Religious comments on networks

[clark at mshri.utoronto.ca]

	Brian Fristensky writes:
 
/In a recent posting, Dan Jacobson writes
/ 
/]In  recent post  S. Sanford writes:
/]>A message came over this bboard that I personally feel contained
/]>inappropriate sociopolitical commentary.  There are many other outlets
/]>for this kind of discussion.  Just a pet peeve, perhaps.  Thanks,
/ 
/] [message agrees with S. Sanford and adds that posting a religious message
/] to the network may be illegal - summarized by S.Clark to reduce bandwidth]
/ 
/Hey, lighten up guys! Yes, I agree that bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts is
/not the place for political/religious discussions, but let's cut people a
/_little_ slack. If you want to get technical about it, anybody who includes a
/funny quip or profound quotation in their signature is wasting bandwidth at
/government/institutional expense. Nonetheless, I don't think it really
/hurts, and it does help break the tedium if a message is accompanied by an
/interesting signature.
 
	I believe the problem is that the US Constitution forbids the 
government from promoting or supporting *any* religion, and this message was
posted on Internet, parts of which are supported by the US government, and
on a newsgroup maintained by GenBank/Intelligenetics, under contract to the
Department of Health and Human Services, which is part of the US government.
Americans take their constitution very seriously, and in my opinion, I think
our (Canadian) constitution would do well to have a similar clause.

	George Chacko adds:
 
/It certainly isn't illegal. The Usenet has many newgroups some of which are
/devoted exclusively to religious and political discussion. Have you read
/
/ [Other stuff deleted.]

	I saw this message via the Internet, not Usenet. Also, there's a
difference between discussing and promoting religion. Perhaps Dave
Kristofferson should take as strong a stand against religious messages as he
does against commercial ones. 


Steve Clark

clark at mshri.utoronto.ca  (Internet)
clark at utoroci            (Netnorth/Bitnet)