Must. Control. Fist. Of. DEATH.

[thebratqueen]

So people are chatting about the whole "court rules the 'under God' part of the Pledge of Alligance unconstitutional" thing, which is good because that helps ease my fears that another court would overrule the decision faster than, as catscradle put it, you could hit the "refresh" button.

Personally I think it's about fucking time. Separation of church and state means - follow along closely kids - separation of church and state. It's not complicated. We used small words for a reason and that reason being we've met America before and it tends to be small words or hand puppets with this kind of thing.

What's amazing to me, though, are the arguments people are coming up with against this thing:

What? So are you not going to use money now? That says 'In God We Trust'

Yes. That's exactly what it means. It means that those of us who don't like 'Under God' in the PoA are also going to stop using money now. You're so smart for figuring that out.

Christ. I'll explain this in a sec, but let me throw in a related argument:

And what about in court? You're supposed to swear to tell the truth 'so help you God'!

Okay people, follow along. I'll try to explain this by typing slowly:

Separation of church and state means that all forms of the government making the word "God" the default are wrong.

Let me put this another way: saying that we should keep "Under God" in the PoA because 'In God We Trust' is on money is exactly like saying that women shouldn't have been given the right to vote because they never had it before. Wrong is wrong. It doesn't become right because there's 2 more wrong things you can point to.

Then we have another favorite:

This ruling is exactly like the courts telling me there is no God! That's unconstitutional too!

Guys? You know what's exactly like the courts telling you there is no God? THE COURTS TELLING YOU THERE IS NO GOD. It's not a poem or a piece of literary symbolism. You don't have to spend hours trying to interpret it. It's real simple for the courts to tell you there is no God: WE CHANGE THE PLEDGE TO READ 'ONE NATION, UNDER NO GOD'

But the courts - follow along closely now - did not do that. The just removed the 'under God' from the pledge. Now maybe this is news to people who skipped this level of development when they were 2 years old but surprisingly things can still continue to exist even if you don't see them or talk about them. You know that thing when you cover your eyes during a horror movie so you don't see the gore? That just means you've covered your eyes. It doesn't actually make the movie screen, seats, theater and all the people around you disappear.

Likewise the fact that I'm not talking about that brown stuff which comes inside of a Hershey's wrapper does not, in any way, mean I'm denying the existance of chocolate. It means I'm not talking about chocolate. Chocolate will continue to exist whether or not I talk about it. And I can swear to you that I haven't talked about Barbie dolls for years now - that in no way means that I'm denying their existance either.

So - deep breaths, people. God's okay. Trust me, he can handle this. He is, after all, GOD. Kind of the job description to be able to survive this stuff.

And yeah, I don't have much confidence that this ruling will stand under Dubya's America but that doesn't mean the ruling wasn't right.