Just had a penitentiary flashback....

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
--John Adams
For one thing, that's a woefully incomplete quote. The full quote is:

"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Second, and perhaps most importantly, John Adams never said that.

It was actually penned by American diplomat John Barlow as Article 11 of The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.

The Treaty of Tripoli was a treaty of peace and friendship between the US and Barbary States so that US shipping could be left alone by the Barbary Pirates (Muslims, although not all were Muslims, some where just opportunists). The Barbary States were at war with any nation for which they did not have such an agreement. As the US was in no position, militarily, to deal with the threat of every single US ship in the region being confiscated by the Pirates, the US did not want to delay any agreement by arguing the finer points of the treaty, they quickly agreed to whatever the Muslims wanted, including Article 11, and added Article 11 to the agreement. Article 11 only appears in the English version of the Treaty, and funnily enough, somehow never made it into the Arabic translation of the document, ironically at the request of John Adams himself, as he wrote about in his later years. The wording nor the sentiment of Article 11 doesn't appear in any of the treaties between the Barbary States and any other nation, either, so the Muslims singled out the US for that particular clause. Adams wasn't a big fan of Muslims. Not many people were back then, what with the Muslims having just conquered the region that became the Ottoman Empire. Adams simply refused to agree to Article 11 in the Muslim native language.

As soon as the treaty was signed, the US started ramping up, militarily, to deal with the Barbary Pirates. The First Barbary War (1801-1805) started not even 4 years after the treaty was signed, and was the first of two wars fought between the US (along with powerhouse Sweden) and the Barbary States (Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis, or now known as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya). The First Barbary War ended when the Muslims became war weary after all the fighting and the blockade by the US, and, not coincidentally, after Thomas Jefferson agreed to pay the $60,000 ransom to free the captive US sailors from slavery, a move that was not well received by very many at all in the US or around the world. (I can only imagine the outrage if Obama were to do something like that today hehe).

The US then got distracted by the War if 1812 with the British (and that good-for-nothing Native American Tecumseh, who if it wasn't for him we'd own Canada), which lasted 2 and a half years. But then they went right back at it with the Muslims of the Barbary States in the Second Barbary War (then as now, not very creating in the naming of wars). The US handily defeated the Pirates with the war only lasting a few months. The war brought an end to the American practice of paying "tribute" to the pirate states and helped mark the beginning of the end of piracy in that region, and soon the European nations built bigger and more powerful ships that rendered the Barbary Pirates impotent.

But after the Second Barbary War, the original Treaty of Tripoli was renegotiated and Article 11 was dropped completely, completely nullifying the notion that its omission from the Arabic text was merely an oversight.

However, John Adams did write in 1798,one year after the first ratification of The Treaty of Tripoli, in a letter to the officers of The First Brigade of The Third Division of The Massachusetts Militia, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He was talking specifically about Muslims.
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
The reason religion must not be part of government is that it forces the question of which religion? If your answer is Christianity, then which sect? Which bible? Which beliefs?
People say Christian, and the Bible, as if they referred to one specific clearly defined thing, but they don't. And saying one is Christian doesn't make it true, either, so the numbers of self identified Christians are basically worthless. Without a clear definition [and "one who believes in Christ" is hardly sufficient, IMO] some of the most selfish, judgmental, and intolerant people on Earth call themselves Christians, and who's to say they're not?
 
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cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
Davis said last Monday that her name and title would not appear on the forms and later that same day the Governor and the State Attorney General said the forms were valid. And Judge Bunning's order releasing Kim Davis said a form altered in the same manner by the Deputy Clerk the day after the contempt hearing while Kim was in jail was also valid as far as he was concerned, but that he'd leave it up the state. So there really is no new development with this. The Deputy Clerk is just covering his butt, and the ACLU and other lawyers involved just want to punish her for not embracing same-sex marriage. :D.

The governor and Judge Bunning may have said licenses without Davis' name and title are valid [but they remain in violation of Kentucky law, which requires licenses to be uniform across the state, and that law has not been changed], but those licenses did not also remove the title of the Deputy Clerk, substituting "notary" instead. That was a change Davis made after her return to work, and the Judge has not yet ruled on that. I don't see how it could be acceptable, because if a notary is empowered to issue a marriage license, why go to the County Clerk?
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
Oh, the quotes are from Shakespeare and the Bible. No Googling!
Well, except for the "When you give your word", and "Woeful waste". The first I couldn't find, the second is unknown, but more commonly expressed as 'waste not, want not'.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
The quotes in order are from :

Old English proverb, earliest known recording in 1576.

Shakespeare

The Quran

Pete Seeger and King Solomon

William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (Act III, Scene 2), 1697
 

RLENT

Veteran Expediter
If I had to guess the really big news is which political affiliation is gaining the most from changes in voter registration/identification ... and I'll bet it isn't either of the two major political parties ...
 
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aristotle

Veteran Expediter
Reportedly, Kim Davis was flown to Washington, DC to meet with the pope last week. Why was this meeting kept low profile? Pope Francis has no qualms about publicly discussing climate change or wealth redistribution. Yet, matters concerning religious liberties must be held away from public attention. Here I was believing the promotion of the Christian faith was Job 1 for the pope. Silly me.

Yes, the Pope leads the Catholic Church and Kim Davis belongs to a Protestant denomination, but still. Francis missed an opportunity.
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
Reportedly, Kim Davis was flown to Washington, DC to meet with the pope last week. Why was this meeting kept low profile? Pope Francis has no qualms about publicly discussing climate change or wealth redistribution. Yet, matters concerning religious liberties must be held away from public attention. Here I was believing the promotion of the Christian faith was Job 1 for the pope. Silly me.

Yes, the Pope leads the Catholic Church and Kim Davis belongs to a Protestant denomination, but still. Francis missed an opportunity.

Davis was in DC to receive an award at Tony Perkins' "Values Voter Summit" [I love how they dropped the "family" from their name, after discovering that quite a few real families don't agree with their values], not to meet with the Pope.
Perhaps the Pope feels that climate change and income inequality are matters of concern to people in many countries, not just ours, while the 'religious liberty' argument of Davis is purely our problem.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Two gay guys walk into a pizza parlor. :JC_rimshot:

They order two pizzas for take out, pay for the pizzas, then leave with the pizzas. And somehow this transaction gets categorized as a catered event.

Not only did they not get the shop to compromise their beliefs in any way, they actually helped them out by increasing their business and profit margin. Well done, gentlequeers! You’ve truly made a stand for the gay rights movement.
 
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