From: rlc1028@zeus.tamu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Religious Freedom (Re: Gays in the Military)
Date: 11 Dec 1992 23:00 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: zeus.tamu.edu

In article <1992Dec8.203109.22379@galileo.physics.arizona.edu>, krueger@galileo.physics.arizona.edu (Ted Krueger) writes...
|In article <grendel.723788680@camelot> grendel@camelot.bradley.edu (Alyosha Bourgea) writes:
| 
|>However, on the matter of school prayer: it's a bad idea because it
|>violates equal rights.  
| 
|How does a voluntary moment of silence violate equal rights?  How does 
|student-lead voluntary prayer violate equal rights?  Where are you 
|guaranteed the right to lead a life without being exposed to any religion?

	If it's a VOLUNTARY moment of silence, does that mean that students
who do not wish to participate may continue to talk?

	You are not guaranteed a right not to be exposed to religion.
I believe that the current line of legal thinking is that you are guranteed
the right not to have government expose you to religion.



|>The purpose of school is to educate, and every
|>student, be they fundie, Muslim, pagan, Jewish, atheist, or indifferent,
|>should be allowed to pursue that goal in peace.  If students want to pray,
|>that is certainly their right; however, they should do it individually.
| 
|You apparently believe that this is true.  Let me attempt to convince you 
|that it is not.  A blind, grade-school girl was quietly praying her rosary 
|beads on the school bus.  The bus driver took them away and the school 
|forbade her from praying the rosary (even quietly) in public.

	Unfortunate.  And as far as I am concerned, the girl should not 
have been prevented from doing her chants.


|Where is any individual guaranteed the right to serve in the military.  
|This has nothing to do with equal rights.

	Obviously it has everything to do with getting equal rights,
with respect to sexual orientation, established.



|>They have
|>the right to be open about their gay nature, just as the child has the right
|>to openly express their Christian belief.  They do not have the right to
|>interrupt military activity with homosexual activity, just as the child
|>does not have the right to interrupt academic activity with Christian
|>activity.  Do you see?  It's not about who's PC and who's not.  The same
|>ethical standards apply to everyone.
| 
|I hope that I have shown that they do not.

	What is going to happen when the issue of homosexuality based on
religion comes to surface?  Many Homosexuals are religious, and their 
religion promotes their being Gay.  While the government has been allowed
to curtail certain religious practises, it cannot ban people because of 
their religious identity.  So, when the military tries to kick out a
Gay soldier on the basis of his identity (not practise), will that stand?
It will then become an issue of religious freedom.

	The current ban is a ban on identity.  The proposed legislation or 
executive order seeks to make conduct the criterion.  Homosexual activity 
will not be allowed in the military, but Homosexual identity will.

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