Subject:
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Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 20 Jul 2004 23:21:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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1615 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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Dave Schuler, in his typically stunning rhetorical musings, wrote:
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However, there was a case recently in which members of a jury consulted the
bible during their deliberations for advice re: punishment. That is, IMO,
an unforgiveable encroachment of religion into public law, and such
intrusions should be resisted at all costs.
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Found it, or a case much
like the one I was thinking of.
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If they’re only referring to the bible on the subject of determining punishment,
as long as the punishment fits within the legal min/max limits, there are
generally no strict legal guidelines for how they are to go about determining
what sentance to impose. Prohibiting them from referring to their religious
scriptures violates the 1st Amendment (Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof). Too
many people believe that the seperation of Church and State means that anything
dealing with Church must be wholy divorced from anything dealing with State,
when all it means is that Congress can’t pass laws creating a State Religion,
and they can’t pass laws designed to impose upon the beliefs of another
religion.
Now, the danger is that any Christian who is quoting the “eye for an eye” as
justification for imposing the death sentance speech clearly isn’t well versed
on the differences between OT Judeism and NT Christianity, and might have seen
the whole process of convicting the accused as a prerequisite for being allowed
moving on to the punishment stage, rather than seeing any moral obligation to
seek the truth (after all, if’n they wasn’t guilty, they wouldn’t’a been
arrested, right?). But what if the person involved had merely consulted the
Bible as a means of building up the spiritual strength necessary for him/her to
decide the ultimate fate of another human being in a just manner? Many soldiers
have had similar thoughts about going into battle, knowing that they were
fighting for just causes, but feeling guilt nonetheless for taking the lives of
others.
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