Is the First Amendment for Monotheists only?

[elfs]

In their opening arguments to the court, [The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] argued before the court that Pagans are not deserving of equal civil rights as are provided adherents of the preferred faiths. In one of their first arguments to the court, the defendants said that certain traditional faiths are first tier faiths and that those faiths were meant to have equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution, but that all of the other faiths were second tier faiths, and were not meant to have the same equal rights and protections under the United States Constitution as the first tier faiths.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to decide if paganism and witchcraft were ever intended to receive the protections of the Religion Clauses.

Comments

[puellavulnerata.livejournal.com]

*boggle*

You have to give them points for, uh, creativity in reading, I guess...

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Heh. So we were only one degree of separation anyhow. Though I guess that's not fair. Elfs is more connected than Kevin Bacon. He knows I pretty well too. ^_^

[puellavulnerata.livejournal.com]

Well, I only read Elf's journal; I don't think he reads mine and I'm not sure I've ever met him in person either. I do know my roommate does his hair, though.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Oh. In that case, let me prompt you to search for 'Night on Thundara' on google.

I'll just ruin his rep for him. ^_^

[puellavulnerata.livejournal.com]

It's not that ruined. I was already aware of him from certain USENET groups I lurked in back in the 1990s...

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

If ever there was an idea that deserved a hearty "What the _hell_?!?!?" this is it.

[kengr]

Mind if I repost this?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Just point to the original.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Somehow this explains so much about why Prop 8 passed ... apparently the Animal Farm philosophy of equality is endemic in CA.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Easy there. Prop 8 passed because Equality California (the primary anti-8 organizing group) got overconfident in the face of early polling data showing that 8 would be rejected easily, and then spent the next 8 months throwing, essentially, victory parties in areas where nobody was going to vote for 8 anyway. Meanwhile, the pro-8 groups did actual organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts worthy of the name in the districts where the vote was actually going to be close, and by the time EQCA realized that they'd been pantsed, it was way too late to make up the difference.

This case is simply the prisons department doing what every prisons department in the world specializes in doing: exercising god-like powers arbitrarily, and defending to the death the privilege of doing so. Please let's wait for the actual verdict before making sweeping moral generalizations based on it. Given that the case is being held in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (happily located down here in sodom-on-the-bay), I'd rank the odds of the CDCR prevailing as being very, very low.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

:-) I read the liveblogging of the Prop 8 trial. A large part of the reason it passed is because, f'rinstance, the Mormon Church had someone on the ground in every single zip code, usually more than one--20,000 volunteers *just from the Mormon Church*. I'm not going to argue that Equality California did a good enough job, but that it might not have mattered HOW good a job they did, because they were up against a massive, highly coordinated machine that hit on people's fears, exploited them, and actively lied to make sure that anyone who heard them was as afraid as possible.

And yes, the people behind Prop 8--which were the ones defending it in court because neither Schwarzenegger nor his AG were willing to spend taxpayer money defending it--did actively believe that gays and lesbians are less equal than heterosexuals. The reason Prop 8 passed is that a *lot* of people think that way, so deeply that it doesn't even occur to them that maybe there's something wrong with that.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to argue that Equality California did a good enough job, but that it might not have mattered HOW good a job they did

I dunno. I mean yes: it's certainly possible that we would have lost no matter what, but in the end even after the state of Utah basically spent a substantial fraction of its GDP trying to swing the election, it only passed by about 2 percentage points. If EQCA had spend a little less money on big rallies in the Castro and a little more money going door-to-door in the central valley (and had started that process from day one), I think this was entirely winnable.

And also: of course they were up against a massively coordinated machine, etc etc. Anyone who thought that the opposition on this was going to just lay down their arms and walk away has been in a coma for the last ten years. This is why I'm so embittered about EQCA: they showed up with a knife to a gunfight, and I've seen no signs at all that their leadership understands that it was a mistake.

In a nutshell: fuck these idiots. Bring back ACT UP.

Uh, obviously I'm ranting here and this doesn't have much to do with our actual conversation any more. :)

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

so 9th CC is going to throw this out without wasting any more time on something so obviously unconstitutional, right? Right?

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

The 9th CC is notoriously the most left-leaning of the CCAs, so the odds are good that they'll do just that.

It's not a 100% guarantee since it's a prison case, and courts are notorious for giving absurdly wide leeway to prisons, but while IANAL, it looks to me like the CA-DCR has picked just about the worst possible grounds on which to argue their case here. If they'd made some half-assed claim that pagan religions encouraged prisoner violence or insubordination, they might have gotten away with it, but a magical discovery that the establishment clause only applies to Abrahamic faiths? Rotsa ruck with that bullshit, kids.