“’In God We Trust’ I don’t believe it would sound any better
if it were true” –Mark Twain
While searching for relevant articles regarding the upcoming
elections, I was struck by this article in The Statesman called “Texas a Battleground for Church and State Issues.” Never mind that the words “Texas”
and “Battleground” have not been in the same sentence while talking about
elections in my entire life. What bothers me about the content of the article
is not that people have faith in religion and wish to express their feelings,
what bothers me is the clear attempt by people to falsify history. They claim
this country as being founded as a Christian Nation and they wish to assert
faith into government, schools, and town meetings. For example, some town hall
meetings are opened with prayer, and often even have a pastor or priest leading
in the prayers. I could spend a large portion of this editorial disproving this
assertion that America was founded a Christian Nation with hundreds of quotes,
letters, articles, and historical documents. This would be a waste of time. However
I would rather cut to a deeper implication that is hinted at every time I hear
this argument as being founded by a Christian Nation. It seems that some
religious people are of the belief that non-believers wish to take their
religion or religious freedoms away. When in reality non-believers just want it
understood that public money has no business being used for any religion, ever.
Many politicians are religious, which is not the issue at hand. The issue comes
into play when dictating policies. Some politicians go so far as to cite the
bible as reason for policy (global warming, abortion, education), in place of
scientific evidence. Rick Perry himself claims that separation of church and
state is the work of Satan which begs the question, how many day to day
decisions does he make for all Texans that involve his fear
of Satan? While I whole heartedly believe that people have a right to believe
in anything they wish, they do not have the right to make public policy based
off of their religious belief. Perry
goes on to claim, “Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you and
one of the untruths out there that is driven is that people of faith should not
be involved in the public arena”. Perry misses the obvious point that there is
no evidence of Satan running anywhere, nor is known how fast or slow Satan does
run. Governor Perry makes the blatantly false accusation that he or anyone for
that matter is under threat of having their beliefs taken away. Over 90 percent
of Texans are a variation of Christianity, while less than 5 percent are
nonbelievers. This claim that Christian Texans are under threat by secularist
is nonsensical. The United States is unique in that it has an amendment that
goes out of its way to clarify that no law shall be made respecting a religion
or prohibiting one. I should point that if people feel so strong about living
in a religious country that is founded on and whose laws are based off
religion, they should think of relocating to Iran, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan
which are all countries who enforce laws based off the religion of the majority.
The point of the first amendment was that people are able to practice whatever
belief that they would like and the state would not take sides nor persecute
those that are in the minority.
