The irony of the dispute over spending public tax money to defend the city government’s authority to display the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible on public land is that the First Amendment rights guaranteeing freedom of religion were designed to protect religion from the government – not vice versa.
The pilgrims came to America to get away from a state-sponsored and controlled church. We denigrate our hard-won freedom of religion by tolerating city government’s establishing one religion by maintaining the Ten Commandments tablet on government property.
A case in point where the state took control of religion and established a theocracy is the Taliban’s reign of terror in Afghanistan. That should be an object lesson for those of us who seek to allow the government to establish some form of religion as “approved” (as is demonstrated by the stone tablet at city hall). The Spanish Inquisition was another “fun time” where there was no wall between church and state.
Those who defend spending tax money to display religious statements characterized as being derived from our “common heritage” could at least defend something a little more universal and timely, like blessed are the merciful and the peacemakers, rather than such a commandment as barring coveting your neighbor’s possessions.
DAVID PATTERSON
Everett
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