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ACLU, Justice support lawsuit by LDS student
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I do believe that this fellow did not reapply in accordance to the mandates of the scholarship.
Isn't this the facts?
OK, I can't resist. Bush is all about his political base, not civil liberties. The ACLU is about civil liberties. The Justice dept is there, not about civil liberties but about religious "rights". Sometimes, such as the case here, they overlap.
Your question can not be properly answered as it includes a falsehood.
Most that argue against the ACLU, don't argue that the ACLU doesn't defend "rights", but rather, argue that the "rights" the ACLU defend were never granted by the social contract.
The People don't want to issue those "rights" and the ACLU fights to change that.
In this case, you'll see many people typically against the ACLU, for the ACLU on this occasion.
We should not interpret this article to grant the ACLU new found respect, nor that a person typically against the ACLU should now be for the ACLU, but rather that on this on occassion the ACLU did something that many will approve.
Very much like the saying - just because a broken watch tells the right time twice in a day, doesn't mean that it is now working.
Worthwhile is the issue - if a Muslim decides to spend two years preaching Islam to the young Christian soldiers in Iraq, is this still worthwhile? Or, does the religion matter? And, who gets to decide?
Perhaps a state sponsored school wants nothing to do with that debate.
That reasoning makes no sense, the LDS church is involved in litigation all of the time. And yes, sometimes the church is the plaintiff. Your son chose not to fight, and that may have been the best decision for him. However, this young man may feel guided to fight this injustice. Just because we are christian doesn't mean that we cannot try and make a difference through valid legal processes outlined by our government. I applaude this young man and wish him the best of luck. I think he is doing an honorable thing fighting for not just him, but the next potential missionary as well.
With the high cost of education, he should not be forced to incur debt or delay his progress because he is a 4.0 student who went on a mission.
We recently had a burglary at our home and while I was pondering how to handle it, I read Luke 6:30, wherein Jesus says "Give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again." Does that mean that I shouldn't report the burglary to the police or hope for the return of my stolen property?
As we try to live the precepts of the Savior, these can be sincerely troubling concerns. I once asked a dear Mennonite friend what he would do, as a sincere Christian pacifist, if he saw someone being injured by another. He replied, "Oh, I hope I would be strong enough not to fight." Needless to say, that was a very different way of looking at it from one Christian's perspective to another's.
Let's not be so quick to criticize other's motives, pray for light and understanding in our own lives, and do the best we can not to harm others.
It's too, too easy to criticize, especially from afar.
How amazing would it be if everyone could judge a situation based only on the facts instead of our religious or political affiliations! What an awesome day that would/will be!
Service by people of college age should be encouraged, recognizing that a window for performing such service closes as people marry and have responsibilities for supporting families. Performing service is itself educational, often including new skills such as foreign languages, and that allowing a student to defer college education while performing service contributes to the maturity and educational success of the student.
In fact, those were the reasons that the US Air Force Academy and the US Naval Academy have adopted a policy of allowing their cadets to defer education for two years in order to perform service in the Peace Corps or as missionaries.
I had a four year scholarship to the University of Utah that was held while I served an LDS mission (1969-71). This is not a new idea.
From the viewpoint of an ordinary, non-Mormon citizen, it seems unjust that a state school would be required to defer a scholarship while a student spends 2 years of "recruiting" converts (remember, non-Mormon perspective).
This case would make more sense if this student had reapplied for the scholarship, didn't receive it, and a less qualified individual received the scholarship. This would allow for the argument that the only reason he didn't have the scholarship renewed is because the school knew he was a Mormon.
Please let me know what I'm missing!
And churches are not known for humanitarian service?
We just need to think like American citizens, who want equal protections for every person. Being Mormon has nothing to do with it. This would be an important case no matter the religion or belief.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the government is not allowed to discriminate against an activity just because it is religious. If the scholarship program allows deferrals for other types of humanitarian service, it cannot discriminate against humanitarian service solely because it is religious. To do so violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments (See Raymond's letter above).
If government were allowed to discriminate against speech, activities, events and persons because they were religious, there would be no protections covering religion and we have lost our religious freedom.
What many don't realize is that this little battle is at the forefront of a long list of court battles to protect religious liberty. Let's stop worrying about the young man's motivations or expressing surprise that the ACLU has picked up the case. It is an important case!
Actually the ACLU and Mormons working together on something like this may be a good thing. Who knows, maybe some understanding from both sides will result in better relationships going forward. Maybe we Mormons will stop trying to legislate our morals, and maybe the ACLU (or UCLA as Brent says) will quit suing us for trying to do so.
The real ACLU are the ones who condoned the internment of 110,000 men, women and children (most of whom were American citizens), for the heinous crime of having Japanese ancestry. Not only did they agree with it, they condemned their own San Francisco branch for working on behalf of the unjustly imprisoned.
Oh, I get it now. They are on the RM's side because they need some good press! They want to be able to trot out this one case over the next several decades, to go with the handful of others where they were on the side of justice, such as Brown v. Board of Education.
American-born Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi was a senior at the University of Washington in 1942 when he learned that the U.S. government was requiring that all Japanese Americans report to internment camps for the duration of the war. Mr. Hirabayashi intended to join his family at a Northern California camp, but when the day came he decided instead to make a political statement by defying the order.
Instead of boarding a bus headed to the internment camp, Hirabayashi turned himself in to the FBI, where he explained his act of civil disobedience. The FBI arrested Hirabayashi for defying the curfew put in place for Japanese Americans and for failing to report to a control station for internment.
With the help of the ACLU, Mr. Hirabayashi challenged the internment order in the courts. His case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the government's internment of Japanese Americans was constitutional.
Forty years later, however, a federal appeals court reversed Hirabayashi's conviction.
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