It seems we all must do our part to fight the rewriting of history. The words “separation”, “church”, or “state” do not appear in the first amendment of our Constitution, though many will lead you to believe they do. Look it up for yourself.

Here is where the concept did come from:

I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. 1

You can find a more thorough reading on the topic by scholar and author David Barton.

The primary point that we all should understand is that the government was designed by the Founding Fathers to not promote any single religion over or above any other religion. Each citizen is supposed to have the freedom to choose whatever legitimate religion they desire. (Much of that idea is currently under attack by groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State as they seek to denegrate Christianity while giving other religions a pass.)

You see, the wisdom behind this position ensures that America doesn’t become a country of religious intolerance or worse, much much worse, a country of religious persecution. Which brings us to Afghanistan today. As I noted in yesterday’s Dojo Info, Abdul Rahman is being put on trial by his country for choosing to believe a religion other than the state-mandated one, Islam. The penalty for Abdul would be death. And the sting of all stings is that it was his own family that turned him in. What does that remind you of?

It seems the blood of our soldiers who’ve died to help liberate Afghanistan from the oppressive regime of the Taliban is being tainted, demeaned by a government who wants to kill it’s own citizens for merely believing something other than what they want them to believe.

Can you see how lucky we are to live in a country where freedom is cherished? At least, for now.

I’m not sure what can be done to save Abdul’s life, but we can ask our President to do something. Then we can spread the word about how Islam is not a religion of peace, like so many want us to believe. Any religion that teaches that it’s right to kill people for merely believing something different, is a religion we should all be speaking out against.

1. Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson Writings, Merrill D. Peterson, ed. (NY: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984), p. 510, January 1, 1802.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 10:43 am and is filed under Faith, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.