Jesus and Mo cartoons should be banned.

OK - I seem to have made an error. I was rushing out of the house when I entered this debate, and failed to notice that you had taken the Con position. Rookie mistake. However, I'm going to go for it anyway. Let it be said first that I personally would not take this position, and am herein debating against my own beliefs... sort of. On with the circus! The webcomic Jesus and Mo should be banned, censored and struck from its hosting servers. My reasons for this are as follows: C1: The pervasive presence of religion in the United States government has reached a point of blatant unconstitutionality. The Establishment clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution reads as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." This implicitly prohibits the federal and state governments from establishing an official religion, or from favoring or disfavoring one view of religion over another. Our contemporary government stands in defiance of the spirit of this amendment regularly and without fear of repercussion. The government gives preferential treatment to those practicing lifestyles that conform to Christian ideals, such as heterosexual marriage. There is no inherent benefit to heterosexual marriage that cannot be satisfied by homosexual marriage, an yet Maryland, Florida, California, Wyoming, Hawaii, Utah, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and many more have passed legislation banning the marriage of a same sex couple - not to mention the Federal Defense of Marriage Act. Although the government has passed legislation ensuring womens' right to abortion and contraceptive care, statements condemning these rights are regularly made by those supposed to be protecting them. Vice President Joe Biden himself stated that he considers abortion morally indefensible, "as a matter of faith."[1] In addition to this sort of threat against reasoned secular lifestyles, those that do not profess belief in a Christian god are essentially laughed out of high level government positions. The problem is not only a domestic one, either - it has become a popular American export. While religion has not necessarily driven us to war, many wars (such as Iraq) could not have happened without the backing and funding of evangelical Christian constituencies and lobbies. Religion has helped to justify breaches of the UN charter, war crimes, and the dissolution of human rights. Furthermore, Christianity and Islam are - by analysis of their track records and holy texts - the most violent religions in the world. They are also the religions being light-heartedly lampooned in the amusing webcomic, Jesus and Mo. C2: Moments of great change in government are necessarily, historically, precipitated by public outcry and opposition mobility. It is as Deepak Chopra said: "All great changes are preceded by chaos." The returns from Iraq and Vietnam, the abolition of slavery and the enactment of desegregation - these and countless other momentous cultural shifts have happened only under tremendous upwelling of public outcry and action. Living in a purportedly democratic nation, it is by definition impossible to enact change without the mobilization of a voting opposition constituency. C3: The internet is important as a refuge for rationalists, empiricists and atheists. While public and political life are dangerous places to profess reasonable beliefs about the burden of proof and how all powerful god-creatures with warped senses of humor can't meet them, the internet has provided an important arena for factually minded people to correspond and post images of cats. While this arena has spawned some degree of action (e.g. anonymous), it has also served as a venue for imagined action. By affixing their signatures to e-petitions and forwarding chain emails to their like-minded friends and relatives, rationalist web citizens acquire a false sense of accomplishment. This sense of accomplishment serves as an impediment to real political action, and allows us to continue, as a country, down the slippery slope of unconstitutionality. C4: Censoring the Jesus and Mo webcomic (or other popular atheist/rationalist webcomics) would be immediately seen as puerile, totalitarian and most importantly, unconstitutional. It would force public and political action against religious governance. Banning Jesus and Mo would accomplish three things. a) It would be an assault on the first amendment so bold and obvious that it would galvanize public outrage and demand comparison to Nazi book burnings. b) It would be an assault on the private world of the underrealized atheist/rationalist constituency, forcing political engagement on a level heretofore unseen by that constituency. c) It would force the government to pass other legislation reinforcing constitutional rights, and preventing further slippage along its current trajectory. In summary: Banning Jesus and Mo would be a move to shock the public and the government into pushing religion back out of governance. Banning Jesus and Mo would force the conversation about religious encroachment, and allow more public room for atheistic thought. Banning Jesus and Mo would remind us all what it takes to protect our rights, and that the government ALWAYS demands oversight. Banning Jesus and Mo might even save the world. Jesus and Mo cartoons should ABSOLUTELY be banned. [1]Interview by Tom Brokaw with Sen. Joe Biden, Meet the Press (Sept 7, 2008)