Hey lets chisel away at that block of granite with the Ten Commandments on it instead of each other, okay? That is, if you think that block of granite is significant enough to whack away at.
I haven't read the entire thread and others no doubt will have already said some of this.
But that letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists was in response to a letter from them. They were afraid that the U.S. Constitution was not specific in protecting their inalienable rights to worship and practice their religious beliefs as they chose. He assured them that the the intent of the Constitution was to build a 'wall of separation' between the power of the government and the Church, and that Congress was forbidden to establish any law that would favor or punish any religion or mandate how religion must be demonstrated. And he, as the President, could act only by the authority of Congress and the Constitution and thus was also prohibited from interfering with religious beliefs or practices in any way.
In other words, Jefferson was assuring the Baptists that they were safe from their governmnent.
The 'wall of separation' was never intended to extend to the states at that time. Many of the colonies were established by people of faith who had absolutely no intention of allowing any faith but their own to be practiced within the borders of that colony. (It is one of America's great ironies that the first settlers on the east coast came here in search of religious freedom and then denied that to everybody else.) Other colonies were established with specific intent to allow anybody and everybody to come. Our founders forged a Constitution that accommodated them all. It would have been unthinkable to have ordered anybody to remove a religious statue or piece of art or even a Bible from public property.
For the next two hundred plus years up to the last two or three decades, with a free exceptions here and there, America has grown and evolved and has incorporated virtually every known religious faith that live together more or less peacefully.
but in the last two or three decades, some again decided that their particular faith or lack thereof should have precedence over all others. That included a small group of those who profess athiesm. (We won't debate whether athiesm is a religion at this time please.) And once that started, and the ACLU became involved, works of art, historical symbols, or anything else remotely or possibly religious came under attack. Many southwestern counties, for instance, included a Cross, symbolic of the Spanish friars who had helped settle the area, on their seals. The ACLU has brought suit to force removal of most of them.
As CNRedd asked, a block of granite with words on it is a work of art, not a religious symbol. Are people who are not of JudeoChristian heritage so afraid of words chiseled on a block of granite that it constitutes an establishment of religion? Or is it a kind of intolerance that some can't bear to look at them?
Nobody sees how absurd all that is?
Personally I think even non-believers would be much better off defending and protecting those people of faith among them that are running the thrift shops, manning the soup lines, staffing the shelters, and otherwise taking care of societies poorest. Without them we all are going to pay much more in taxes for a far more expensive and less efficient government to take over that duty.
I'm right there with you that somebody trying to force their religion on you is a violation of your privacy. But unless those religious folk rope, tie, and force you to listen to their sermons, they aren't going to hurt you. And a little more tolerance would sure make this a much more pleasant world to live in.
