Let the Wall Between Church and State Stand
F-E-L-O-N.
I expect to post a few more editorial cartoons. I’m still on travel, but will be back in DC by the end of the week.
A number of new editorial cartoons went online today and I’ll post them either as manual updates to the diary or in the comments section. Scroll down a bit.
I’ll try to post Part 2 of this diary either later tonight or at some point tomorrow.
As always, thanks for dropping by and supporting this diary series.
In case you missed my recent diaries, please click on the below links.
Manual Updates Posted Here
A Terrible Idea
Honor These Three Young Men
… and thousands like them who fought entrenched interests to expand freedom for all of us.
Added — 4:48 pm ET
I didn’t know until just a few minutes ago that Michael Schwerner was a childhood friend of former Labor Secretary and noted public intellectual Robert Reich. In this video, he recounts what his friend meant to him.
A Blast from the (Very) Distant Past
The Solution
Ha!
Supreme Interference
Buffoons
Guilty, Until Proved Innocent
A Bit of Advice for Moses
He’s Just Lying
In 1980, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Stone vs Graham case that posting the Ten Commandments in Kentucky public schools per state law violated the US Constitution’s Establishment Clause of the First Amendment for it promoted religion.
The case was filed by a parent, Sydell Stone, against James Graham, the Superintendent of Public Schools in Kentucky.
A God-Awful Idea in Louisiana
This country's religious pluralism tradition is perhaps the most cherished and quintessentially American. One need not be a credentialed historian to know that basic fact: the pilgrims came here in the early 1600s to pursue religious freedom and tolerance and have the freedom to also not formally adhere to any organized religion. By and large, this country has stayed true to that ideal for over four hundred years. It isn’t unusual to travel to large urban centers and see a Christian church, a Jewish synagogue, a Muslim mosque, a Buddhist or Hindu temple, and revered symbols of other religions close to one another, perhaps even in the same city block. Their mere presence also does not demand acquiescence to any beliefs these religions offer.
By definition, true religious freedom requires the separation of church and state. It simply means that there is no official national church nor excessive governmental involvement in matters of religion. Maintaining it requires work, effort, and serious dedication to preserving what is best about this country and is incumbent upon all of us. Dissent is a concept at the heart of this country’s founding in the 18th century, and tolerance of opposing religious or non-religious views has been accepted widely. It should continue to be the norm for all Americans. Otherwise, factionalism and fragmentation will tear the country apart into smithereens — a political condition in which the sum of the parts will never be greater than the whole. And that is very un-American.
An article in New York magazine explains why Louisiana passed a law in defiance of this celebrated tradition. The law requires all state public schools to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, has signed a bill into law that will require the state’s public schools to display a version of the Ten Commandments. He wasn’t coy about his rationale. “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original law-giver, which was Moses,” Landry said at the signing ceremony.
The bill’s supporters were equally blunt. “I’m not concerned with an atheist. I’m not concerned with a Muslim,” said state representative Dodie Horton, who wrote the bill. “I’m concerned with our children looking and seeing what God’s law is.” Others claimed the law was not “solely religious” in purpose. Rather, the Ten Commandments have “historical significance, which is simply one of many documents that display the history of our country and foundation of our legal system,” said a Republican state senator…
Why display the Ten Commandments? Likely for several reasons, but among the most compelling is a thirst for sectarianism. Christian nationalists are looking to score points against their foes — and win an ideological war in the process. If America is a Christian nation, nobody else truly belongs. Not atheists, not Muslims, not Jews, not even other Christians who disagree with their interpretation of the Bible. That’s a lesson Louisiana Republicans hope to impart to Americans as children. Philadelphia’s nativist riots remind us where sectarianism can lead. Louisiana’s new law may not lead to physical violence against religious minorities, but it does perpetuate violence of another sort: It’s a brute power grab.
It says everything about where Christian nationalism is right now and where it’s headed next.
The MAGA Martyr
Christian Nationalism
Compassionate Conservatism
Attribution for the above cartoon: Jesse Duquette @JRDuquette
R.I.P. Bill of Rights
Louisiana Lightning
The Ten Commandments — With a Few Amendments
Told Ya!
SCOTUS Adrift
R.I.P. Willie Mays and Donald Sutherland
Two accomplished men and decent human beings passed away this week. The world is lesser because of their departure from this good earth.
Their contributions, however, will live on for future generations to admire and emulate.
The Greatest Catch Ever Made in Baseball
You can see the video of this famous over-the-shoulder catch by baseball great Willie Mays by clicking this link. It came in Game 1 of the 1954 Baseball World Series. Mays and the New York Giants swept the favored Cleveland Indians 4-0 that year.
It was a play that is as famous as any in the grand history of baseball and was memorialized at the time by the Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Brickhouse, who said: "Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch which must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people!"
One of the Greatest Baseball Players Ever
Read and watch a lot more about Willie Mays on Major League Baseball’s official website — Willie Mays, a baseball giant, dies at 93.
The Pride of New Brunswick, Canada
A Fine, Fine Actor and Human Being
During the years of the Vietnam War, Donald Sutherland also became famous as an anti-war activist, one who always championed the cause of peace.
In the below video, he talked about “the futility, stupidity, and horror of war.”
Read this long tribute to Donald Sutherland’s career as a consequential Hollywood actor and political activist in Rolling Stone magazine. It also includes video clips from several of his memorable performances — Donald Sutherland, ‘Klute’ and ‘Ordinary People’ Actor, Dead at 88.
Sutherland had a long career in movies, television, and theater. Surprisingly, he never received an Academy Award nomination; awarding him an honorary Academy Award in 2017 was Hollywood’s acknowledgment of this oversight.
The diary poll has most — if not all — of his major movies listed.