Posted by Amanda on January 09, 1997 at 19:19:10:
In Reply to: Re: Madalyn Murray O'Hair Petition (?) posted by Pamela on January 09, 1997 at 10:07:20:
: If this is true I'd be interested in knowing how Ms. O'Hair can justify such a petition. It is my understanding that the stated goals of the American Atheists (of which she is the founder) do not include any effort toward restricting the freedom to practice any religion, but instead wish to prevent the imposition of religious belief systems on non-believers, particulary through government involvement. Broadcast religion doesn't seem to me to be much of an imposition since, as Amanda pointed out, the disinterested are free to switch stations or turn it off at will. I can't really imagine that atheists would perceive these broadcasts as a threat to their freedom. Also, wouldn't such an amendment as this petition seeks to promote violate the Constitution on several points? Its an interesting question, because applying it to a more extreme situation, one would have to ask if we should prevent the desemination of information pertaining to certain points-of-view that might be considered dangerous, i.e. neo-nazi propaganda, or the messages of the hate-mongers.
You would wonder what the motive would be to start such a rumour though?! Obviously those in favor of religious broadcasting feel some sort of threat and feel a petition would help them. I was thinking about this earlier today and wondered if I would sign such a petition to allow religious broadcasting even though I'm an atheist. If we allowed censorship in this way, there's no doubt it would continue on down the line and wipe out a lot of free speech. What's worse to society; Howard Stern types or Pat Robertsons? My personal opinion is the latter but I doubt many people agree with me. I say let them have their say but it would be nice to see the opposite view also - or perhaps a science broadcast. I've always thought it would be nice to see an athiest's column or at least an agnostic's in the religion section of newspapers.
Pamela raised an important point though - where do we draw the line at free speech - obviously it wouldn't be a good idea to have Ku Klux Klan type stations or even those atheists that hate christians - there are far too many unstable minds out there. This medium here is drawing a lot of attention as well - people can hack into the Pentagon, or have web pages for all sorts of nasty endeavours - pedophiles seem to be rampant - where do we draw the line?