Bokonon

In Defense of the Founding Fathers

Editor, the Record:

In recent weeks, many have written expressing their outrage with the 9th
Circuit's ruling on the pledge. Many have adopted a "love it or leave it"
policy, proclaiming that anyone who disagrees with our founding father's
desires to "create a Christian nation under Biblical law" can leave to
another country. I read such comments with great sorrow. If there's one
ideal almost all the founding fathers shared, it was their desire to create
a secular nation free from the religious strife that embattled Europe for
centuries. If you do not believe me, why not let the fathers speak for
themselves:

In Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, he writes, "Millions of innocent
men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been
burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch
towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half
the world fools, and the other half hypocrites? Every state, says an
inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established
the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments? Our sister
states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without
any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made
it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely."

James Madison, author of our Constitution, shares similar sentiments.
"Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between
ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that
every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that
religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed
together." Mixing religion and politics corrupts both.

Non-believers are second-class citizens according to the revised pledge of
allegiance. Atheists are in the same boat as those who oppose liberty and
justice. Our nation's only duty towards religion is to ensure that all
faiths (or lack thereof), no matter how much of a minority, are given their
first amendment rights. The Constitution refrains from any declaration of
religion. The theocratic outrage of recent months spits in the face of
everything the founding fathers fought for and escaped from.

***

They sent me a reply in record time.

Mr. ***,
Wow! I wish I'd had YOU write my editorial.
Thanks for sending your letter.
Paula Heeschen
Editorial page editor

GaryP

Congrats! Hope you can get all published that you see fit to write.