As Yakoff Smirnoff said - "What a country!"

[grueinthebox]

Debated whether to even bother with a reply - don't check EE at work, and the thread seems to have drifted (in EE?  who knew!), but...

I'm surprised the quote above was included in the story, but even more so that you seem to be stating that you either missed it, or can't see how it would apply to other religions.

The person who has a problem with the law unwittingly lays out the defense of the law, and how it was interpreted by me, in case you were thinking I'm nuts. 

I didn't miss the part where the law was being interpreted to state that various religions should be covered.  I did, however, miss the part where you tried to defend that law.  Your post seems to be worded more to draw a parallel between people supporting the idea that books other than the bible should be covered under a law providing a tax exemption and people (ostensibly) supporting the idea that people should be allowed to have sex with animals.

It's almost as if the constancy of the first story and others just like it are leading to more of the second kind of story.....

From your original post...  You can't exactly argue that you're just pointing out a coincidence where the two articles were following one another - they're from entirely different sites.

Who do you agree with, the lady who's bringing the suit you seem to agree with, or me, who agrees with the opinion/interpretation of the law by the lady who's bringing the suit?

If you're agreeing with the lady bringing the suit, then it would seem that those would be the same thing, in which case I'd agree with you insofar as the interpretation of that law is concerned. 

That isn't to say that I agree with the existence of that law, as I don't think any religious text should be given preference under the law over any other book of any kind.  Unless all books are tax exempt, there's going to be some religion SOMEWHERE that is being left out of the exemption.  Or are all the Star Wars books in the Sci-Fi section going to be tax exempt for folks who consider themselves to be of the Jedi religion?  And so forth...  The government isn't supposed to show preference for any religion over another, and at some level a law like this is going to do so.

Here's an idea.  Read my comments on the topic.  You might be so blind with rage you missed the fact that there wasn't a Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim putdown like you couldn't resist.  Go ahead, check it again.  Moral aides.  Yeah, that's something Christians have cornered the market on

Again you're ignoring the fact that your original post is composed specifically to infer that "other books being as legitimate as the bible" = "animal sex".  And I must be overlooking the part where I said anything at all about Hindus, Jews, Buddhists or Muslims.  Although, rest assured - if you had made a post stating that "anyone who wants to buy anything besides the [Koran/Qabalah/whatever] likes to f*ck goats", I'm sure I could come up with something.

The attitude that Christians have cornered the market on morality is far too prevalent among the radical Christian fundamentalists in this country today.  No religion has the market cornered on morality - just about all of them have their good points, but nearly as many have their bad sides as well, and it's rare to find any given set of beliefs that exhibits all of the former without introducing any of the latter.  And contrary to the conventional wisdom in this country, it is possible for an individual to have a functioning moral compass without practicing any religion at all.

"Moral aides" aren't specifically what we're lacking as a society - what we need are parents who can be bothered to raise their children (with or without religion) to grow up and be decent individuals, rather than relying on everyone else to do it for them.

Relaxing laws on deviant behavior while working to remove what little incentive is available for religious practice certainly IS related, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.  Oh, and screwing altar boys is almost exclusively a Catholic thing, since we're on the "unrelated" stuff.  I'm wondering who you know that agrees that screwing altar boys is somehow better than goats, or is somehow a precept that any religion condones.

Don't let my penchant for clergy molestation humor fool you - I'm quite aware that it's a predominantly Catholic thing.  It does, however, serve as an example to counter your suggestion that encouraging participation in religion is the cure for "deviant behavior". 

...And I'd venture to say that every Catholic priest who's ever molested an altar boy would tell you that it's more acceptable than screwing a goat.  No one I know (that I'm aware of) has engaged in either - I'm not a Catholic, and wasn't in a frat. 

[AtomSmasher]

That's not why they believe or disbelieve...they refute the scientific discovery of dinosaurs

[duffjr]

raping your seeing eye dog...that is terrible.  they said rape...they didn't say consensual sex, funny how they knew.

[jbox]

Uhhh, wow. For the record, I never thought Drew was trying to say that Muslims bang goats, I thought he was trying to say that 'government sponsered atheism' leads to people wanting to bang goats. 

Most of the pro-ACLU responses have simply been "government shouldn't have a law that tries to talk about religion", which seems like an idea a conservative would agree with (hence my surprise). Most of the anti-ACLU responses appear to be "this person is an ass because they didn't just ask for their book to be listed in the first place (and it probably would be if they asked)."

So in other words, either the legislature screwed up for trying to write policy involving religion, or the book store owner is an ass for not simply asking to get any particular book on the list instead of crying to the courts? Does that sum up everyones' views of the Bible article properly?   

And by definition you are not having consensual relations with any entity that doesn't get to sign their own contracts and vote. You can't legally consent to something if you don't have legal independance. Also, eeeeeuuuuuwwwwww....     

[Crazy Cooter]

The obvious solution is that from a revenue perspective, the Bible is just a book, so it should be taxed.

It is not to open the doors for anyone's definition of religious text to be untaxed.

Gets my vote.  If the $1.20 in tax is going to keep someone from purchasing their religious text, then they aren't serious about religion anyhow.  The government shouldn't try and put themselves any deeper in the religious arena.



All this goat talk...                     Here kitty kitty...

[fredster]

I agree, it should either be taxed, or all religious books shouldn't be taxed.

Quran, Dianetics, Bible, whatever, all should be the same.

[ChadTower]

I belong to the church of Harry Potter.

Harry Potter books, therefore, should not be taxable.

This is why religious books should be taxed.