Where's yer Kappa? Can't afford it?

[quote]Can you make the ACLU oodles and oodles of money if they fight for your cause?
If so, you may just be the man they're looking for. Or hermaphrodite. Or woman. Or child of any gender, race, creed, color...
I'm fucked.
They're gonna sue me now, on the basis of not mentioning every single culture, gender, and variable within the human race.[/quote]

No, I think you've got all the genders covered.

I agree with just about everything wirthling said in this post, but I find this a little dubious. You have as much power over your religion as you do over the way you happen to want to look. If you want to have long hair, then whether it's for religious reasons or just because you like having long hair is irrelevant. Why is religion always ranked alongside race and health as some intrinsic part of you which is outwith your control?

I agree with just about everything wirthling said in this post, but I find this a little dubious. You have as much power over your religion as you do over the way you happen to want to look. If you want to have long hair, then whether it's for religious reasons or just because you like having long hair is irrelevant. Why is religion always ranked alongside race and health as some intrinsic part of you which is outwith your control?[/quote]

Actually, I thought about that while I was writing that. I think the key is that the U.S. Constitution explicitly spells out that religion is protected. Other beliefs are not as strictly protected when it comes to the workplace. For instance, a nudist can be barred from coming to work nude. As long as an employer does not discriminate on the basis of those factors set in law, employers can discriminate as much as they please. I don't necessarily agree with that, but that is the legal precedent that has been established in American law, at least as far as I know.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

How does the Constitution define a religious belief, though? If you think it's morally wrong to wear clothes, why is that any less religious than someone who thinks it's morally wrong to shave?

How does the Constitution define a religious belief, though? If you think it's morally wrong to wear clothes, why is that any less religious than someone who thinks it's morally wrong to shave?[/quote]

I think the way that most people would make that differentiation is that a religion implies a group with some kind of structure built around a shared spirituality. What separates a religion from a cult or what may appear to be a cult but is really the early stages of a large-scale religion? I don't really know. Unfortunately, as far as what is legally defined as religion, I think it comes down to what a judge or a panel of judges thinks a religion is. I think a nudist could get away with being a full-time nudist if he or she could persuade a judge that the nudity is religion-based.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

But look at the short list of religions you brought out. I know you can name more, but it didn't happen. Why can't people who worship UFOs and want to drink poisoned Kool-Aid to join the mothership hang up a sign on the school too? It sounds just as nutzo to me. And believe me, there are a lot of places in America where Jews better not try to hang up a sign praising god if they don't want their house burned down.

I put the KKK in that crowd. I'm pretty sure the cases exist where they are warranted.

Yes.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

They CAN. That's my whole point. They're not legally considered a religion, so there is no federal law that prohibits them, only school discretion. So basically, everyone has free speech BUT religious students:

[quote]Ingebretsen v. Jackson Public School District , 864 F.Supp. 1473 (S.D. Miss. 1994), aff'd, 88 F.3d 274 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 117 S.Ct. 388 (1996)

In this lawsuit on behalf of parents, students, clergy and other concerned Mississippi citizens, PFAWF and the ACLU of Mississippi, working with Robert McDuff of Jackson, obtained a preliminary and then permanent injunction against implementation of a 1993 Mississippi school prayer law that would have required all public schools in the state to authorize so-called "student-initiated, non-sectarian, non-proselytizing prayer" at all school events, compulsory as well as non-compulsory. [u]This lawsuit was the first in the country to challenge a "student-initiated" school prayer law.[/u][/quote]

Free speech to that my friend. Free speech.

Yes.[/quote]Ever think that discussions on the internet are doomed from the get go? I've yet to see someone sincerely influenced or convinced by another's opinion that differs from their own. Except in the polemical political forums, where it is usually a ploy. Just a general observance.

P.S. Donkey sodomy.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.