[cross-posted from CIVLIB Echo] [originally posted on 1:128/105] Dear CIVLIB Correspondent

[cross-posted from CIVLIB Echo]

[originally posted on 1:128/105]

Dear CIVLIB Correspondents:


Certain posts have recently been written by me, in exchanges in a rather
heated discussion between myself and certain Christian advocates here in the
Conference. This message is to apologize to those Christians, who are innocent
of the crimes against individual adult freedoms to which I was objecting in
those posts, for parts of those messages that might be construed as advocating
the total and complete demise of all manner and form of Christianity in the
world.


No such bitter harm was ever intended. All I really advocate, to paraphrase
the words of C. Maine, is to "insist that the PRIVILEGES" enjoyed by the New
Testament and its attached religion "be taken away". PLEASE note WELL that I
said the PRIVILEGES, *NOT* the RIGHTS. Christians have the same RIGHTS as the
rest of us, and they should. But their religion, especially Fundamentalistic
Evangelical Protestantism, has been awarded PRIVILEGES far in excess of these
RIGHTS.

These PRIVILEGES include a de-facto assumption that any Christian tenet is a
desirable addition to the civil law; that the government has business
legislating Christian morality as the legal standard of the land (rather than
ADULT PERSONAL FREEDOMS, as that standard br RIGHTS should be!); and that
those adults whose lives and lifestyles fail to conform to the Christian morm
should be imprisoned, or treated as sixth-class citizens at the vey least.

These are PRIVILEGES, wrongfully enjoyed by the Christian, and especially the
Protestant Christian, religion. They are *NOT* the RIGHTS of that religion,
which consist of the RIGHT of adults to VOLUNTARILY submit to the Christian
norm if, while, and ONLY so long as they Will to do so; and of the Christian
religion to practice and conduct itself in peace, AWAY from government
attachments and interference.

Please allow me to make it clear that it is NOT the RIGHTS of Christianity
that I insist be taken away, but ONLY the PRIVILEGES it has wrongfully been
awarded.

If you, as a Christian, are not involved in support, either political or
financial, of the various politico-religious movements to outlaw abortion,
restrict access to sexual education and birth control, eliminate civil rights
protections for homosexual men and women, restrict the RIGHTS of adults to
communicate to each other about sex, sexual practices, sexual feelings, etc.,
or in any other way, shape, or form impose governmental controls over what
adults may or may not do with their minds and bodies (such as the War on
Drugs), then I do apologize to you. You are not attempting to perpetrate the
wrongful PRIVILEGES awarded to Protestantism by this society, primarily during
the Civil War years.


But if your version of Christianity includes a program of making the
government, and the laws of our land, conform to "Christian Family Values" (a
euphemism for the War Against Non-Reproducing Adult Lifestyles), then your
religion deserves the worst of what I have written here, and worse besides;
and I make NO apology to you at all! Moreover, as you would deny the rest of
us OUR freedom, I will use my sole remaining reliable Constitutional right,
that of free speech and press, to advocate that your subsets of Christianity
be treated like the worthless, cancerous disease that they are, and that they
be suitably treated -- COMPLETELY ELIMINATED from the Planet as soon as
possible! This is not only in the best interest of non-Christians, but, in
reality, in the best interest of the majority of Christians as well.
Christians who practice their faith in peace, and rely upon their families and
churches for transmission of moral values (rather than the government and the
law) do NOT need the burdens they would face from any involvement between
church and state; they realize, as a general rule, that compromise of the
church-state separation principle would cost them far more than any
establishment of religious tenets would benefit them. These Christians -- and
again I MUST emphasize that these are the majority of Christians -- UNDERSTAND
that it is NOT the Law or the Government, but DEFINITELY the Church, that must
be the SOLE and ONLY handler of moral tenets for Christians. And they also
understand that any compromise of THAT idea weakens their rights to their free
exercise -- NOT a suitable price for conformance at all!!


	  I will confess that I am not particularly friendly to the Christian
religion. I believe that C. Maine was pretty close to accurate when he blamed
it for most of the major inhumanities of the past two thousand years. But it
was also imperative that I make it somewhat clearer what it was that related
my arguments to the subject of Civil Liberties -- that establishment of
"Christian Family Values" meant massive destruction of freedoms that adults
ought to have whether Christians approve or not -- and also to make it a
little clearer who my real adversaries were (and that these were only a
MINORITY, albeit a vocal minority, of all Christians).


											 Respectfully,
											Sean McCullough