Everything for Youns

With this coming President’s Day, it’s best to remember what our founding fathers so appropriately meant when they coined the term, “Separation of Church and State”. Now I’m a Christian but I do believe that our form of Government should be separate and distinct from Church. Unlike some extremists:

“Christian values should dominate our government… Politicians who do not use the Bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.”
- Beverly LaHaye, Concerned Women for America

As our 4th President, James Madison, said “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

Beverly LaHaye or James Madison: whose side are you on?

With Presidents’ Day just a few days away, it’s time to celebrate the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, who enshrined the separation of church and state in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Remind your fellow Americans (including the misaligned Republicans and Neocons and their extremist friends) that keeping religion out of government was one of the founders’ most enlightened commitments.

Our Founding Fathers knew that a strong American democracy, and religious freedom for all, required building a wall between church and state. Despite this, extremist religious right leaders like James Dobson, Beverly LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson have waged war both on this central American principle and the freedoms it allows. Their campaign hopes to revise American history, ignoring our commitment to the separation of church and state and replacing it with a government based on their narrow ideology. One that would have us live like the people of Iran.

Fortunately, our founders made clear their opposition to the mixing of government and religion. Leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison frequently commented on the importance of separating church and state, and, in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, George Washington’s administration emphatically stated, “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

Here are some links that everyone should read this President’s Day and be Glad that we don’t live in a state where someone else’s religion dictates how you should live.

Danbury Letter
Danbury Letter
Treaty of Tripoli (Article 11 is of interest)
Founding Fathers/US Origins
Founding Fathers/Jefferson Quotations
George Washington’s Religion
Thomas Paine, Founding Father and Atheist. Here is is opinion of Religion and the Bible:
Biography of Thomas Paine
Jefferson’s view on Church and State:
The Christian Nation Myth