From: leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.usa.constitution
Subject: Re: U.S. Bill of Rights today
Date: 13 Sep 92 06:21:44 GMT
Reply-To: 70465.203@compuserve.com
Organization: SCN Research/Qic Laboratories of Tigard, Oregon.

symanzik@egr.msu.edu (Ed Symanzik) writes:

>In article <1992Sep9.032310.18048@nntp.hut.fi> jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
>>
>>		AMENDMENT I:
>>	Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
>>or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
>>speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
>>and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


>>		REALITY I:
>>	Polygamy in the Mormon faith: Banned.

>    Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and 
>    Christian countries.  They are crimes by the laws of the United
>    States...To call their advocacy a tenet of religion is to offend
>    common sense of mankind.
>	Davis v. Beason; 133 U.S.333 (1890).

This is a lovely bit of rhetoric. It also has *very* little to do with 
fact. Polygamy is legal in a *lot* of civilized countries. A number
of which were arguably civilized *before* western barbarians like
us were.


>>	Religious influence on political structures: See the Republican
>>			 			     Platform.

[lomg string of quotes suggesting that the US is based on Christianity
deleted]

I've got some counter quotes here. Interesingly enough, many are by
the *same* people you claim intended that the US be Christian!


"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded 
on the Christian Religion"
- George Washington

"During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has
been upon trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride
and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity,; in both,
superstition, bigotry, and persecution."
 - James Madison

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.  Nowhere
in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths,
Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in
Christianity.
- John Adams

As to Jesus of Nazareth...I think the system of Morals and his Religion,
as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see;
but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have,
with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his
divinity.
- Benjamin Franklin

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."
- Thomas Paine

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman
Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church,
nor by any Church that I know of.  My own mind is my own Church.
- Thomas Paine

"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty."
 - Thomas Jefferson

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
- Thomas Jefferson

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being
as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of
the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.  But we may hope that the
dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with
this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine
doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors.
- Thomas Jefferson

Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind.  Let us
restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which
liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.  And let us reflect
that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which
mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we countenance a
political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and
bloody persecutions.
- Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
- Thomas Jefferson

They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach
of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions
of the duperies on which they live.
- Thomas Jefferson

The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion.  I could
never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.
- Abraham Lincoln
-- 
Leonard Erickson		      leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com
CIS: [70465,203]			 70465.203@compuserve.com
FIDO:   1:105/51	 Leonard.Erickson@f51.n105.z1.fidonet.org
(The CIS & Fido addresses are preferred)