Nice Florida Town: Either Like Ten Commandments or "Get Out"

[SecularMotion]

Last Sunday, the residents of Dixie County, Fla., rallied on behalf of a controversial Ten Commandments monument that sits in front of their courthouse.

One woman held a sign that let people know exactly what she thinks of those who object to the government-endorsed religious display.

“If you don't like what our USA was built on,” her sign read, “‘GET OUT.'”

Charming.

Well, sister, here’s some news: the United States of America was “built on” the constitutional separation of church and state. So if anybody needs to leave, it’s not us.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/nice-florida-town-either-ten-commandments-or-get-out

[MarkCharles]

1. There's a number of nations where a theocratic rule would be a possible...

nation for her, but I doubt she'd want to move to Iran, for instance.

Jeeze, the dumbness of so many religious folks is just freakin scary!

[beam me up scottie]

2. Christians who call atheists "militant" wonder why we support the ACLU and AA.

As we have reported before, the Dixie County Board of County Commissioners approved the positioning of a six-ton granite Commandments monument on the courthouse porch. In addition to the Decalogue, the monument features the admonition, “Love God and keep his commandments.”

The Florida ACLU challenged the display in federal district court, and – predictably – won. The county – perhaps just as predictably – appealed. (The commissioners are represented by Mat Staver, head of Liberty Counsel and dean of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Liberty University School of Law.)

***

Joe Anderson Jr., a local businessman and backer of fundamentalist Christian evangelism, paid for the creation and installation of the Commandments monument.

According to The Gainesville Sun, Anderson told the crowd of 1,500 that the United States was founded on Christian principles, and the county has a right to display a monument to the commandments that Christians observe.

Anderson also said that he objects to banners in Gainesville advertising the local gay pride festival, but he hasn't challenged them in court:

“Those nice banners strung across University Avenue, it makes me sick,” he said, “but I ain't sued anybody.”

[MarkCharles]

4. A guy equates temporary banners for gay pride in downtown to a stone tablet at courthouse?

What a twisted kind of brain comes up with that kind of crazy rationalizing? One that has been educated very poorly, obviously, and probably only by strictly intentionally biased religious teaching.

In truth, temporary banners for gay pride represent an expansion of freedom of choice, the exact opposite of his stone tablets.

Not to mention, the banners are a temporary NON-religious activity of his fellow citizens enjoying their freedoms, whereas his tablets are a strictly religious-based doctrinal statement intended to permanently use and deface taxpayer-funded public space for strictly religious purposes. If he wants a religious court, he can hold one in his privately funded church, and permanently install all the stone tablets he wants there.

[beam me up scottie]

5. He's a christian supremacist and homophobe.

Iow a Real American.

Teh stupid hurts, make it stop.

[MarkCharles]

9. Isn't homophobia a required foundational belief among Christian supremacists?

Isn't it like wetness and water? They go together? Part of the same whole?

Can one be a Christian supremacist and be gay, or even gay friendly? I don't honestly know, but I doubt it.

[beam me up scottie]

12. Pretty much.

That kind of intolerance usually includes anyone who isn't exactly like them in every way.

[goddess40]

3. Stay out of Florida

My tourist money will not be spent in Florida. First it was their irresponsible gun laws (though I hate to admit it but WI has irresponsible gun laws too) now it's the religion thing.

[tavalon]

6. Gee, less than 100 miles from where I grew up

Not surprised in the least. Ass backward place, Central Florida is.

[NMMNG]

7. Another extremist bigot who doesn't know squat about history

:eyes:

[deacon_sephiroth]

8. This is why I left that state, never looked back N/T

[MarkCharles]

10. These must be the people who voted for Governor Rick Scott!

Figures!

[Proud Public Servant]

11. Let's do this again

Not original to me, but I do enjoy doing it:

1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

Directly at odds with the US constitution, which is literally "what our USA was built on."

2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.

Sure hope nobody in Dixie County has anything depicting Jesus. Or Mary. Or any saints (sorry, Catholics!). Or an angel. And I sure as heck hope no one puts up a nativity scene; that's like the disobeying-the-Second-Commandment superfecta.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Directly at odds with the US constitution, which is literally "what our USA was built on."

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Sure hope every single business in Dixie County is closed on Sunday, including hospitals, and that nobody cooks, cleans, or does any yard work. Because if not, it's plague of locust time, baby!

5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

This is a fine idea -- but it has nothing to do with out national ideals. The family, like God and capitalism, is never mentioned in our Constitution.

6. You shall not murder.

Woo-hoo! Got one! Unfortunately, it pre-dates the Ten Commandments; see (Hammurabi, Code of) and is common to nearly all societies.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

See Commandment 5, above.

8. You shall not steal.

See Commandment 6, above.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

I'll admit it: I have nothing snarky to say about this.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

Not bad advice, but good luck running a consumer-based economy that way.

I think that leaves us with the 3 commandments. Think of the money Dixie County will save on tablets! :rofl:

[MarkCharles]

13. Great post! George Carlin got it down to one or two...Google on Youtube

George Carlin, The Ten Commandments video.