How about adding an "anti-blasphemy" amendment to the Constitution?

[struggle4progress]

A certain H. wants to amend the Constitution to prevent abortion and gay marriage: to quote the shyster, "so it's in G-d's standards" (link to LBN thread below)

Well, maybe it is time to add a religious amendment to the Constitution, what I will call "Anti-Blasphemy Amendment." The amendment would permanently disqualify from public office anyone whose campaign speeches referenced the Almighty.

Everyone who wants the church out of the state and the state out of the church should support the amendment. Traditional Judeo-Christians should support the amendment because it fosters respect for the commandment against taking the Name in vain. Militant atheists should support the amendment because it will reduce their blood pressure during the electoral season.

LBN link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3140739

[sakabatou]

1. Time for the US to become a theocracy!

[Turbineguy]

2. With such an Amendment

they'd have to let the drug convicts out of jail to make room for the preachers!

[struggle4progress]

11. Most of those in jail for drug offenses certainly don't belong there

[Turbineguy]

15. Those would stay

it's the dealers that would be let out.

[varkam]

3. As a militant atheist, I say no.

The Constitution is a secular document, and it should stay that way. Even adding an anti-blasphemy ammendment, though the ends are (IMO) noble ones, does not justify the means of opening that door -- so to speak. The official position of the U.S. Government is totally mum on matters of religion, and it should stay that way.

[struggle4progress]

7. The Constitution is not totally mum on the subject of religion: Art VI Par 3 asserts

no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust

And the fact that you think "the official position of the U.S. Government .. totally mum on matters of religion" suggests you may not have been paying close attention: there has been a White House office of "Faith Based Initiatives" for a number of years under the current regime

"The Government," of course, is an abstract entity which doesn't really exist, except as a certain collection of individuals recognized by particular social and political conventions. "The government" is not officially mum on any subject unless those individuals acting in their official capacities are mum on that subject: to ensure that "the government" is "officially mum" on a subject, one must employ as officials individuals who are mum on that subject when playing their appointed roles. If we're unwilling to enforce the silence of officials, there will never be official silence

[varkam]

12. .

no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust

By "mum", of course I meant that the US government does not endorse any one specific religion or belief system. Sorry if that was not clear for you.

And the fact that you think "the official position of the U.S. Government .. totally mum on matters of religion" suggests you may not have been paying close attention: there has been a White House office of "Faith Based Initiatives" for a number of years under the current regime

I totally understand that. I was referring to "the official position of the US Government" as outlined in the Consitution - not the official position of the Bush administration.

"The Government," of course, is an abstract entity which doesn't really exist, except as a certain collection of individuals recognized by particular social and political conventions. "The government" is not officially mum on any subject unless those individuals acting in their official capacities are mum on that subject: to ensure that "the government" is "officially mum" on a subject, one must employ as officials individuals who are mum on that subject when playing their appointed roles. If we're unwilling to enforce the silence of officials, there will never be official silence

Again, I am referring to the type of government that is outlined in our Consitution, not the temporary occupancies of offices that comprise our actual government. Ideally, such individuals are supposed to uphold our Constitution. The way you define it, it's almost as if the Constitution has no bearing on position(s) that the US government takes.

[Meshuga]

4. References to God by politicians like Huckabee are annoying

But wouldn't this proposed amendment contradict with the first amendment? People like Huckabee should be allowed to say whatever they want to say which it would allow us to decide whether we should or should not vote for him based on whether we like his message or not.

This thread seems more like a cheap shot at the so called "militant atheists" (with you using the oportunity to throw in the term as an insult) than anything else.

[struggle4progress]

8. It is a sad commentary on American civic life that "militant" now seems to be an insult:

the community activists of the generation before mine, who were my first political role models, never eschewed the "militant" label. I shall assume your claim, that I posted merely as "a cheap shot at .. atheists," derives from an anti-activist perspective that considers "militant" an insult, but if you prefer, I suppose I could assume that in making the claim you are simply projecting your own personality traits

We all naturally support free speech in the abstract. Perhaps, however, you have noticed that, under the current regime, there is actually very little free speech. A long list could be inserted here, but a few examples may suffice: in 2002, Richard Humphreys got a three year sentenced for saying G-d might speak to the world through a burning Bush, on the grounds that this joke was a threat against the President; government opponents have regularly been arrested for "crimes" such as anti-Bush T-shirts; and visible anti-war activists end up on the no-fly list. As the situation is not improving, I suggest folks should push or pull or get out of the way

[Meshuga]

13. Your assumption

Your "assumption" is just an attempt to insult. You and I both know this.

The terms "militant" and "fundamentalist" (I know you didn't use "fundamentalist") which usually precede "atheists" are used in a negative light and as insults left and right here in the R/T forum and you know this is a fact. Perhaps I was also assuming about your intentions, but given the history of this forum, to have a feeling that you might be using the term in a negative context is nothing out of the ordinary.

As far as free speech and your proposed amendment, wrong doing from the current regime does not justify doing another wrong, in my opinion.

[moggie]

5. Obviously not

Such an amendment would amount to government support for one or both of the following two propositions:

1. That there is a god, and that he/she/it objects to being mentioned.
   
2. That religious people are offended by mention of their (or someone else's) god, and that they should have government protection from being so offended.
   

The first of these would be the government adopting a particular theological position, and a minority one at that (what proportion of religious people think that any mention of their god is blasphemous?). The second accords special protection to (a subset of) religious people which is not made available to other groups who may be offended by campaign speeches. Either way, it would be injecting too much god into government (and which god?).

I realise you're not serious, but I don't think this works even as a joke.

[struggle4progress]

9. To win political victories, one works with people, despite disagreeing with them

on various topics irrelevant to the matter at hand: the common alternative is to sit on the sidelines and sneer.

Those who want a secular government, and the separation of church and state, will have many different motives. To win, however, they must have the ability to organize (despite their differences) and to push back hard against the anti-secularists and would-be theocrats.

If you don't like the situation today, just wait until oil is $150 or $200 a barrel, foreign credit becomes tight, and unemployment rises: demagogues will be busily struggling for control by misdirecting popular attention away from material issues, spouting all manner of nonsense, intended to divide people along racial, cultural, and religious lines. It's really fine with me if you don't like my silly amendment proposal -- but finding some way to defuse the demagogues will be important

[moggie]

14. But is your proposed solution effective?

You wrote: The amendment would permanently disqualify from public office anyone whose campaign speeches referenced the Almighty.

This prevents only the most explicit religious campaigning. A huckster could still use dog-whistle politics, hand-waving (would mention of a "higher power" fall foul of this rule?), and campaigning by proxy. And, once in power, your amendment would do nothing to prevent them from pushing theocratic legislation. Also, who gets to disqualify candidates? Would you have the supremes ruling that, say, an allusion to MLK's "promised land" speech was too biblical and thus disqualified the candidate? How can it be healthy, from a first amendment standpoint, to have an arm of the government decreeing what is and what isn't acceptable religious speech?

Then there's the practical question of whether such an amendment stands any chance of being enacted in the present climate. As I understand it, you need a two-thirds vote of both the house and the senate, and then it needs to be ratified by three quarters of the states. Realistically, what chance is there of getting this level of support for an "anti-blasphemy" amendment? You might as well ask for a pony for every American!

Atheists and moderate religious people can indeed agree that government should stay out of religion, but I can't agree that the best way to achieve this would be a measure which is dishonest for both those camps, easily evaded, and probably impossible to enact anyway. I wish I could think of a magic bullet to stop demagogues, but I think it can only be achieved through a gradual change in public opinion (or - hopefully not - a rapid backlash after a disastrously God-soaked administration).

[onager]

6. Huckabee's incredibly impotent little god...

I'm surprised the MSM isn't all over this vintage Huckabee piece. No, WTF am I saying, I'm not surprised at all..

When tornadoes hit Arkansas in 1996, Gov. Fuckabee held up relief for three weeks because the relief bill called the tornadoes "an act of God."

Legislators explained to Gov. Fuckabee--more than once--that "act of God" was standard insurance terminlogy for natural disasters, and had been for centuries.

But Gov. Fuckabee was aghast that those words seemed to be "blaming God." (An allegedly omnipotent Gawd, let's not forget, supposedly capable of rearraning things as It likes).

And while his citizens were homeless, hungry and hurting, this asshole held up a relief bill for 3 weeks on account of this god nonsense!

Five days after the tornado tore through the state, this city of 10,000 lay in ruins. The cyclone destroyed an office building, a bank, a pharmacy and 70 other businesses. The electricity was out. The National Guard patrolled the streets. Six people were dead.

In Little Rock, GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee was reviewing a disaster insurance measure that he intended to support when he become troubled: The bill, drawing on centuries-old legal terminology, referred to natural disasters as "acts of God."

So, because he could not fathom his God wreaking such senseless destruction upon the world, Huckabee held up the measure for three more weeks, imploring lawmakers to change the apparently contentious wording from "acts of God" to "natural disasters."

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/12/31/huckabees-god-act/

[struggle4progress]

10. Don't be misled: what Huckabee did, was to oppose timely disaster relief,

consistent with his Republican view that other people deserve their suffering

His cynical use of religion merely served as a convenient distraction: the reason, that no one could convince him the term-of-art in question had been used for centuries and had a long-established legal meaning, was simply that he was pretending