God and Country
  by William Edelen

All of this talk coming from the president of the United States, Attorney-General Ashcroft, and others, is scaring me to death.

I care not if it is a Republican or Democratic president. I remember how easy it was for Germany to slide into the Nazi mentality in the name of "God and Country." A "God chosen master race" was the dream of Germany.

Consider just two examples:

-- Both President Bush and Ashcroft have stated that "morality's foundation is religion." Apparently they have never been exposed to the "religious morality" of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of witches, the religious bloodbath of Ireland, the bombings by religious terrorists, the Ku Klux Klan reading from the bible while torturing blacks...and where would it end? By contrast, many agnostics, atheists and others who have rejected all forms of organized and institutional religion have lived lives of magnificent morality. To equate morality and religion is absurd.

-- Bush and Ashcroft have said it is time to say "No" to those who want to keep God out of our classrooms and politics. Does "God" really need President Bush, or any of us, to look after Him? Many seem to think that unless we continually brace God up, He might fall apart. And if we were to doubt or question, God might just dissolve. In my more quiet moments, I would think that if God needs all this much protection He cannot be much of a God.

I do not know of any issue more dangerous to this nation than this wedding of religion and politics by the Bush administration. The Queen of England is the "defender of the faith." The president of the United States is the defender of the Constitution, the defender of ALL faiths.

President Bush is using religion as a tool. To surround a political campaign with religious trappings is a sham, a sham in religion's name. It is a sacrilege, but far worse, the ultimate in religious hypocrisy. People think they are hearing the "old-time religion," but it is not that at all; it is only White House politics.

The many speeches Bush has given on "religion" have been the most confused, misinformed, and misleading addresses in the entire history of the American presidency. Compare them with the statesman-like leadership of our Founding Fathers on this subject:

Thomas Jefferson, writing to Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808: "Certainly, no power to prescribe ANY religious exercise, or to assume ANY authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. Prayer is a religious exercise. The government has not been invested with the power of effecting ANY uniformity of time or matter regarding religious exercises. CIVIL POWERS ALONE have been given to the President of the United States."

Listen to Jefferson's magnificent statement of religious morality and ethics to Dr. Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803: "I am averse to the communication of my personal religious tenets to the public, because it would seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience, which the LAWS HAVE SO JUSTLY PROSCRIBED."

With our founding fathers, religion had to be protected against the government itself acting in the name of religion.

America waits for leaders of that intelligence, that character, that integrity, to come again to lead this nation.

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