Letter to the Editor - 12/29/10

Dear Editor,
Oh to be a "religious fanatic/nut/bigot". I'm sure I would have all the following in the world if I "preached" the nonsense that so many seem to believe is the "truth". These people believe "words" that come straight from a book that was written centuries ago and is the "word" of those zealots that "knew" or "heard" God's voice speaking to them or what someone remembered someone as saying. Even the passages where Jesus is quoted is from someone else's mouth, not his.

The Declaration of Independence states that "When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed..."

If I understand "nature" as I was taught, it was a woman aka "Mother Nature" or "man's nature" referring to what most people do without conscious effort.

No where in the Constitution is "God" mentioned, not in the Preamble or any of the subsequent amendments.

The addition to the Pledge of Allegiance, "Under God", was added during the McCarthy years and the Communist witch hunt. In 1955, "In God We Trust" was mandated by law to be printed on all money printed or coined by the US Mint. President Eisenhower was instrumental in the addition of the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and the 1956 adoption of "In God We Trust" as the motto of the United States. It was a long ways from 1776 and the Salem witch hunts years earlier. It was a manifest of a conservative Republican president that brought "God" into our government's actions and policy.

Now the "tea party" is giving a "gift" to the newly elected officials in a "workshop" about ethics and "separation of church and state". If these people who won the office didn't have "ethics" before they ran, what makes you think some misguided evangelist with questionable credentials will make them better servants of the general public good? And where is it mandated that the church CAN'T be involved in politics? I guess that would be under the rules of the IRS. If you want non-taxable status, you can't be functioning in any capacity that would sway public opinion in politics one way or the other. Several churches have lost their "tax exempt" status because of these "political" activities. Anybody that wants to exercise their right to vote and express their opinion is free to do so, they just can't do it from a church pulpit. Placing "political" signs on church grounds are also strictly prohibited. I am wondering how those "crosses" were allowed to stay on the lawn of the Nazarene church on Central. Protesting a political opinion is fine by word of mouth, using church property to push one's personal agenda is not. I would think they would be more involved in keeping their "tax exempt" status than re-interpreting the Constitution to meet their needs.