<sigh> I suppose that having Mormon missionaries knocking on your door every week or Jehovah's Witnesses repeatedly trying to get you to subscribe to the Watchtower or your neighbors repeatedly trying to get you to attend their church or ... or ... etc. is OK with you. I suspect that this is not the case. Why do they have the freedom to bang on your door at all? Or for you to be accosted by a sidewalk preacher in your face? Atheists don't have a corner on the market when it comes to "in your face' evangelizing, but where does my ability to not listen end? I've had my interior apartment door knocked on by local Baptists trying to convert me (this was technically trespassing since the complex was gated), and had to literally knock down a Jehovah's Witness who insisted on putting his foot in my door so that I couldn't close it. Where do you draw the line? With the Attorney General justifying immigration deportations by a Biblical reference? With Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) making law for everyone in regards to abortion and LGBTQ rights? Where is that dividing line? It goes all the way from the all-encompassing to the personal. All of these instances are minority views that have been made into majority edicts based on religious moralistic grounds. Much of it (if you truly believe in the separation of church and state and individual rights) is therefore invalid and should not be part of the legal framework.

<sigh> I suppose that having Mormon missionaries knocking on your door every week or Jehovah's Witnesses repeatedly trying to get you to subscribe to the Watchtower or your neighbors repeatedly trying to get you to attend their church or ... or ... etc. is OK with you. I suspect that this is not the case. Why do they have the freedom to bang on your door at all? Or for you to be accosted by a sidewalk preacher in your face? Atheists don't have a corner on the market when it comes to "in your face' evangelizing, but where does my ability to not listen end? I've had my interior apartment door knocked on by local Baptists trying to convert me (this was technically trespassing since the complex was gated), and had to literally knock down a Jehovah's Witness who insisted on putting his foot in my door so that I couldn't close it. Where do you draw the line? With the Attorney General justifying immigration deportations by a Biblical reference? With Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) making law for everyone in regards to abortion and LGBTQ rights? Where is that dividing line? It goes all the way from the all-encompassing to the personal. All of these instances are minority views that have been made into majority edicts based on religious moralistic grounds. Much of it (if you truly believe in the separation of church and state and individual rights) is therefore invalid and should not be part of the legal framework.

As to freedom, you're free to home-school your kids, send them to parochial schools, private academies or the public schools. The first three can teach religion if they wish, the fourth can't and shouldn't, due to the "public" nature of the public schools. In the same vein, it would seem to be unconstitutional since the public schools are government-funded and are responsible to the government for their actions, it would not be possible for them to have any prayer in school unless they allowed all types of prayer. If they allow one type of school activity, then all kinds of school activity should be valid. Since Creationism is a religious concept, which is a tenet of many religions, is still a religious tenet, and as such violates the advocacy of one religion over another, which is prevented by the First Amendment. As to your ranting about the TV, you're perfectly free to change the channel or turn it off. Maybe John Hagee, Pat Robertson or Jimmy Swaggert is more your style. Personally, that's not on my-most watched list.

Ummmm... when the two are intertwined and I have to literally answer the door and they try to impose their religion on me, that's where I draw the line. And if you truly value that separation and your individual freedom, you'd agree. No, I'm not trying to get anything banned ... that's the territory of the religious right. And I'm not proposing any "atheist displays" ... I'm just saying that spreading the word of your religion (or your non-religion) should only extend to making it available, not to pushing it in my face. And I concur wholeheartedly that I don't have to read them.