Diversity act raises religious issue

To the editor:Regarding the proposed Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act that the Republican-controlled Missouri House recently "overwhelmingly approved": Maybe Republican supporters like state representatives Nathan Cooper, Scott Lipke and Jane Cunningham and Lucas Presson of College Republicans actually believe that one of the guidelines for promoting intellectual diversity at colleges should be "the viewpoint that subscribes to the validity of the Bible." Many in the Republican Party would like to have the Judeo-Christian Bible replace the U.S. Constitution, at least the free exercise of the religion clause in the First Amendment. But the phrase "free exercise" means that every individual and not the state has the right to decide on religious matters, and governments are disallowed from validating any religion.

That this is the intent of the First Amendment is confirmed by Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Adams in their letters and other documents which state that a separation of church and government is in the best interest of the church, of the government and of the people. President Jefferson's 1801 letter to the Danbury Baptists presents this idea clearly: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign 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 therefore,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

JOHN BIERK, Cape Girardeau