Posted by Gremlin [12.253.230.83 - 12-253-230-83.client.attbi.com] on 21 July 2002 at 10.34.26 ZuluTime:

In Reply to: Perhaps in part posted by Andy on 21 July 2002 at 09.49.47 ZuluTime:

Prayer is not hurting anybody. Okay; I'll buy that. Prayer is not hurting anybody. Because it's just dogmatic speech, protected by the first amendment, and not subject to prior restraint.
     I can think of a few other things not subject to prior restraint which don't hurt anybody.
     The Carlin List. While the FCC--an appointed and anticonstitutional organisation--has its own little regulations against the Carlin List, there's not prior restraint of the Carlin List outside of broadcasting. Therefore, because causation cannot be shown between the Carlin List and physical damage, it's not hurting anybody. If prayer is benign, then so is Carlin.
     Jokes. There will be no more bullshit lawsuits arising out of some lemming overhearing a conversation between two people which contains a joke. Again: the Carlin List isn't hurting anyone, and neither is the plotline of any given anecdote. We should allow these in schools too.
     Other religions. Obviously, you can't expect this nation to become christian. It's never going to happen. So: cocaine or not, you can expect alternative prayers in school. Devilworshippers and wiccans, and whatever other mutants there are these days, can pray to Cthulu or some approximation thereof, out loud, in school. A given student can beg Quetzalcoatl to eat the other students. And new religions can be constructed in which prayers can consist of wishing that someone would destroy the school with pipebombs and SPAS12 autoloaders. It's just prayer: it's not hurting anyone.
     And if any of this seems at all forward, obscene, or insulting: realise that, to intelligent people, the slander that everyone is created by the moron of the bible is equally perverse. It may not hurt anyone, but it does lead the listener to assume that the moron praying is a substandard creature which should probably be sent the hell off to heaven before it can do any more whimpering here on Earth.
     Just a thought; that didn't hurt, now did it....