DREW JOHNSON: Discussions are appreciated. Personal, mean, derogatory editorials merely reflect poorly on the writer.
THE LATEST STRATEGY by the tea party to avoid paying taxes is to renounce their American citizenship. Good riddance. Freedom is not free.
OUR CONCERN should not be how Romney earned and spends his money, but where Obama is spending ours!
THE PAST PRESIDENT of the Hamilton County Medical Society says that Obamacare is good for us. Rush Limbaugh says it's bad. Who do you trust?
IT'S LOOKING a whole lot like Republican primary voters, casting a ballot for Berke's seat, have a choice between Pinocchio and Yosemite Sam.
HOW DOES giving the rich tax breaks which they deposit in offshore bank accounts help with job creation in the U.S.?
BLAME THOMAS Jefferson and the Constitution, which mandates separation of church and state. Conservatives conveniently ignore the Constitution when it doesn't suit them.
DEMOCRATS, WHERE are you? Did someone cut your vocal cords?
DEMOCRAT V. REPUBLICAN? If you are so stupid to keep believing these lying lawyers, then go ahead and once again, pick your poison.
I CAN ALMOST hear the folks in Washington, D.C., saying, "Let them eat cake ..."
HOW CAN THE county-paid Chamber of Commerce CEO make more than the Tennessee governor? $180,000 v $173,000.
THAT COLLECTION of rapacious rapscallions, scoundrels and scalawags known as the county commissioners might want to try something other than praying. It is not working.
Let them eat cake? Yeah, especially healthcare wise with their government subsidized market for Congress.
Almost heard? I heard Queen Ann say on national television, we've given "you people" all you need to know. We'll eat caviar while you eat cake.
I would love for any who put forth the doctrine of separation of church and state, claiming it is in the Constitution to show me where it appears IN THE CONSTITUTION! It doesn't. So stop acting so arrogant and superior to people who hold a different view. All the reinterpretations and reinventings have not shown me in the copy I have that those words appear separation of church and state. They are not in the Constitution. Personally, I affirm the position but I do not agree with the way it has been used and especially as it is assumed to have been in the Constitution. Because Thomas Jefferson wrote about it in a letter, does not mean we automatically assume it when the words do not appear. All who infer it is in the Constitution, merely show their ignorance.
It's in the state constitution. Really easy to find.
But actually, you're focusing too much on Thomas Jefferson and too little on actual juriusprudence. You're just showing yourself to be a pedantic debater who focuses on a narrow truth while missing the whole of it.
Legislative invocations are obviously constitutional, as affirmed by the SCOTUS and practiced by legislative bodies in the U.S. throughout our history. They should be modeled on the prayers that have been given in legislatures throughout our history: charitable, focused on good government, and sensitive to religious diversity.
Some of the recent prayers at the commission fail to follow these common sense principles (which, BTW, are entirely compatible with the instruction about and practice of public prayer in the Bible. Those principles aren’t necessarily a compromise of Christian faith. The belligerent overreaction of Christians to those who oppose public prayer (you know: TAKING A STAND, whether or not your actions honor Christ) IS a compromise of Christian faith. It reveals a person’s insecurity or arrogance and his or her lack of faith, and it compromises the message you guys say you’re so eager to promote.
And those who oppose the constitution’s implicit allowance for public prayer also need to develop thicker skin and allow for more diversity and free speech in the public square – even if it comes at the cost of not agreeing with it or of feeling uncomfortable or unnecessarily threatened by it.
The Constitution is admirably balanced about these issues, as were the people who wrote and adopted it. That balance is what we need.
Or login with:
New Account