Sheridan: Con-Law

MOHAMMED COMES TO THE WALL

The Islamic religion has a taboo against making drawings or statues of revered figures such as Allah and the prophet Mohammed. Judaism has a prohibition against making graven images of God. Christianity encourages respectful portrayals of Jesus, a Jew, particularly if depicted as a blonde, blue-eyed, northern European.  See Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. The newspaper of a Danish political cartoonist published a drawing of the prophet Mohammed to make some sort of a point and now all hell has broken loose, what with Muslim outrage and European counter-outrage over the outrage. Result: more cartoons. Messing with people's symbols is serious business, as we know from our own efforts to keep church and state separate, to keep evangelical Christian religious symbols out of the town square and courthouses, and to resist mainly Christians from forcing schoolkids to mouth approved Christian prayers in school or other civic exercises, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, and in particular, the words "under God" in the Pledge. Demanding equal treatment, some Jews agitate to have symbols of Chanukah displayed alongside Christmas scenes at city halls as though two breaches of the wall correct one breach. At any rate, if you've been wondering what the drawings or cartoons of Mohammed that have been the source of the current controversy look like, here they are: http://tinyurl.com/a98jp By going nuts over publication, my guess is that the Muslims are playing into the hands of the anti-Muslims who have now learned how easy it is to get their goat. I expect to see a lot more of this just to anger them, but good. In the name of freedom of speech, of course. Freedom of speech in this country means the right to anger the next guy, even by blaspheming his religion, as we no longer have laws against "blasphemy," the denigration of religion or a particular form of religion. If you think the Muslims are being silly over this, how do you like it when anti-American Muslims trample and burn the Stars and Stripes, or when they dragged the bodies of dead American soldiers through the filthy streets of Mogadishu? Or an American appeals court holds the words "under God" in the Pledge unconstitutional? Since we know that such activity generates a lot of feeling, but a lot of feeling settles few questions involving the need to reason things out, why not divide your reaction into two columns, A-Reason, and B-Feeling, in order to keep the two separate, as in "I feel this, but I think something different" (or the same, if that's how you figure it out). Here's an interesting take from the American cartoonist, KAL. Did you know that Prophet Mohammed has been depicted respectfully and not for a very long time?  Here's a compilation.  Thanks to reader Mike Cheek for the pointer to the site. Much of our humor, especially the schoolboy variety, draws the laugh by making us imagine a taboo image.  I'll have to cogitate awhile before coming up with examples. Meanwhile, discussion continues over why such a strong reaction of Muslims over the Danish cartoons of their prophet. And speaking of cultural clashes, China doesn't want Google to put on-screen anti-Communist Party messages, such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, as the product of certain searches.  Google has truckled under to the Communist Party, China, claiming that eventually the word will get out anyway. Boooo! Google has gone Communist, in order to make a buck, of course. Try CLUSTY.COM, instead.  CLUSTY promises not to go Communist any time soon.           -------------------- -rs "The past isn't dead.  It isn't even past."   Wm. Faulkner

SEPARATION OF THE PRESIDENT'S FAITH AND MY GOVERNMENT

I spent a lot of time as a kid trying to think about whether there was a God and whose side He was on.  In those days God was a He.  Now He's an It whose name is 'Ralph' for the sake of convenience.  'Ralph' sort of takes the aura out of the alleged Creator.

As an existential matter, God exists in American politics.  God doesn't exist in European politics, where they laugh at us for believing in ideas they gave up as moonshine a long time ago.  Kumbaya.

Last evening in the annual State of the Union Address, President Bush, who could use a little of God's honest help after a bad year what with Hurricane Katrina (an Act of God) devastating New Orleans and the insurgency in Iraq killing American troops and Iraqi civilians in terrible numbers, stated:

A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners and that recognize the matchless value of every life.  Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abused of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.  Human life is a gift from our creator, and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.

Why don't we agree to debate whether any of this human activity should be allowed to occur on our society, since we poor humans are responsible for making the rules we live under, and not God.  We don't have a fourth branch of government run by God.  The press likes to call itself the Fourth Branch because, when it's doing it's job competently and not going to jail for refusing to divulge the names of leakers who are committing crimes against the nation's secret intelligence agents (the Libby case), it keeps the other three honest by shining the light of day on their frequently nefarious activities (the Abramoff affair, for the latest, but not last, large known example).

What puts the president's recommendation into the realm of Constitutional Law is that his expressed professed basis for banning certain forms of medical research is that "Human life is a gift from our creator."

I think that's SO wrong.

If Bush said that in a biology class he'd get indicted for crimes against Darwin and the entire concept of evolution.  I know, there are those who say that God created Evolution AND Darwin, and for those folks, I wish them the best.  I just don't want them passing my laws or interfering with my life.  I've spent enough time looking for a God who was going to do something for me that I couldn't do for myself, thank you.  Try driving down a busy city street where the weaving car next to you has a driver trying to use a cell-phone to see who is really protecting your life, God or your own alertness.

Since Pres. Bush is a lot cannier than some of his critics give him credit for, my guess is that the Creator bit was put in there as a bow to his base, the religious right who put him there, and since recommending law is not the same as passing law, he can say what he likes about God being responsible for one thing and another.

Sarah Vowell, on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times this morning, writes:

In fact, it's been said that God is currently angry with America.  But according to God's publicist, the Supreme Being would like to clarify that He's not angry, but that "He would like His name taken off the credits."

How apt.

All we do is blame God for harmful manifestations of wild-ass nature, such as tsunami,  mudslide, volcano, and hurricane, which kill an awful lot of innocent infants, children, women, and men, the innocent as well as the naughty.

When someone suffers a terrible accident that leaves them barely breathing, they say, "Thank God it wasn't worse."

How much nicer it would've been had God intervened in the first place to make up for all those prayers and sacrifices, all that faith and good works.

By virtue of our First Amendment, one can express publicly such heretical thoughts, which are sufficient for people of faith in a different time and place to tie one to a stake and light a stack of tinder, making sure you spoke no more and that all those around learned your lesson, even if you didn't.

I do appreciate Pres. Bush going out of his way to inject his version of my God into his politics and our national life.

Didn't we fight a revolution to get out from under such notions?