1) Who is demanding Christian only displays? I see plenty of Jewish displays as well. I have no problem with Muslim or other displays.

You're kidding, right? This is the whole root of the problem: Town X hosts a Christmas parade, local non-Christians ask that it gets expanded to a Holiday parade so that other groups are included, and people on your side throw a fit. First page I googled brought up examples like this : it should be a "Christmas" parade, and screw everyone else.

That's where this whole mess starts, GoRight: it's those Christians who don't want to share public space with other religions.

2) Who is demanding that tax dollars pay for the displays? Let the respective religions foot the bill.

Heh, yeah, I'd love to see that happen myself. I'm also not holding my breath.

I guess that you must be demanding that people say "Happy Holidays" too given this defense of the practice.

That's as wild a leap of logic as I've ever seen from you: defense of a practice = demand of a practice? Huh?

The only people "demanding" this are store owners, who are well within their rights to demand their employees speak in Pig Latin if they want. And it's wise business practice. For people on the Right to throw a fit about this makes zero sense, especially as the side ostensibly on the side of employer rights.

And to swing that as a swipe against Christians is doubly goofy, as a simple thought experiment would show: if you had an employee who insisted on greeting everyone in your store with "Don't forget Christ died for your sins!", you'd probably ask said employee not to continue that practice. Would that make you intolerant?

Many on the Left and the Right disagree with my point of view, but I'll give it anyway.

Before conception, a human does exist. There is a such thing as a soul. We are energy beings, or spiritual beings, having a human experience.

The building blocks for your physical manifestation are human. Your father's sperm and mother's egg: human.

The nurturance from your mother's womb: human nurturance, and your single fertilized cell evolves those materials and conditions to grow according to a gentic blueprint. All human. Human DNA, Human Mother's womb. Nutrified human blood. Dividing and specializing human cells.

No doubt that human life is present at conception, and no doubt human life even precedes conception.

But is that human life a citizen with RIGHTS? NOPE!

I do not like the idea that human rights are rooted in national constitutions or social contracts. Fortunately, no one has the disadvantage of having to argue from that point of view, since basic human rights are a matter of internationally recognized law.

So, at conception, a human life with internationally recognized human rights? NOPE!

Why not? Well, because no PERSON can be said to EXIST unless their existence can persist outside the womb unaided.

And it is this concept which leads me to conclude that human rights EVOLVE.

From conception to birth, the rights of an unborn human life inside the womb is ENTIRELY at the discretion of that being who has the right to choose whether to nurture, or not. Society cannot dictate that a pregnant woman must carry a pregnancy to term, because SOCIETY CANNOT DICTATE the circumstances of pregnancy for each and every person.

Once human life leaves the womb, we refer to them as a person. That person however, does not have an absolute right to live such that any failure to save their life arising from complications of birth or premature birth or illness, or genetic disease, etc, can be considered MURDER. Or even involuntary manslaughter. Or even medical malpractice.

Once however, a person has safely passed the threshold of birth and has been named and nurtured, we can say they have a right to life. But not much else!

Surely, they can be conferred with inheritances, and insured, and bestowed property. etc, but until they are able to carry on their own affairs competently, their welfare is in the stewardship of a guardian, usually, their parents.

Usually, children acquire rights to be nurtured, such that neglect to provide such nurturance can be criminal. But rights to proper clothing, food, medical care, and shelter are really just extensions of their right to live.

Children do not enjoy an immunity from corporal punishment, but usually, it's not necessary, and even the mildest reproofs are sufficient to gain compliance to instruction from adults.

Children do not enjoy a right to free speech, as they can be told to shut up at any time, and for any reason. However, this is usually for the purpose of teaching decorum and protocol, and not to suppress the expression of children, if done correctly.

Children have few legal rights under the age of twelve, yet when they are of age to be schooled, the state will advocate on their behalf to ensure that they receive education.

At age twelve, a person becomes a minor that is older than a child, although many people still think of twelve-year-olds as being children. Minors have quite a lot more freedom and responsibilities than children, yet they still do not have all of the rights and responsibilities of an adult. Minors do have some legal rights and can bring actions in court if harmed or offended.

We say that people are adults at age 18, but in reality they still do not have full rights and responsibilities as do people who are 21 yrs of age.

One must be 25 to be a representative in Congress. One must be 35 to be president. One must have 30 yrs seniority to retire from public service at a full pension. One must be 65 years old to retire with full social security retirement benefits.

And so we see that rights do accumulate according to passages of time.

It seems to me that those on the right wish to argue that a fetus, at conception, has the rights that a citizen does when fully grown as an adult.

It's an irrational view that does not comply with our traditions or with our reason.

The right has been successful in placing some restraints on abortion under some circumstances, and we do not know whether this has had good effects or not. But they have sought to extend the personhood of a child backwards in time to the time before they were born.

It's a bad precedent. I could write a cautionary tale, about a group of people who establish an advocacy group to fight for the interests of a person who does not exist, but whom they sincerely believe, will one day manifest. And they are a litigious group, fighting in court at every turn for every conceivable advantage that their imaginary person may someday need, and indeed, is ENTITLED TO HAVE!

While I concede that the right is indeed CORRECT to assert that human life begins at conception (I'll even go one better and agree with the pre-existence of souls), I do not think that concession allows the LEAP that must be made to accord a single fertilized human cell the same rights as Mr John Q. Smith, esq, 21 yrs of age and residing in a comfortable nook of Somerset.

I would argue that your humanity begins at conception because that is when your individual genetic blueprint is formed.

Others seem to favor "birth" as the point at which you become human. To me this is a very arbitrary point in time, however, as it does not seem to me that the act of passing through the birth canal actually transforms the fetus in any fundamental way.

But it does, because it separates the fetus from the other body, marking its first moments as an independent - and independently sustainable - being.

Now go back to your example: I understand the genetic blueprint argument, but really, what is it? Concretely speaking? It's one chemical attaching to another: there's nothing there except a potential. The sum total of what's actually there is no different than what's in a shed skin cell: a few chemicals bound together that contain my genetic blueprint.

Whether I feel so strongly about either those examples is beside the point: the sad fact is that nature has not provided us with any clear-cut ways of dealing with the issue of early human development. We'll never have a satisfactory solution until sex and childbirth is rendered "unnatural" - either by full control over reproductivity (i.e., a way to prevent accidental pregnancies for sure) or some independent form of gestation. Not that either of those is necessarily good either, but at the moment I'd argue that this issue is, to use Nietzsche's line, beyond good and evil. Hell, beyond the limitations of our moral universe.