User talk:Cghake

Welcome!
Welcome to Wikipedia, Cghake! Thank you for your contributions. I am NatGertler and I have been editing Wikipedia for some time, so if you have any questions feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Questions or type at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes ( ~ ); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Nat Gertler (talk) 13:58, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
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your sandbox
Hey, I'm posting this here instead of on the talk page of your sandbox because many people forget to follow the talk page of their own sandbox. (I've been guilty of that myself.)

A couple quick notes on your sandbox work:
 * Section headers should be in "Sentence case" not "Title Case" (i.e., "Defending the voting rights of Smurfs", not "Defending the Voting Rights of Smurfs".)
 * Separating the cases into what they say is their key points will have a point-of-view problem unless you can show that at least the Law Center itself classifies those cases by those points, in which case it should be made clear that that is how it is working. Just as an example, in its current state (which I realize is a work in progress and not intended to be final), you've got the Pledge cases under "free speech", and while it does arguably have something to do with free speech, it seems to me an example of the Center opposing freedom and supporting making speech mandatory. --Nat Gertler (talk)


 * Thanks! I'm not sure when you last reviewed my restructuring work (thanks for seeing the invite to come check it out), but the pledge of allegiance case was moved to religious freedom because according to the stated mission statement that is where it should go. It's still a work in progress of taking what was already in existence and making it stronger while also giving it more structure. Cghake (talk) 15:28, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but that's your analysis of where it should go. Do they have a statement that this particular case belongs in this particular category? Either we're saying "they said this was a case of defending religious freedom", in which case it should be specifically sourced to them, or we're saying this was a case of defending religious freedom, which is on its surface a non-intuitive read of the case. (And to be clear, I didn't see an invite, I happened to check your recent edit list and saw you were working on this.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:24, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it is not my analysis of where it should go. It is under their explicit discussion of challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance as stated and cited in their key issues. For someone who has spent such a significant amount of time addressing this page, I'd think you'd at least have read that section. You'll note that the fact those references come from their website and from them is also marked.Cghake (talk)
 * Yes, I've read that section. But their page on that particular goal doesn't mention the Nevlow case. You're making an understandable leap that that page mentions the Pledge, and this was a Pledge case, therefor it fits under that goal, but we get into the sticky situation in which either we're saying that they are saying that this is defending religious freedom, in which case we need a source that specified the Nevlow case, or we're saying that it's defending religious freedom, which is a problematic thing to do in the Wikipedia voice. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:55, 29 May 2015 (UTC) (And to be clear, it's not that Nevlow was a particularly extreme example to pull out, that's just the one we were discussing anyway; other cases may be harder to classify.) --Nat Gertler (talk)
 * I'm not sure you have an adequate understanding of Pledge of Allegiance cases in this context. The Constitutional issue at the center of all Pledge cases where the "Under God" is at question, such as in the Newdow case, is a religious freedom issue. By the very nature of the case, the classification is explicit. Cghake (talk) 18:17, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand that this is a "religious freedom" issue, and that far from defending religious freedom, the Center was defending a law that forced teachers to lead class in this religious statement. The Center was on the anti-freedom side in this case. You may disagree with that statement, but the claim that this is defending religious freedom is not a claim we should be making in Wikipedia's voice.--Nat Gertler (talk) 21:50, 29 May 2015 (UTC


 * I understand that you are a comic guy and not a Constitutional law scholar, but you should know that the Law Center was not "anti-freedom" in this case. There were two freedoms at issue. One was the freedom "from" religion that almost saw the "Under God" phrase removed from the US Pledge. The second is freedom "of" religion. In this case of Congress to enact a Pledge of Allegiance which according to the House Report that accompanied the legislation observed that, “[f]rom the time of our earliest history our peoples and our institutions have reflected the traditional concept that our Nation was founded on a fundamental belief in God.” H. R. Rep. No. 1693, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2 (1954) as well as the freedom of Christians to not be stricken from history. Despite your personal feelings and ideas, Constitutionally speaking, and according to the court documents, the issue at stake here was a freedom of religion issue. As you'll see in the SCOTUS decision, regardless of the outcome or the Law Center's position, the complaint sought a declaration that the 1954 Act’s addition of the words “under God” violated the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the United States Constitution,4 as well as an injunction against the School District’s policy requiring daily recitation of the Pledge. Beyond the general factual and procedural constitutional law issues which assert that in any Constitutional case there are two "freedoms" which are at stake, the classification as a freedom of religion case was established by the court and is supported by court documents and references. As the wikipedia voice requires proper classification according to fact and not your inexpert opinion on this particular issue, the classification is correct.

Cghake (talk) 22:50, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

COI
Hello, Cghake. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you have an external relationship with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Thomas More Law Center, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

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Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies. Note that Wikipedia's terms of use require disclosure of your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:52, 17 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I appreciate what you're saying, but I do not have a conflict of interest. I actually didn't even know the Law Center existed before I picked up their article. Thanks though. Cghake (talk) 13:21, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * You disappoint me. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 14:14, 18 June 2015 (UTC)