LETTERS: FREEDOM FROM RELIGION GROUP TAKES ISSUE

To the editor:

The "Speak Out" comments recently published about our request to remove a cross placed illegally on public property in Cape Girardeau demonstrate the dangers of longstanding violations of the separation of church and state. Clearly this cross has taught at least some of the citizens of Cape Girardeau to hate. Even worse, the violation has made many residents contemptuous of the law, especially the constitutional principle of state/church separation.

One caller slandered the Freedom From Religion Foundation as a "self-appointed Gestapo" because we asked that state/church separation be honored in Cape Girardeau. This caller, certainly a Christian, employed the same kind of abusive language as the Nazis used about Jews, suggesting that I "should be treated as any other vermin: stepped on and sprayed with a toxic substance." Several callers said, "Move to Russia" (how original). Don't they know the Berlin Wall has fallen? Or are they only interested in toppling the "wall of separation between church and state," so precious to Thomas Jefferson?

Others blamed crime or the corruption of morals upon our group, which works to bolster our U.S. Constitution. This apparently means that they believe our secular constitution, which contains no reference to a God or deities, also harms morals and promotes crimes! How absurd.

Still others argued for the tyranny of the majority. If Christians outnumber non-Christians, then Christians should run this country, according to their gracious argument. Haven't these callers ever heard of the Bill of Rights? Our founders composed and adopted the Bill of Rights to ensure that the rights of the individual or minority is not subject to majority whim or vote. In the United States of America, we do not take a poll to discover which religion we must all follow. We are supposed to have freedom, and our founders knew that there could be no religious liberty if religion is established, promoted, or supported by government.

This constitutional doctrine, which we were first among nations to adopt, has protected our nation from the bloodshed and intolerance which inevitably divides and tears apart all other nations without the wisdom to keep religion out of government. Look at the division caused by just one public-supported cross in Cape Girardeau. Christians are ready to kill for its continued presence on public property, when they have tax-exempt churches galore where it could stand!

In the midst of the ignorant outcry, the Missouri Constitution stands like a beacon of reason, guaranteeing that the government cannot show preference for any religion, or force citizens to erect, support or attend any place or system of worship. (Art. 1, Sec. 6-7)

To the good fundamentalists of Cape Girardeau who are eager to topple our secular form of government and replace it with a theocracy, just think what life would have been like if Spain and not the United States had retained ownership of the land. The king of Spain had ordered that "no Protestant was permitted to enter the region." We should rejoice in our secular form of government, which means freedom for all, regardless of creed. In the words of President Ulysses S. Grant, "Keep the Church and the State forever separate."

Annie Laurie Gaylor

Freedom From Religion Foundation

Madison, Wis.