Muslim group files complaint against mayor of California town who said, “we’re a Christian community, and we’re proud of that”

But, under currently established liberal understandings that even conservatives don’t challenge, are the Muslims wrong to complain?

The story is in the Los Angeles Times:

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris drew criticism from a leading Muslim group today after saying in his annual State of the City address that the high desert town was “growing a Christian community.”

“We’re growing a Christian community, and don’t let anybody shy away from that,” Parris told the audience of ministers gathered for his address.

“I need [Lancaster residents] standing up and saying we’re a Christian community, and we’re proud of that,” the mayor said.

The Greater Los Angeles area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the statement and said it plans to file a complaint about the mayor’s remarks with the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department.

“Elected officials should not use their public positions to impose their religious beliefs on others,” said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR.

The mayor, reached by telephone today, said his remarks did not intend to impose his faith on others, and he said he would make no apology.

“This is just about very few people wanting to get their 15 minutes of fame,” he said. “I guess they got it.”

On reading this story, most conservatives will automatically condemn the Muslim group CAIR for charging a civil rights violation and making trouble. I don’t condemn CAIR, because they are only doing what our liberal society tells them is the right and proper thing to do. They are doing us a favor, by revealing to us the true nature of our current system. Under blatantly false constitutional interpretations that have been set in place by a series of revolutionary—but at present uncontested—Supreme Court decisions stretching back over many decades, no local or state government (not just Congress) shall have an “establishment of religion,” and “establishment of religion” is mis-defined as ANY expression by government that promotes a religion for religious purposes as distinct from cultural or civilizational or moral purposes. For a mayor to boast that his town is a “Christian community” arguably violates that perverted but now entrenched view of the First Amendment, and CAIR is simply applying that view. If you don’t like what CAIR is doing, don’t complain about CAIR, complain about the outrageous distortions of our Constitution which are now accepted as constitutional by the entire American political system, and which at present no one in mainstream society, least of all the “conservatives,” dreams of challenging.

- end of initial entry -

Hannon writes:

The mayor was on TV last night and handled himself ably. He came across as thoughtful and reasonable. What was interesting is that the lead-in babble mentioned Moslem grousing, but the story itself said nothing of Islam or CAIR. They treated the story fairly I thought, without the usual reporter’s vocal intonations of melodrama and fear.

It seems obvious that any community that is overwhelmingly comprised of practicing Christians, especially of the same denomination, will naturally infuse their local government with values from their faith. How could it be otherwise?

Is there not existing now a basis from which to reassert Christian affirmations of morality and conduct at the local level at least? Is there a discernible trend one way or another? We have the court swearing-in (“So help me God”) on the Bible, declarations on our legal tender, and other enduring expressions. How is it that the ACLU and their kin have not dashed these upon the Promontory of Atheism?

LA replies:

The answer to your question is the principle of interpretation I discussed in the initial entry. References to God and religion pass constitutional muster if the intended message is not religious per se but embedded in a broader civic and cultural message. Thus in the Ten Commandments case in Alabama a few years ago, a large stone with the Ten Commandments was held to be religious in intent and was not allowed. But in other instance, in which the Ten Commandments and other religious motifs have been included in a painting or bas relief that featured various civic themes of our civilization, that has been accepted. If you’re presenting the Ten Commandments as a basis of our civic law and customs, that’s permissible. If you’re presenting the Ten Commandments as … the Ten Commandments, that’s not permissible.

“the usual reporter’s vocal intonations of melodrama and fear.”

That’s a good description of what TV news is like. They have a set of four or five emotions, and they decide in advance which one to use for each story, depending on how they want to make you feel about it. This systematic manipulation of emotion is one of the things that makes TV news unwatchable to me.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 01, 2010 12:55 PM | Send