To: Sonnyw
Don't you know what figurative speech is?
To: MissouriForBush
OK. The words to which I took umbrage were merely a figure of speech. Back to the point of our ancestors and why they came to America. Undeniably, they wanted a haven in which to practice their Christian faith as they saw fit, not how the State saw fit. But the story doesn't end there (as you'd most conveniently like it to end). Our ancestors soon developed their own brand of religious bigotry, exclusion and state support. Here's an illuminating quote from Justice Black, writing the majority opinion in McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203, 1948.
"It is an unfortunate fact of history that when some of the very groups which had most strenuously opposed the established Church of England [and came to America] found themselves sufficiently in control of colonial governments in this country to write their own prayers into law, they passed laws making their own religion the official religion of their respective colonies. Indeed, as late as the time of the Revolutionary War, there were established churches in at least eight of the thirteen former colonies and established religions in at least four of the other five. But the successful Revolution against English political domination was shortly followed by intense opposition to the practice of establishing religion by law. This opposition crystallized rapidly into an effective political force in Virginia where the minority religious groups such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, Quakers and Baptists had gained such strength that the adherents to the established Episcopal Church were actually a minority themselves. In 1785-1786, those opposed to the established Church, led by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who, though themselves not members of any of these dissenting religious groups, opposed all religious establishments by law on grounds of principle, obtained the enactment of the famous Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty by which all religious groups were placed on an equal footing so far as the State was concerned. Similar though less far-reaching legislation was being considered and passed in other States.
"By the time of the adoption of the Constitution, our history shows that there was a widespread awareness among many Americans of the dangers of a union of Church and State. These people knew, some of them from bitter personal experience, that one of the greatest dangers to the freedom of the individual to worship in his own way lay in the Governments placing its official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of prayer or one particular form of religious services. They knew the anguish, hardship and bitter strife that could come when zealous religious groups struggled with one another to obtain the Governments stamp of approval from each King, Queen, or Protector that came to temporary power. The Constitution was intended to avert a part of this danger by leaving the government of this country in the hands of the people rather than in the hands of any monarch. But this safeguard was not enough. Our Founders were no more willing to let the content of their prayers and their privilege of praying whenever they pleased be influenced by the ballot box than they were to let these vital matters of personal conscience depend upon the succession of monarchs. The First Amendment was added to the Constitution to stand as a guarantee that neither the power nor the prestige of the Federal Government would be used to control, support or influence the kinds of prayer the American people can say - that the peoples religions must not be subjected to the pressures of government for change each time a new political administration is elected to office. Under that Amendments prohibition against governmental establishment of religion, as reinforced by the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, government in this country, be it state or federal, is without power to prescribe by law any particular form of prayer which is to be used as an official prayer in carrying on any program of governmentally sponsored religious activity."
So I ask once again, begging someone out there who claims to be an oppressed Christian and "in the anti-religious crosshairs" of secularists to be succinct and specific: What specific changes in our current laws, their interpretation or their enforcement would you want to change?
47 posted on
10/24/2003 12:51:21 PM PDT by
Sonnyw
(Religious Crossfire Hits...The World)
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