I want to commend Mr. James Hartley for his mature, honest and factual letter last week concerning recent half truths and fallacious comments by local “naiveté evangelicals” concerning Church State issues. He exposed their real agenda and the weakness of the “religiously correct” argument, that their religion needs government endorsement or their faith is weakened. That is a sad but true commentary on their faith. One would think that after arguing on ad-nauseum concerning the false notion that the U.S. Constitution is a religious document and contains many references to God and Jesus that the ill-informed evangelicals would be red faced with embarrassment rather than blue in the face. When repeatedly caught misquoting me and simply being wrong by their obvious false claims they always change the subject. These hardheaded fundamentalists have their minds closed to historical reality and continue to delude themselves into believing there is no “separation of Church and State.” A quick course in Constitutional law, Madison’s Federalist papers and Jeffersonian writings would do them good. The Federal government has primacy over all state governments regardless what any particular State Constitution says just as it did with Civil Rights and other legislation. These rushhannity-ditto-heads need to cut down on the number of hours of right-wing radio they listen to every day if they ever want to improve their appreciation and understanding of history. Their comments appear to come verbatim from the Richard Vigiorie / James Kennedy moral majority propaganda play book which is laughable. No one is saying that our forefathers wanted a secular society but they did agree that we should have a secular Constitution and that we should keep government and religion separate. That is a fact. The treaty of Tripoli negotiated under George Washington and approved and signed by John Adams and Congress specifically states that America was not by any means a Christian nation. It couldn’t be more clear. At the time of the writing of the Constitution some argued to include references to God and to pray during their deliberations but our forefathers refused. Instead they insisted on Congress meeting on Sundays and even Christmas day and that mail always be delivered on Sundays so as to demonstrate that the government didn’t show favoritism to any particular religion. As a matter of fact the Christian Church didn’t even celebrate Christmas in early America. Our founders didn’t state that our country or Constitution was ordained by God, but by the common sense and reason of man. They knew that if their new country failed, God would not be to blame, only the people who governed and elected it. By contrast, today’s evangelicals try to attribute “w”s lies and warmongering ways as ordained by God. Blasphemy! Our original money and the pledge of allegiance did not contain any references to God until the 1950’s as a reaction to Communist Russia. So who is changing our founder’s intentions? Our most influential founding leaders were deists who did not accept today’s evangelical view of Jesus or God as founder of this country. One may disagree with that on religious grounds but none can deny it as a historical reality. The government has no right to presume to speak for all its citizens concerning God or religion. That is a simple and enduring Constitutional fact much to the consternation of our present day right wing theocrats. They debated the idea of all these religious issues when writing the Constitution and concluded that we must keep it secular so as to guarantee freedom of, for and from religion. This issue was settled by our founders and as Mr. Hartley stated, Patrick Henry’s side lost. That is why we have always had the wall of separation between Church and State.
What is it about that simple concept that conservatives have such a problem with? Why do they always insist on being popular rather than historically and factually correct? Is it just an ego problem that requires them to want to be a part of the “popular thing” as in high school? Grow up! Are they afraid of being in the minority? It does take courage. I wear it as a badge of honor and will not back down from arrogant imposters. Anyone who stands for the truths of the Constitution is a patriot and I respect those who allow all citizens a right to their opinion regardless of whether they are in the minority or majority but I will never allow anyone to force their religious beliefs on me through the government. That is what sets America apart from other countries. When we lose that freedom we are no longer America. It appears that the evangelical agenda is to legalize forcing their religion on all Americans by rewriting the Constitution or reinterpreting it and reversing 200 years of precedent through extreme right-wing judges on the Supreme Court. Giving public tax dollars to faith based institutions is but one example of how this administration has violated the Constitutional principal of separation. Conservatives can’t distort our historical foundations into their Biblical view because Constitutional history doesn‘t lie but they do. So, “You better watch out, You better not lie, You better not cry, I’m telling you why!” Merry Christmas and God bless all true free thinkers and free-will loving Americans. You too, right wing evangelicals. By the way, Jesus was not an American or republican or red state bush Pharisee pro “women & child killing” war neocon. He was a liberal Jew from one of those terrorist countries who taught what the true nature of God is: “Christ’s life, teachings and the beatitudes.” Happy Birthday Jesus! Love ya!