You can do whatever you want, but do it on your own time. Doing it on my time is requiring me to participate. No one is preventing any of those people to take moments out of their day to pray, and they should do it on their time. This is the problem with people like you, you want everyone else to be inconvenienced because of your prayers. We do not need it, nor to be bothered wasting time watching you do it because you are bothered because we have more free time than you.
No one is being forced to listen to a prayer because no one is being forced to be at the meeting to begin with. You're at that meeting out of your own free will - not because someone forced you.
WTF do you care.... your in Europe.They are certainly welcome to their religion but we are not going to let them shove their wacky ideas down our throats and turn the USA into a theocracy.
Utter nonsense. Any time you have an issue before the board, be it a major zoning case or a request for an additional trash pickup day, you are required to be at least represented. Those opposing also have a right to be heard. If you want to make your case, you will be there.
On the other hand, no one is telling you not to pray, just not to make the prayer official.
Yeah, we wouldn't want to harm your ears. After all, that is a pretty serious offense.
WTF do you care.... your in Europe.
Besides, a council praying together before a meeting is FAR from "turning the USA into a theocracy"
I don't want to be exposed to homosexuality therefore I don't go to gay communities.....
but when you do it as part of the meeting then everyone has to be there and take part. I want that part of my life, and I do not want to spend it sitting there waiting for you to pray. That is you and for your time. Show up early or stay late and pray. Do not put it on other people to do it because you add it to a public meeting. Yes, i have no problem with the courts kicking religion out of public meetings. They should, it is important, and it is a good thing to tell the religious to pray on their own time. State time is not god time.
:shrug: - I won't apologize for people can't keep their religions at home and church.
Not a bitch for me, if the majority don't care than they are allowed to. I may not think they "should" do it, but I'm not saying they "can't" do it unless the state or the voters say something about it. Now a private business is different. An employer has the right not to pay someone for prayer should they decide to.
I don't want to be part in religious activity while at a government function, therefor, I'm keeping my government secular.
Oh shut up.....
I bet if I said "I won't apologize for people that can't keep their sexuality at home or in their bedroom" your head would explode.
The Constitution does not say "separation of church and state," but it quite clearly forbids the establishment of a state religion. So while it doesn't say it in a positive, it forbids the negative.
There is also no law that states it's legal not to murder someone, but there are many that forbid the opposite of not murdering someone.
You can fantasize about your ideal government all you want but we're talking about reality here.
I fail to see anything in the first amendment that says you can only pray on your free time. In FACT... saying people can only pray on their free time would be restricting the free exercise of religion.Because the prayer is part of their free time and not a part of the job.
So you live in Rowan County, North Carolina??????Why are we paying for them to pray on our dime?
Are you a council member of Rowan County, North Carolina?Why am i being forced to sit there and watch?
Yes, the problem is you fail to understand anythingHere is the problem,
No. You don't have to be a part of it. When someone is having a conversation near me, I do not HAVE to be a part of it either. Just sit there and quit eavesdropping on them.They can pray to god as they wish, and i do not need to be a part of it.
No. YOU get what YOU want... restricting their freedoms.Everyone gets what they want.
Nobody is forcing them.You feel that for some reason people who are not religious, or people who are religious and do not practice that particular faith should be forced to be a part of christian prayer time.
Sure if that is what the local council wants to do before a meeting.Should you have to wait for muslims to get their mats out and pray to the east? Should you have to sit through a buddhist meditation? Should you have to wait for wiccans to have a ceremony to the goddess?
NOBODY IS FORCING YOU TO PRAY.... ART THOU DEAF?This is a load of crap because you and every other religious person knows that people have to be forced to pray.
No..... I want people to have the opportunity to respect their god, if they wish.That is why you want it at schools and in public meetings. You want those people to have to take a moment to give respect to your god.
Most people keep their sexuality at home. It's prudes who want to ban it even at home.
Showing yet again that you fail to understand anything.This is a state job which should not involve forced prayers before work. No one is interefering with someone's liberty to pray, they are just saying you do not have the power to force it on others. You are as libertarian as any fascist, and you are also lying.
Saying a prayer prior to a county meeting isn't establishing a state religion.
In two landmark decisions, Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), the US Supreme Court established what is now the current prohibition on state-sponsored prayer in schools. While the Engel decision held that the promulgation of an official state-school prayer stood in violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause (thus overruling the New York Courts’ decisions), Abington held that Bible readings and other (state) school-sponsored religious activities were prohibited.[5] Following these two cases came the Court's decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), a ruling that established the Lemon test for religious activities within schools. The Lemon test states that in order to be constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment any practice sponsored within state run schools (or other public, state sponsored activities) must adhere to the following three criteria:[6]
....
While the Establishment Clause proscribes the state-sponsorship of religion, the Free Exercise Clause forbids state interference in individual religious exercise. Where a state entity moves to accommodate the right to individual religious expression under the latter clause, opponents of that "expression" may cite such accommodation as state "promotion" of one religious activity over another.[9]
There are limits as well to the first amendment. I don't think this should be a federal court case, but I do believe this should be a state case (if the state wants to pursue it) in which the state gets to decide if they should PAY people to pray on state time.
This is being done as "official" state business, so if the state wants to pay people to pray on their dime, that is their choice. However, it is the state's choice on the matter and shouldn't be a federal issue IMO.
I don't want to ban it - hell, I could care less if the announce it in the streets however, I don't go to their communities or events because I don't agree with their lifestyle.
Furthermore some gays can be pretty belligerent about their sexuality for no reason whatsoever.
If you're not doing it in an official school function, no. You're not. If you're doing it an official function, yes, you are. You don't get paid to preach. You get paid to teach.
Lol, our government is secular whether you like it or not. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have made it impossible to create a theocracy. Seriously, do you understand the inherent contradiction between saying the government can't give preference to one religion over another and then say the government isn't secular? Why make theocracies impossible if it's religious? Good will? Slip of the tongue?
That logic is ****ing retarded.
You also don't get paid to take a ****. No bowel movements allowed at work!
So then you made a strawman argument. Nobody is going to a county meeting and watching men make out or lesbians eating each other out. Nobody is having you watch gay demonstrations of sexuality at county meetings or otherwise. So why even bring it up? Oh, you have nothing else to argue.
This is a big deal because it is very rare in this country when a court comes down on the side of the US Constitution.
Mostly, courts just rule in favor of the government.
As a supporter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, I'm very happy with this ruling.
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