Religious references should be removed from national obligations.

======== Contention 1 ======== "for the purposes of this debate, 'national obligations' will be limited to the Pledge of Allegiance and US currency." The two religious references that PRO wants to abolish are not national obligations, and thus abolishing them does not affirm the resolution. A. Moral Obligation Moral Of or relating to the principles of right and wrong in behavior [1] This one is logically contradictory. We have no moral obligation to act wrongly ever. To act wrongly is to act immorally, so we can't be 'morally obligated' to act immorally. In so far as this is true, my opponent is in a double bind. If he can't prove that they are immoral, there's no reason why we would remove them. If he does prove that they are immoral, then we don't have a moral obligation to them in the first place. B. Legal Obligation There is no legal obligation to do endorse either action my opponent has listed. The pledge is not mandatory. You are required to stand and show respect if you are in public schools, but you are not required to ever recite it.[2] Further, if simply hearing it or standing for it is too much for you to bear, you could always opt out of the public school system for private or home schooling. There is certainly no 'national obligation' to say the pledge. Second is the issue of money. I have no national obligation to use the nationally established currency; there are many other methods of transaction in modern society. Further, simply using money doesn't signify anything about me. If I went to the Middle East, I would have no qualm using their currency, though I certainly am not a Muslim. It's currency, nothing more. Spending American money isn't a duty of citizenship and it certainly doesn't signify anything about you. I might hate George Washington; it wouldn't stop me from spending one dollar bills. ======== Contention 2 ======== These statements simply indicate the beliefs of most Americans. We live in a democratic society where the government's job is to enforce the will of the people. Thus, remarks such as 'In God We Trust' don't refer to the government, as it is not some ruling class or family. It refers to the general society. It makes sense, then, that if the majority of society agrees with Christianity, and it does, [3] then the government is justified in its actions. Further, 62% of Americans actually do consider Christianity the official religion of the United States. [3] ======== Contention 3 ======== Expressing Christian beliefs does not suppress freedom of religion. PRO claims "having God referenced in the Pledge is, in fact, stifling freedom of religion and promoting Christianity." This is absurd logic. Me promoting my religion does not infringe on somebody else's ability to promote theirs without persecution. Should we stop people from saying "Christmas" or "Easter?" Should we shut down churches? How about we rescind the Declaration of Independence? Of course not! If I walked down the road to the park and said "I submit to the will of Allah" I would be openly showing Muslim beliefs (in reality, a Muslim I am not.) Does that stop the people in that park from being Christians or Jews of Buddhists or Hindus? Not in the slightest. Simply advocating Christianity in general practice is far from persecuting those of other religions or stopping them from worshipping in whichever way they want to. ======== Contention 4 ======== Outlawing Christian views to protect Freedom of Religion is self-contradictory. We can't say "We should stop people from practicing religion X because it infringes on religions Y and Z." In order to protect the freedom of religion of some, we are sacrificing the freedom of religion of others. We can't suppress Christian views as my opponent would have us do in the name of freedom of religion. If he wants to advocate such an act, he will have to do so under the banner of 'absence of religion.' ====== Sources ====== [1]http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2]http://www.zimbio.com... [3]http://www.dakotavoice.com... ===== Closing ===== I'm looking forward to this debate and I wish my opponent good luck. I'm surprised in finding that I have over 2,000 characters left. Usually I am scrambling to meet the 8,000 limit. Unfortunately I will be occupied all of tomorrow, so this will have to suffice. It should be sufficient to earn a CON ballot.