"Are you actually suggesting that they are not? *grin*...no Kevin..only that they intend to be the ONLY 'stream' of Christianity, if at all possible.


*sigh* Slag,I gotta explain it, I guess.

"That's not thread drift, that's a hijacking!"

Not at all, if you consider the point of my question. It is quite common for fairly moderate defenders of religious doctrine to dismiss 'awkward' positions of others by just calling them 'extreme' or "outside the mainstream"...etc.
   For a large part of history, extreme positions were the mainstream...and there are many examples of it in world news today....so the questions always remains: Why aren't the extremists right? THEY are sure they are. The three Senators ..and others... would clearly prefer a situation where religious rules, not just historical influences, controlled the legal functions of the country.
   When you say that "All human history traces back to religion and God or gods or divine percepts.", you introduce an implied value judgement. Perhaps YOU don't actually mean that, because of history, it makes sense to base law on religion, but others do, and the distinction gets pretty fuzzy. Obviously, with different religions and versions OF religions, there are contradictory positions that cannot all be institutionalized in the laws of a single country....at least in most Christian-majority countries. (I had to insert 'majority' in that sentence, in order to avoid even the linguistic implication that any *country* can be Christian.)

I am certainly aware that there is a compelling feeling to the idea that.. "the history of LAW will always show a trail back to God, religion.", but all it really shows is that there is usually religious agreement & support for many of the ideas in a legal system.
It can easily be argued that most of those principles could be defended without recourse to religion, and that they make sense on their own. It does not require religion to realize, as a general principle, that killing other people is not a good idea. But religion often DOES wish to define the exceptions to that principle...for its own purposes? Hard to prove sometimes, but it sure seems like it when you REALLY study history.

There IS a point to having a Constitution such as the USA does, that both protects the right to 'freedom of religion', and also states that there shall be "no law respecting establishment of religion".
It is imperative that we all understand that "freedom OF religion" must include "freedom FROM religion" for those who so choose...and I wish that Brownback and others could realize that.

"You don't win an argument by censoring your opposition.
Of course not! In fact, one seldom 'wins' these arguments at all! Too bad those who introduce bills such as the one mentioned don't realize that.