Plum Crazy

Religious repression = not being allowed to practice your religion on your own property or in your own religious institutions.

Religious repression = being told that if you do practice your religion, you can be arrested or perhaps even killed.

Religious repression <> not being allowed to place a two-ton granite monument on public property.

Nor does not being allowed to place a two-ton granite monument on public property equal not allowing a civil servant to express his religious convictions. In fact, I was unaware that expressing one's religious convictions mandated the placement of a two-ton granite monument on public property. I guess all those Jehovah's Witnesses that go about proselytizing all the time are not expressing their religious convictions since, to the best of my knowledge, not one of them has ever placed a two-ton granite monument on public property.

I simply do not understand all the fuss about Roy Moore being told to remove that monument from the courthouse grounds. You'd think this was some evil campaign to force Christians to convert to secular humanism or face a hideous punishment. If the worst thing that ever happens to a religious person is that he/she is told to remove a two-ton granite monument from property he/she does not own, well, I guess that ranks right up there with the Inquisition. Or with the Christians in Pakistan who are assaulted for daring to be Christian. At least in some bizarre parallel universe where Larry Flynt is a fine, stand-up kind of guy.

But hey, guess what, it is true that Judge Moore is not allowed to base his decisions on his religious convictions. Judges are supposed to base decisions on the law. Now to the degree that the law and his religious convictions don't conflict, that's fabby. Yay for him. But when they do? Well, tough luck. None of that stops him from expressing his religious convictions, though. He can still go to church every day and twice on Sundays.

And, yes, it's all for the best. Do we want Muslim judges basing their decisions on Shar'ia? I can just see Roy Moore jumping up and down begging for that to be allowed. In that same parallel universe discussed above, that is.

So step right up, folks, and come and see the violence inherent in the system.