The Intersection of Church and State

I've mentioned several times both here and in other media the fact that while most places in America subscribe to the notion of separation of church and state, Rochester (among others) has the intersection of Church and State. Here the intersection is a dead-end on Church with the Federal Building opposite along State, and City Hall nearby on Church. The actual (Presbyterian) church for which Church Street is named has long since been merged with a neighboring one and is now home to the Hochstein School of Music.

I bring this up because after looking up My Favorite Vegetarian Recipe on the People Eating Tasty Animals site, I noticed the same people now run a site called barf.org which stands for "Biblical America Resistance Front". On that site I read some of the goals of evangelical Christians in the USA with respect to building a government based on "Christian values", something I thought was explicitly prohibited by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. However, if they can get government to reduce dramatically its social programs in favor of "faith-based charities", they can make people dependent upon the church for their very survival, and more and more unwilling participants must toe the line.

This sort of activity, perpetrated by those often referred to as the Christian Right, is neither Christian nor right.

Happy Holidays

I'm off to Cincinnati way too early in the morning tomorrow, provided they don't cancel my flight due to today's snowstorm. Just wanted to wish all my LJ friends a happy holiday season, whichever your favorite holiday to celebrate. In other words, Merry Chrissolkwanzakkah!!! ;-)

Update (12:03 AM Thursday): Yup, they canceled my flight. It is taking literally hours to get someone on the phone to rebook -- hours I'd much rather be sleeping. I'm surprised they don't have some means of rebooking via the delta.com web site.