January 22^nd

 

The local paper has not carried any utterly absurd columns from the right-wing commentariate today so I can comment on the issue of my choice.

Today’s topic is freedom of religion: you don’t have it, really you don’t. Article One in the Bill of Rights says that the government cannot impose a particular religion on us or make laws restricting the “free expression” of belief. There is a long and interesting history of cases before SCOTUS about just what this means: Can you put a crèche with the baby Jesus and the Magi on the courthouse lawn? Well, probably not. But we do distribute Bibles to all new members of Congress.  The Bible in question is the Jefferson edition. This is a unique Bible. I have a copy and you can get one too if you’re interested. Jefferson adapted his Bible which consisted of just portions of the New Testament. He left out all of the miracles attributed to Jesus because he thought that no intelligent man could possibly believe them. For the ethical lessons to survive he thought the miracles would have to go. He was wrong of course; he was wrong about other things as well… but that’s another story.

So, bottom line, if you want to go into the woods and mimic the Druids who venerated trees you go right ahead. No one will stop you. However, (Isn’t there always a “however” to screw things up?) if your religion allows you more than one wife that would be a non-starter. Just ask the Mormons who had to have an Epiphany and renounce plural marriage to get Utah into the Union. Their “plural marriage” didn’t allow women to have multiple husbands, just husbands to have multiple wives. Many religions, Catholic, Orthodox Judaism, Muslim all place women in an inferior position. It seems your religious freedom stops when it conflicts with state or federal law; it certainly isn’t absolute; but then nothing is.