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11 16

In America, you have to opt out of religion in public life. That’s backward.

By Kate Cohen

Washington Post, February 3, 2023

If you are a defendant in the state of New York and a judge requires you to attend an addiction recovery program, you have the right to request a secular program — one that does not center on God. Many recovery programs do have religious underpinnings; six of Alcoholics Anonymous’s 12 steps to sobriety refer to a higher “Power” or “God.” But the state must provide a nonreligious option if you ask for one.

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If you’re a defendant in New York, however, you might not know that. You might think that your only option, if you don’t believe in God, is to pretend you do.

That’s because, despite the promise of our Constitution, we don’t really live in a secular nation. In a secular nation, nonreligious recovery would be the default option, and a citizen who felt the need to seek God’s help would have the right to ask for AA instead.

But in our country, religion is the default, and the burden of opting out — even the burden of knowing you have the right to — falls on the nonbeliever.

The New York state legislature tried to shift the burden a little last year by passing the Nonreligious Recovery Options bill, which required judges to inform defendants of their right to secular treatment. “It should be a priority of the court,” the legislature said, “to ensure that a defendant’s treatment matches their preferences so they can actually benefit from the treatment.”

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul demurred, claiming the law set an “uncomfortable precedent” in which judges might have to inform litigants of “their rights to opt out of other mandates.” And so, her veto saved New Yorkers from a dystopian future in which citizens are, willy nilly, informed of all their rights. And it left nonbelievers, once again, with the burden of opting out.

I’m so tired of this.

The first time I remember opting out was in elementary school in rural Virginia, when my classmates went to learn about Jesus every week in a trailer off school grounds. I got to stay behind in an empty classroom because I was Jewish.

Now, I’m an atheist and I live in New York state, which requires public schools to lead students in the Pledge of Allegiance every day. In theory, when my children were younger, they had the right to get out from “under God” as long as they didn’t mind being, you know, those kids. The only way not to stand out was to stand and recite, like everyone else.

The Supreme Court doesn’t think I should mind. In 2014, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in Greece v. Galloway, upheld the constitutionality of prayer at town board meetings, no matter that religious prayer might exclude some people. “Should nonbelievers choose to exit the room during a prayer they find distasteful,” he wrote, “their absence will not stand out as disrespectful or even noteworthy.” No problem, nonbelievers: You are free to leave.

I am grateful for my civil rights and am keenly aware that many countries afford no such escape clause. But mine is supposed to be a nation whose laws and institutions do not endorse any religion, even as they offer protection to those who believe.

In a secular nation, if your public school required you to get your children vaccinated, but your religious beliefs prevented you from doing so, you could get an exemption — not from lifesaving public health regulations, of course, but from public school.

In a secular nation, if you believed Islam prohibited you from seeing an image of the prophet Muhammad, you could choose not to look.

That’s what an art history professor at Hamline University in Minnesota apparently assumed, when she warned students in her syllabus and in her class last fall that she intended to show a 14th-century painting of the prophet. Thinking she was living in a secular nation, she offered her students the chance to opt out and then showed the image. She was fired.

Of course, people can always sue; the professor is. But that seems backward, like having to take special steps to make your phone protect your privacy. Our rights should come standard right out of the box.

In January, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the National Women’s Law Center filed suit in Missouri, arguing that the state’s extreme abortion ban imposes a narrow religious belief on everyone else. Indeed, lawmakers had cited religion as motivation for restricting the reproductive choices of the people of Missouri, and the law itself refers to “Almighty God” as “the author of life.”

In a secular nation, a legislator who thought abortion was a sin would absolutely have the right not to have one.

In our nation, by contrast, after that religious belief is enshrined into law, someone has to make the legal argument that Missourians “have the absolute right to live free from the religious dictates of others.”

They do — they have that right. We all have that right. It’s right there in the establishment clause of the First Amendment. But as long as this country’s default setting is religious — both culturally and politically — we have to fight for it.

[washingtonpost.com]

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[wapo.st]

nicestuff 7 Feb 3
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11 comments

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1

But Kate, you are missing the undercut in facts and logic here!! Just HOW does a completely corrupted legal system, attain any rights to command us to do anything at all? Since when, do criminals have any legitimate power or authority over any man or woman? Just apply the definitions of Contract and Fraud found in any law dictionary to the legal system itself, and the entire thing just falls apart like a Jengo tower!
In case you missed it, just last year, the USSC/SCOTUS admitted that its members are all incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial when they finally after 49 long years, reversed Roe v. Wade! Both Alito and Kagan were quoted as saying that the original decision was egregiously wrong! So, if the U.S. legal system's highest court can make such a boneheaded blunder as that, regarding the life or death of unborn babies, and then take 49 years to fix it, what does that tell us? Doesn't any of this make your hair stand on end? Or does it just pass ten miles high over your head and you don't get it at all??

1

Socrates questioned the existence of the Gods and we know how that turned out. Today we still reckon time according to the birth of Christ, even if you abandon AD and BC in favor of BCE and CE, the delineation is still the birth of Christ. Those in power have frequently used religion to manipulate their societies. Religion is embedded in our society. If you replaced Christianity with Spirituality in order to be more generic, the religion remains. Is non-religion in itself a religion? What is legal pretty much goes hand in hand with popular beliefs.

History is replete with examples of forward thinkers suffering ostracism from the ignorant masses.

But no god said that all of a sudden we were going to be using any particular day to be a starting point for a calendar! The alleged arrival of Jesus isn't able to be proved to be anywhere near accurate! It's all just based upon a commonly agreed upon arbitrary that they called the time of the birth of Jesus!! The compilation of a book called the Bible, wasn't even written until 200-300 YEARS after that place in history! And it has been translated, edited and rewritten so many times, it boggles my mind that anyone takes it seriously!
One cretin I used to work with said to me that with my being as smart as I am, why couldn't I see the "truth" of the Bible! It's because I am smart that I don't fall for the illogic and B.S. in it!

@Logician

Jesus won the religious wars. The world calendar started from his birth. What would happen if we banned Christianity? Do we reset to the year one?

4

I think that more people abuse substances because of the abusive effects of religion than any other reason. It makes sense to keep the cause out of the solution if you are trying to kick a dependency.

0

If anyone you know needs a program for addiction, suggest SMART, the best non religious oriented program available.

Another one for alcohol is The Sinclair Method, it uses a drug that blocks the drinking to excess problem in the brain while they target the issue behind the drinking. People on the drug (for the rest of their lives) can still drink socially but will not be driven to drink compulsively.

[sinclairmethod.org]

0

I’m an NY resident and I held my nose and chose Hochul. Zeldin would have been significantly worse.

5

If you are addicted the higher power you must appeal to is yourself.

ABSOLUTELY!! For anyone to recover from an addiction of ANY kind, they have to first reach their bottom point on the subject, and then come on back up from there. Nobody has made a real recovery without going through that crucial step!

6

The main reason this is still this way is because non religious people are still in the minority in this country, and for the most part are politically silent, to our detriment. If non religious would stand up and demand equality. This would change. But that day has not yet arrived. Until we start having Reason Day Parades, and unite as a voting block like for example how the gay community has done. The norm will continue to be religious. Even when the religious don't believe in the same God.

1

The dominant recovery programs are modeled around Baptist theology. Listening to them repeatedly reference idiotic mythology and religious tropes discourages people who are not religious and seeking help. In truth, these programs work poorly in stark contrast to the technology below:

[nihrecord.nih.gov]

[addictioncenter.com]

[ucsf.edu]

[healthline.com].

[pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

[sitn.hms.harvard.edu]

1

Most definitely your personal opinion matters the most

0

This is a fine example of how Dems coddle dogmatic religion, mostly Christian and Islam, and help it survive. I think that's a mistake which has led to The Federalist Society but I'm bitter.

Your absurd nonsense opinion is noted.

Nonsense. Now religion has a political party?

@DenoPenno Of course it does. Cons want Theocratic oligarchy but Democrats love Christianity also✝️ POTUS Joe is a devout Catholic.

@rainmanjr OK, what religion are the Republicans? I can see where religion having a political party is not going anywhere. Too many people and too many religions.

@DenoPenno Oh, they're Evangelical Christians, too.

0

Don't think putting alcoholics in with alcoholics, works. Like when being gay was illegal, their punishment would be putting gays in with alot of other gays in prison. Having too much sex can be an addiction too. Best keep everything in moderation.

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