freedom of religion in USA should not involve freedom to *fully* practice old testament judiasm

I'm so glad that my opponent made this debate, I'm going to have a lot of fun, so thanks and good luck. I would like to preface my argument with a very important point, that my opponent seems to not have realized, If the title of the debate would just be THE FREEDOM TO PRACTICE THE OLD TESTAMENT that would be one thing (because he's entitled to learn the old testament as he pleases), but he wrote OLD TESTAMENT JUDAISM. The difference being that Judaism believes in something called the oral law, which means that g-d gave all the commandment with an oral tradition explaining every law and detail in the torah. (BTW the title itself doesn't make sense Judaism holds that it's not the Old Testament, it holds that it's the only testament). Judaism goes on to say that after the destruction of the second temple, all the rabbis were afraid that because of the turmoil and persecution the oral tradition would be forgotten, so they committed it to writing. So just a few examples, A man by the name of rabbi Yehuda hanasi (d. 196) spearheaded the project to write the Mishnah (a set of sixty books going through all the laws of the bible), now I will list a bunch of books put together in that era, although the names may not mean anything to you, but their interpretation of the bible is Judaism. The Sifra, Sifri, michilta, michita drabbi akive, tosefta, Midrash Raba, other Midrashim. After some time elapsed what was written was considered to cryptic for the preservation of the oral law. So the two Talmud's were written as a commentary on the Mishnah. Now that I've introduced what the oral law is, I'll show you how central the believe in the oral law is in Judaism. By quoting Maimonides (1135-1204, wrote a set of 14 books going through all the laws of the torah as understood by the Talmud and the oral law in general). "Halacha 6 The following individuals do not have a portion in the world to come. Rather, their [souls] are cut off and they are judged for their great wickedness and sins, forever: the Minim, the Epicursim, those who deny the Torah, those who deny the resurrection of the dead and the coming of the [Messianic] redeemer, those who rebel [against God], those who cause the many to sin, those who separate themselves from the community, those who proudly commit sins in public as Jehoyakim did, those who betray Jews to gentile authorities, those who cast fear upon the people for reasons other than the service of God, murderers, slanderers, one who extends his foreskin [so as not to appear circumcised]." Then he goes on to discuss each of the categories and I'll just quote the relevant one. "There are three individuals who are considered as one "who denies the Torah": a) one who says Torah, even one verse or one word, is not from God. If he says: "Moses made these statements independently," he is denying the Torah. b) one who denies the Torah's interpretation, the oral law, or disputes [the authority of] its spokesmen as did Tzadok and Beitus. c) one who says that though the Torah came from God, the Creator has replaced one mitzvah with another one and nullified the original Torah, like the Arabs [and the Christians]. Each of these three individuals is considered as one who denies the Torah." http://www.chabad.org... Now that that's out of the way let's discuss the issue. Freedom of religion in the USA, so first of all I'll point out an essential point, Judaism was not given to the non-Jews in other words any law in the Old Testament in not addressed to gentiles. So the very first point that has to be understood is that this is a fight for the minority population of Jews in the United States. There are approximately 6 million Jews living in America, they are all biblically obligated by the bible to follow the laws of the torah. So this is a fight to protect 1 and a half% of the American population who are Jewish, from the "old testament". Now on to the next point, the religious Jews in America "fully" keep the Old Testament, completely without breaking any its laws. According to my opponent they should lose that freedom... Of course my opponent has argued that Jews don't keep the Old Testament, and he named a few laws. So let us discuss those laws as understood by the oral law. "People are to be put to death for what many would consider trivial moral infractions". According to Judaism the Jewish court ("Beth din") can only do the death penalty when the temple is standing. So according to Judaism no death sentence can be meted out, (of course the non-Jews have a right to have the death penalty for murder, but that's a discussion for a different time). "Slavery is often permitted or directed". It is only directed when a Jewish male thief has no other means of paying for the theft he pays off his theft by selling himself into slavery for six years. Now for Jewish slavery to be applicable there has to be the jubilee, since that stopped at the end of the first temple (if necessary I can elaborate how the Talmud learns this) there cannot be a Jewish slave. Now in regards to a non-Jewish slave there is never a directive to have one, rather it's permitted, but there's another law in Judaism that is called Dina dimalchusa Dina (the law of the land is the Jewish law) which means that as long as the law of the land is not telling us to go against the torah we are obligated by Judaism to follow the law of the land. So if slavery would be legal perhaps we would have slaves, but it's not, so Judaism forbids having slaves. "women are treated as property". Please elaborate I don't know what you are referring to. If you're referring to the law of a maid servant, again not applicable until we get the jubilee back with the coming of messiah, until then there can be no Jewish slaves in any way. "A woman raped can be forced to marry her rapist." Completely not true, she has every right in the world to say that she doesn't want to marry him, and she is never forced to. The law of the bible that your referring to, is that if she wants to marry him, he has no choice if he raped her (the Talmud says that probably it would play itself out in a case that she"s a very sick or gruesome lady), and he has no option of divorcing her, if at any point she wants a divorce she can demand one,(and like all marriages if he hurts her, he will be tried in court and be punished financially and if necessary by force). The lesson of course being that if she's good enough for you once shes good enough for your whole life. (Sex is not just fun and games it's a real thing). So in conclusion freedom of religion in America does and should give the freedom to practice the old testament fully as demanded by the old testament. And we await the imminent arrival of moshiach (the real one) when at that point the world will be openly a beautiful place,and the jews will be able to fulfill all the commandments, but at that point all the Jews will want to fulfill all of the commandment, and all the non-Jews will be righteous gentiles, may it happen speedily in our days.