilty parties to death who were guilty of certain acts, like homosexuality. Laws to put people to death who were guilty of such practices have been in existence in various countries in Jesus' time and afterwards, too. If men wink at such perversions, God may have no choice than to judge such nations with calamities. [Emphasis added.]

And that would be "commanded by God" of course.  A direct command from the Creator hisself.  And then Esk explains his federalism:

If it helps any, I consider it a violation of federalism to deal with such things on a national level, and different states will have different laws on the matter. I would hope that libertarians who don't think perversion should be punished in any way between consenting adults would be open-minded and look at the different results between a state that ignores it, and 1 that punishes it severely. And within a state, cities and communities may well have different policies, and I cheer that. That way, people can decide for themselves whether they want to live in a particular community based in part on how things like this are dealt with.

So if a large enough section of our population (one that believes that The Bible is inerrant truth and that God's law should be THE law) votes for stoning teh gays, that's fine with Esk.

And if you don't like it you're free to simply move to someplace that tolerates the perversions that God detests.

Yea separating church and state suddenly sounds a bit more rational, don't it?

Just a reminder

I Wonder If Our Friends In Connellsville Know About This

For years a banner hung in the auditorium of a public High School in Cranston, Rhode Island.  It was the official school prayer until the Supreme Court banned state sponsored prayer in 1962.  Since then the banner remained affixed to the wall.  Here is the text:

Our Heavenly Father.

Grant us each day the desire to do our best. To grow mentally and morally as well as physically. To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers. To be honest with ourselves as well as with others. Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win. Teach us the value of true friendship. Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.

Amen.

You can see the banner here.  While the general ideas laid out in the "prayer" aren't that offensive (it is, let's remember simply a prayer "to do our best" and to "help us be good sports" and so on), what is offensive is that it's an official prayer to God hung in a public school.

After the ACLU and a local high schooler named Jessica Ahlquist filed a lawsuit objecting,  the judge in this case ordered it removed, writing:

The Supreme Court has traditionally drawn a clear line between government conduct which might be acceptable in some settings and the conduct which is prohibited in public schools. In Van Orden, where the Supreme Court held that a monument displaying the Ten Commandments was acceptable on the 44-acre grounds of the Texas State Capitol, the Court underscored this distinction:

This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.

And what happened to Jessica?

The good Christians of Cranston, Rhode Island objected:

She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

A federal judge ruled this month that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.

State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from a national atheist group. The group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.

Not exactly a WWJD moment for them, I'm afraid.

More recently, however, Jessica's received another award:

Since her successful challenge last year of a prayer banner at Cranston High School West, Jessica Ahlquist has been traveling the country speaking about First Amendment rights.

But not until now has she been invited to speak at the Playboy Mansion.

Ahlquist, 17, is scheduled to speak at the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills, CA on May 22nd where she will receive a Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. The award in the Education category -- $5,000 cash and a commemorative plaque -- is for Ahlquist's "courageous and successful lawsuit" in the Cranston prayer banner case, a publicist for the foundation said in a statement.

She won. This "evil little thing" won for religious freedom. For everyone.

I wonder if our friends in Connellsville and New Kensington know about this.

As Medieval As They Wanna Be

Rick Santorum was once called “one of the finest minds of the thirteenth century” in the pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is somewhat less retro, preferring the 16th century (but probably having some beefs with the Renaissance):


Separated at birth?
That's the hat he wore to President Obama's second inauguration yesterday. According to WalshLaw:

The hat is a custom-made replica of the hat depicted in Holbein’s famous portrait of St. Thomas More. It was a gift from the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia. We presented it to him in November 2010 as a memento of his participation in our 27th annual Red Mass and dinner.

I'm sure Scalia likes to see himself as a defender of the faith too (even when acting less than saintly) and, no doubt sees no conflict in that. I'm also guessing that More would have had no problem with Scalia's views on women (or little else).