Texas Gov. Rick Perry: Americans have no right to freedom from religion

[n2doc]

By Eric W. Dolan



During an announcement of the signing of the so-called “Merry Christmas Bill,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry and state Senator Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville) said Thursday that freedom from religion was not included in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“I’m proud we are standing up for religious freedom in our state,” Perry said. “Freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion.”

The new law states that students and school officials have the right to use religious greetings like “Merry Christmas” and display various religious holiday symbols on school grounds.

“I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” Nichols remarked. “One of those freedoms is the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and as the governor was saying the Constitution refers to the freedom of religion, not the freedom from religion.”

“So, challenges to these freedoms that we enjoy can come in a lot of different ways,” the state senator continued. “They can come in very large ways like the war on terror or our freedoms can be taken away in small ways like the removal of a Christmas tree from a classroom.”

more

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/13/texas-gov-rick-perry-americans-have-no-right-to-freedom-from-religion/

Thank the FSM this nut didn't become president.

[Bluzmann57]

1. Does that mean Muslims can practice their religion freely?

Oh wait...I think he meant his version of Christianity, as opposed to any true meaning of Christianity, Muslim, Buddhism, Hindu, or anything else.

[Tanuki]

2. I guess he'll have to say "Ooops!" again

after saying something so stupid.

[Thinkingabout]

3. Another OOPS moment for Rickie boy, this time stepping on our constitutional rights by

declaring we do not have a right to choose or not choose. He is a problem, has been a problem, again I have been offered many times to vote for him and have not yet. He is used and abuses our great citizens of Texas.

[DetlefK]

4. So, the big boogey-man Sharia-law is suddenly okay now?

[eShirl]

5. If there's no freedom from religion, then religion is effectively mandatory.

Your only choice in the matter is which one.

[BlueToTheBone]

6. What a bozo. Sorry for my home state.

Glad I'm gone.

[Lint Head]

7. I have freedom from Rick Perry. Wooooooooooooo Hoooooooooooo!!

[cleanhippie]

8. You would be surprised to find out how many right here on DU agree with the Gov.

[okasha]

9. Goodhair is such a damned embarassment.

nt

[LostOne4Ever]

10. As I said in another thread

In the opinion of this west texas agnostic,

Rick Perry can go blow himself.

[pokerfan]

11. Can't believe that they had the nerve to quote Jefferson

From Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, 1802:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html

[Igel]

14. The law's a waste of money.

It'll be litigated. TX will lose.

On the other hand, my school doesn't allow things that are religious. Xmas trees, elves, candy canes, sure. But everything has to be neutrally "winter festival". It's absurdly hypocritical--there is no "winter festival" for 99.9% of the kids, just Xmas. The music has to be secularly wintery.

Then we have winter break. Which just happens to always include Xmas and Xmas eve. Just try asking why they don't put winter break a week later.

This strikes me as borderline insane. But while the new Texas law doesn't establish a religion, it stops banning the free exercise thereof. Individuals who want to be "Xmasy" can be. Those who don't don't need to be.

However, since a teacher may actually use religious symbolism and have this taken as an official "state" endorsement by a "state" employee, thus "establishing" in some sense "a religion," the law'll be struck down in a year or two after suffering all but a few days during summer break under an injunction.

Full disclosure: I keep Passover, not Xmas, and regard all the Xmas stuff as an imposition. However, I'm not inclined to ban the Xmas stuff just to avoid being imposed upon. The kids and many teachers have fun with it and they should be allowed to. Those offended and irritated by it will be offended and irritated by tv, radio, stores, displays, and a lot of other things and may as well get used to it.

[WovenGems]

12. Clueless Nichols

A decorated pine tree is pagan not Christian in nature. Christmas was celebrated before Christians and there will winter solstice parties long after all religion we know today is gone and replaced by some other religion that coopts the pagan rituals.

Colored eggs, anyone?

[onager]

13. Whoops!

According to Jefferson scholars there is “no evidence to confirm that Thomas Jefferson ever said or wrote, ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’ or any of its variants.”

Traditionally, the most famous use of “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” that’s included in books of quotations is from a speech made by the American Abolitionist and liberal activist Wendell Phillips on January 28, 1852.

http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/01/eternal-vigilance-is-price-of-liberty.html

Well, of coure these assheads aren't going to get caught quoting a "liberal activist." Not even one from the 19th century.

Here are some things Jefferson did say:

From his "Autobiography," about the attempt to insert Xian language into Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom:

Where the Preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the words “Jesus Christ...”

The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.

And my favorite, his 1816 letter to Horatio Spofford. In this context, "priests" means clergy in general, not Catholics:

You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.

I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West, and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance of those on whom their interested duperies were to be played off.

Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develop itself. If it does, they excite against it the public opinion which they command, & by little, but incessant and teasing persecutions, drive it from among them.

http://foundingfathersquotes.blogspot.com/2005/01/thomas-jefferson-letter-to-horatio.html