“Congress” and by definition states, “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
These beginning clauses to the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights are rooted in the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657. This religious declaration of independence was drawn up by 30 residents of the New Netherland colony, willing to forfeit freedom, property and their very presence in the New World, to protest Dutch Gov. Peter Stuyvesant’s ban on Quaker worship. In summation, the signers of this historic document stated that no mortal man must come between a Christian’s right to honor and serve his creator according to his own conscience.
That the Center for Arizona’s Cathi Herrod now takes her anti-gay fight to the State Bar of Arizona must not go unchallenged. With maximum effectiveness, Arizona’s self-appointed sheriff of wombs and bedrooms has bullied our state Legislature this past decade, deputizing our elected representatives to do her bidding, enjoined in her mission from God to put her definition of Christian law into state statute. That is her organization’s sole mission.
What becomes then of our “strict constitutionalists,” those who should be upholding our separation of church and state, when Miss Cathi comes to call? If they don’t march to Miss Cathi’s drum, she threatens to have them unseated in their primaries. Thus, they all vanish, as the proverbial Cheshire cat. Sadly, with this single-minded holy war at the forefront, other things have vanished: our thriving economy, the equity in our homes and an affordable college education. Has this horrendous price really been worth it?
As it was divided over slavery in a great war 150 years ago, our nation is now equally divided on issues dealing with abortion and homosexuality. There are millions of good Christians who believe these issues are between God and individual conscience, just as those 30 brave signers of the Flushing Remonstrance, 355 years ago. I have no reservation in stating that Christians with a Taliban or Shi’ite mindset do not well serve the Lord. In dividing a nation against itself, they do the devil’s work.
To borrow an old quote, “Cathi Herrod, have you at long last no sense of decency?”
- Charles “Chuck” Jones III of Phoenix is author of the YouTube vlog chucktellsall.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this letter contained inflammatory language that was removed because it did not meet our editorial standards.