In article <1992Dec18.222918.2655@b11.b11.ingr.com>, sidney@b11.b11.ingr.com (Sidney Smith) writes:
|>
|> I was recently watching COURT TV when something very
|> disturbing happened. They were showing different
|> juvenile cases in a Texas court room, when the judge
|> ordered a little girl to go to church and ask her
|> pastor what church work she should perform for
|> punishment. The judge gave her a specific number of
|> hours of "community service" to perform at her church,
|> and told her to tell her pastor to call the judge up
|> and report the young girl's progress. I don't see
|> how the judge can call this "community service".
|>
You didn't point out if the girl already belonged to a/the church or
not? Did she protest? I think that we, as atheists, need to distinguish between a case where she was given a choice of church based on her own experience, beliefs, etc. and where the judge arbitrarily decided to exert her own religious beliefs on the defendant.
