http://www.mtulode.com/index.php?issuedate=2005-09-07§ion=12&artid=4508
Issue for September 7, 2005
Christophobia
By: Submission, Outside Source
There is a phenomenon gripping this country; a phenomenon which
stands to limit our freedoms of religion and public speech, and change the
very way that many of us think and act – an issue I have come to call
‘Christophobia.’ Literally, the fear of Christianity and the values it
represents. Allow me to begin with an example.
Recently, I was scanning some posts on FreeRepublic.com, when I came
across one titled “ACLU Threat Drives Scouts out of Schools.” Intrigued, I
read further into the story. The author of the thread had cited an article
(from WorldNetDaily.com) which claimed that the Boy Scouts of America had
been forced to drop charter agreements with thousands of public schools,
under the threat of lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union . Why
did the ACLU do this? I will quote directly from the article.
“In a letter sent to the BSA last month, the ACLU vowed to take
legal action against public schools and other taxpayer-funded governmental
agencies that charter Scout groups, claiming their sponsorship amounts to
religious discrimination and violates the separation of church and state.”
The article went on to say that, specifically, the ACLU had taken
offense to the Scouts’ pledge of allegiance to God and country, as well as
the organization’s prohibition of homosexual scoutmasters.
I found it most interesting to note that the ACLU cited the
infamous, ‘separation of church and state’ argument to support its case.
Knowing that many people seem to believe this is a Constitutional
principle, I have news for you – it’s not. The so called ‘wall of
separation’ was first cited in an 1802 letter from President Thomas
Jefferson to a Baptist church, in response to a letter he received from
them, asking him why he did not proclaim national holidays of fasting and
thanksgiving, as Presidents Washington and Adams previously had.
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole
American people which declared that their legislature should make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
The ‘wall’ is hardly mentioned again, if ever, until 1947, when the
Supreme Court’s Everson decision ruled that due to the existence of a ‘high
and impregnable wall of separation between church and state,’ states could
not spend any part of their budgets on religious education. From that point
on, the ‘wall’ has been cited, in one form or another, in almost every
major court decision involving religious freedom in the United States and
is the preferred argument of those who would seek to remove God from the
public eye permanently.
Now, let’s have a look at what the U.S. Constitution (or, more
specifically, the Bill of Rights) actually says regarding church and state:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”
So while Congress has no power to support or create an official
religion, neither do they have the power to prevent citizens from
practicing whichever creed they choose to (as per freedom of speech) –
that, my fellow citizens, is the beauty of this country. Nor do they have
the power to prevent citizens from peaceably assembling – whether that be
at the town hall, or their local church or at a Boy Scout meeting. Teachers
should not lead students in prescribed prayer, for that would support a
particular creed, however, students who choose to do so have every right to
pray together, in whichever way they wish, without interference from the
government, or from the ACLU, for that matter. The BSA, as a private
organization, has the right to set its own creed and rules and schools
should be able to choose whether or not they want an extra-curricular
activity (not a mandatory class) to be available to their students.
In summary, I believe the ACLU is wrong and that unless Americans
who care about their religious freedoms begin to speak out, one day in the
not-so-distant future, we will all wake up to realize that blatantly
anti-religious organizations have eroded our fundamental Constitutional
freedoms. I pray this does not happen.
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Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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