Warp wrote:
>   And nothing is being done about this clear constitutional violation?

That's the problem. When everyone involved in enforcing the laws disagree 
with the laws, it's hard to change things. You have to take the complaints 
so high that you're outside your own little town, so you get someone 
interested in making a change to the situation, and for most people it's 
easier to not say anything than to fight such all the way up to the supreme 
court.

Kind of like when southerners were harassing blacks. When all the cops and 
judges are white former slave-owners, you get a lot of nasty stuff going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party
That's the source of a lot of America's more oppressive gun laws, I 
understand. The "ban on weapons" they protested was passed because blacks 
were openly carrying shotguns on their motorcycles because the police were 
arresting them and beating the crap out of them.

I don't think it's *quite* that bad with atheists, but it's also I think the 
case that there are far more evangelical Christians willing to do persistent 
low-level harassment (like graffiti on your house and beating up your kids 
at school, rather than burning your house down) than there were 
average-citizen people willing to try to beat up a gang of black folks on 
motorcycles. :-)

I think atheists can probably get along 99% even in the worst areas if they 
just STFU and let the majority have their way, instead of complaining about 
prayer in school and "In God We Trust" on government buildings and such.

>   That kind of situation feels somehow foreign to me.

Me too. It's only in certain very provincial areas. The same kinds of areas 
where you hear jokes about people holding up the Bible and saying "If 
English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me."

> discriminate christians in any way, but they often get questioned a lot. "Why
> do you believe that?" etc.)

A can understand that, if most people around you while you were growing up 
are atheist.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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