State of Protest

I don’t care what you call it.

I don’t care if you’ve claimed it as your own, despite its history saying otherwise.

I don’t care if you decorate your house with nativity scenes, giant glowing plastic Santas, or wreathes of plastic holly.

I don’t care if you don’t care that I don’t care, and then you go light your Menorah.

I don’t care if you advertise using the name.

I don’t care if you make movies with the name.

I don’t care if you go around telling everyone that the whole point of it all is to acknowledge the birth of some desert child thousands of years ago.

I don’t care if you go to parties dressed up as Santa (or an elf), and get offended by the guy who dresses up as Jesus.

I don’t care if you tell your kids that Santa is real. I don’t care if you tell your kids that Jesus or the Easter Bunny or Optimus Prime or John McCain are real. (but just please try to refrain from condemning your kids to hell)

I don’t care if you buy and expect gifts. I don’t care if you don’t buy, but expect gifts. I don’t care if you don’t buy and you don’t expect gifts.

I don’t care if you’re offended by my apathy.

I don’t care if you think you have some sort of legal right to be offended by my apathy.

So, what do I care about?

This little, oft-ignored phrase:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Two things. No establishment and no prohibition. By taking actions that value any religious belief (not just above others, but at all), the government is respecting an establishment of religion. By investing in any religion, or religion itself, the government works (by exclusion) to prevent me from freely exercising my choice not to subscribe to that religion or to religion itself.

It’s not just Christmas, it’s anything and everything. When I’m asked to “respect” someone else’s religious beliefs, I answer NO. Absolutely not. I don’t respect the utter inanity religion ultimately brings, and I don’t have to. But more to the point, my government not only does not have to respect religious belief, but it is also tasked with explicitly not respecting religion.

So, religious people, stop trying to convince others that this nation was founded as a Christian nation, or a nation otherwise religious. Its people may be religious, but the government is not, and the establishment of this nation was explicitly godless. Saying otherwise is a prevarication worthy of condemnation.

Also, stop trying to push religion into public schools, courtrooms, legislatures, and other public arenas. Remember when I said I didn’t care what you did privately (as long as it’s not causing actual harm)? Go ahead and believe whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, but don’t use your beliefs as an excuse to impose those beliefs on me or anyone else. I prohibit it, and so does the Constitution of the United States.

Tags: belief, birth, Cain, Christ, Congress, Constitution, establishment, god, Government, history, Jesus, Law, legal, McCain, Menorah, movie, Religion, school, United States

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Atheism, Government, Morality, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.