[Buddha-l] Buddhist stupa to be moved from NM Petroglyph Park

[Jo]

RH: ......guess I'm in favor of trying to honor the first amendment and
keeping religion entirely out of the public sphere.........
You needed to add, the public 'federally-owned' sphere.
JK
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Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 10:44 PM


On Oct 1, 2012, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Fynn <chris.fynn at gmail.com> wrote:

> In the USA you have some constitutional clause against mixing religion 
> and government - yet religion seems to play a much bigger role in 
> politics and government than in other western countries that have no such
prohibition.

The first amendment to the US constitution says "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof" and lots of other things. That seems pretty straightforward, but
there are many views about what it means. Some evangelical Christians claim
the purpose of the amendment was to protect religious organizations from
government intrusions. Others think it means that the Congress shall make no
laws establishing a religion for the entire United States, but that
individual states can have established religions. On that reading,
Pennsylvania could be a Quaker state, Massachusetts a Unitarian state, Utah
a Mormon state, Florida a Jewish state and Louisiana a Catholic state, but
the United States as a whole could never be affiliated with any denomination
or any of the world religions.

Some fanatical atheists (of which I am one) interpret the amendment to mean
that no religious ceremonies should take place in areas supported by public
tax monies, such as national parks or schools. Some fanatical secularists
(with whom I do not agree) think that comparative religions should not be
taught in public schools.

At my university, which is funded solely by state taxes, a position in
Islamic studies was advertised several years ago. The search committee was
unable to come to an agreement on who was a suitable candidate, and the
search was closed without a hire being made. Some time later, the
archdiocese of Santa Fe gave funds for an endowed chair in Catholic studies,
but the search was abandoned when members of the faculty of law threatened
to sue the university for accepting money from a religious organization. A
few years later, the search was resumed, and when the search committee chose
an historian of New Mexican Catholicism, the history department refused in
principle to accept her because her funding came from the Catholic church. A
little later, a Jewish organization offered to sponsor an endowed chair in
Jewish studies and then withdrew the offer upon learning that the university
could not legally guarantee that the search committee would only consider
candidates that are pro!
 -Israel. Nothing about the hiring of experts in religious studies is easy
in a university funded by monies raised through taxation. 

I believe the US constitution is a monstrosity from beginning to end, and I
would jump for joy if the entire damn thing were put into a shredder. But as
long as we have the hideously antiquated document as the law of the land, I
guess I'm in favor of trying to honor the first amendment and keeping
religion entirely out of the public sphere while ensuring that everyone can
worship (or not) exactly as he or she wants in the privacy of the home or in
privately owned buildings that do not benefit in any way whatsoever from
public monies or from exemption from taxes. And so I believe the Buddhist
stupa must go from the land acquired by the National Park Service. 

Richard Hayes
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