Advancement a many-splendored thing, Iowa faith liberty denied

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural history, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce, and Agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry, and Porcelaine. 
- John Adams, in a letter to Abigail Adams, per the Yale Book of Quotations.

Accounts attribute articulations of that sentiment to others, including George Washington. During his presidential candidacies of the last decade, Ralph Nader sometimes cited it. 

It's a warm notion, but also unrealistic.

National defense and serious intellectual disciplines are wrongly asserted as of lower quality, merely stepping stones on an upward climb ending in soft artfulness. It promotes a desired world of the imagination, rather than the real one in which we live. And it naively assumes other countries will follow suit.

Military defense, hard sciences, and creative pursuits are each
worthwhile,in peculiar ways. All have legitimate functions, are of enduring usefulness, and can and should coexist. 

An invading army can not be repelled by chiaroscuro any more than than the human spirit inspired by a procedural manual. 



*****


According to Des Moines Register reporter William Petroski, Iowa "Senate File 2338, which was described by supporters as Iowa's 'Religious Freedom Restoration Act,'  was referred Thursday from the senate debate calendar back to a senate committee...The move effectively kills the bill for the 2018 session..."

("Religious liberties bill likely dead in legislature" 
https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/15/religious-liberties-bill-likely-dead-iowa-legislature/428071002/ Petroski / Press-Citizen 3/15/2018 Petroski / Press-Citizen 3/15/2018))

The bill would have allowed private business owners to conduct transactions according to their religious beliefs, rather than ignoring them in favor of a state-mandated value system with which they did not agree. To run their businesses as they see fit, not as deemed proper by finger-in-the-wind governmental bureaucrats.

Opponents of owners so exercising religious liberty argue that businesses must observe state commerce dictates, as they enjoy practical profit through police and fire department attentions, as well as other municipal services.

No salesman is an island, they might say.

The obvious and superior counter is that by paying taxes, businesses already contribute their fair share to supporting those interests. They are being required to pay in an additional manner not pressed on others, by chucking personal faith into the back seat in order to participate in the marketplace.

One opponent of the religious freedom legislation, State Sen. Robert Hogg (D-Cedar Rapids), was quoted by Petroski as enthusing that the defeat of practiced faith would realize economic benefit. 

Another, Des Moines Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy, also applauded the quashing of business owners' religious liberty. Like Hogg, McCoy cited economic concerns, as well as a supposed 'inclusiveness' that explicitly excludes religious conscience.

Lusting after manna, promoting counterfeit inclusiveness, and taking claws to individual religious freedom is, presently, all the rage in Iowa's law-making body. That hardly recommends the state.