Where's the wall?

[pat]

What would you think if a private religious event came to your city, and your city council passed a resolution commending the organizers for bringing the event to town? And applauding what they stood for?

I don't know about you, but I would be appalled. A local government body has no business taking positions on matters of religion.

Do you agree?

Then you should be equally appalled at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Last week, they passed a resolution condemning as an "act of provocation" Battle Cry for a Generation, an evangelical youth event held in ATT Park last weekend.

Yes, it was anti-choice.

Yes, it opposes same-sex marriage.

It doesn't matter. This was a private religious event. Those are religious positions. The Board of Supervisors has no more business condemning the evangelicals than the city council of Houston would have condemning a national meeting of Dignity.

If we progressives believe in the wall that separates church and state, then we damn well better act like it. Tom Ammiano is free to protest all he likes on his own recognizance, but when he speaks in his public capacity as an elected official to condemn people's religious beliefs he crosses a very dangerous line.

Comments

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

There are two very large contingents in the US. One is trying to get G-d into government in every way, and their beliefs are encroaching into law and government all over the place. The separation is becoming thinner and thinner and nigh unto nonexistent in places and that scares those of us who make up the other contingent. The one fighting like hell to keep G-d out of the courts, law, the government, the one trying to maintain a clear separation because that is what the law of the land specifies. The minute we (the latter group of people) bring G-d into it, then we're screwed because we just crossed our own line. We can't have it both ways.

I think, in a nutshell, that's at least one small part of what the original poster was trying to say.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

There is a fine line, I'll agree, but when religion is being used to justify abhorant views, then those views need to be challenged. Its fine to challenge those views as views and not as part of a religion, but people should not get a 'get out of jail free' card just because they think their views are backed up by god.

I don't know how much of this is relevant to the original post now, though.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's what I was trying to say.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's how I see it. We really do need to separate them or let them be flung together. (That's a way in which we're quite different from Canada. They don't work hard to separate them, there, but folks also aren't trying very hard to fling them together.)

That evangelical group hired a private place to have a private function. Whether or not they're jerks, it's not Tom's place to spout off about them. It's not a city-sponsored function. And that's my opinion as a knee-jerk liberal.