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Old Oct 11, 2005, 08:52 pm   #2005 (permalink) (top)
Dirty Name
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No. However, if Osama instituted a foot washing ceremony to glorify Allah, and then our government decided to give insurance rights and tax benefits to those who participated in that ceremony, then I would ignore it. Once again, very poor comparison.
The only poor comparison is yours, David. Here, you equate a non-religious state institution with one that is clearly religious - Islamic, to be specific. To make your own analogy better, you would have to say that Osama Bin Laden issued a "fatwa" to make foot-washing cereomonies mandatory forms of praise for Allah, and that the state, via statistical evidence, learned that people who wash their feet cost the state less money, and decided to issue tax breaks for people who agreed to wash their feet. Oh, but wait, there's more - to keep your analogy consistent with the topic at hand, you'd also have to say that the state could not require any particular God to be praised during the foot-washing exercise...

So now that we have a accurate analogy, let's reframe the question to see if you would be opposed to the idea for the EXACT SAME REASONS you claim to be against marriage:

If the state decided to grant tax breaks to everyone who participated in a weekly foot-washing ritual, based on incontrovertible evidence that such foot-washing was in the best interest of the state (in that it suppressed a number of social ills), would you be opposed to those tax breaks due to your feelings about the Congress making no law respecting the establishment of religion?

And if, for some strange reason, your answer is still "yes," then please explain to me how a foot-washing tax break could be equated to the establishment of religion.


The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage:
http://www.volconvo.com/forums/socie...tml#post348891
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