Lord, How Long Can This Go On?
Jun. 25th, 2003 09:13 amSo, it's been a day since the stitches came out and I'm still in pain. It's "what's expected" according to the dentist, but I'm out of Vicodan and the ibuprofen is barely making me functional. That plus the fact that I went out with friends last night and didn't get home until late has made me loopy and barely here. And I have a ton of bugs to rip through. Not to mention a personal side-project at home I have no time to develop properly. And I'm in no mood to write smutty fiction with my teeth throbbing. Especially not when getting my heartbeat up makes it hurt more.
In other news: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them," said George W. Bush in a conference with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. This is according to Abbas, but damn, it does sound like what's going on in Georgie's mind, doesn't it?
In Alabama, Bush and Ashcroft have gone after the Montgomery School District for refusing to distribute religious fliers in materials handed out to elementary school children. Our Christian Government is arguing that the district has created an "open forum" in handouts by allowing the Boy Scouts and the YMCA to distribute materials and therefore the school district has no right to restrict distribution based on content; the school district is arguing that the so-called open forum is by policy restricted to "notices about health, nonprofit organizations, community sports and recreation activities," and that the inclusion of the church's materials is an unconstitutional use of school facilities to proseletyze.
I think what offends me most out of the entire article is the response from the school district: "An integral part of CEF¡Çs evangelical mission is to locate children who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior," and then goes on to argue the constitutionality of the case. No quotes around the mission statement, nothing to offset it from the opinions of the school district or its legal department. It's a point-blank acceptance that the "phenomenon" they're describing is real and familiar and uncontroversial. It is neither familiar or uncontroversial, and it infuriates me that one religion's presumptions are treated as fact. It mocks the entire point of the case: the First Amendment exists because no religious position can or should be treated as factual.
I wonder what "our" Justice Department would make of a request by the self-described "pagan rock band" Inkubus Sukubus to have "a quite area for fornication" at a summer soltice celebration. Damn, now I have to work the word fornicatorium into a story somewhere.
In other news: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them," said George W. Bush in a conference with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. This is according to Abbas, but damn, it does sound like what's going on in Georgie's mind, doesn't it?
In Alabama, Bush and Ashcroft have gone after the Montgomery School District for refusing to distribute religious fliers in materials handed out to elementary school children. Our Christian Government is arguing that the district has created an "open forum" in handouts by allowing the Boy Scouts and the YMCA to distribute materials and therefore the school district has no right to restrict distribution based on content; the school district is arguing that the so-called open forum is by policy restricted to "notices about health, nonprofit organizations, community sports and recreation activities," and that the inclusion of the church's materials is an unconstitutional use of school facilities to proseletyze.
I think what offends me most out of the entire article is the response from the school district: "An integral part of CEF¡Çs evangelical mission is to locate children who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior," and then goes on to argue the constitutionality of the case. No quotes around the mission statement, nothing to offset it from the opinions of the school district or its legal department. It's a point-blank acceptance that the "phenomenon" they're describing is real and familiar and uncontroversial. It is neither familiar or uncontroversial, and it infuriates me that one religion's presumptions are treated as fact. It mocks the entire point of the case: the First Amendment exists because no religious position can or should be treated as factual.
I wonder what "our" Justice Department would make of a request by the self-described "pagan rock band" Inkubus Sukubus to have "a quite area for fornication" at a summer soltice celebration. Damn, now I have to work the word fornicatorium into a story somewhere.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}