The White House Responds To We the People Petition

First time accepted submitter Nysul writes "The White House, aiming to gather the opinion (or marketing data) of the internet nation, asked for our thoughts by creating the We the People site and now it has responded to some of the more popular petitions, such as marijuana reform and separation of church and state. You probably won't be surprised at the answers."

Comments

That wall

[fyngyrz]

From the response:

Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters.

No - but every mention of religion BY THE GOVERNMENT in a manner that incorporates governance or inter-govermental matters is a breach in the wall of separation. The ONLY reference to religion that should EVER be made by the government is by a judge and jury in order to punish government officials for bringing it up in the first place.

If private citizens -- not government employees -- want to speak about religion, that's fine. If those citizens want to put up religious icons or statements (or anti-religious) on their own land, or the land of another agreeable private citizen, that's fine too. But when the government puts religious symbols and sayings on the walls, desks, facades, and paperwork of its own, or gives tax breaks to the religions it "approves of", or throws a bible to "swear on" in the face of anyone in a courtroom, or stamps religious platitudes on the currency the citizens have to use... those are HUGE breaches in the wall of separation, specifically "respect" paid in some religious directions and not others - PRECISELY the thing the bill of rights forbids.

The arguments posted on the "response" page are for the 100-IQ and under crowd. It's like reading the essays of 9th graders who had a really bad civics instructor the previous year.

It's high time we held the judiciary, executive and congress to the oaths they swore. That's the biggest hole in our entire system of governance: the assumption that the government would consist of people of honor who would actually understand, much less obey, an oath.