Presidients Day and Religious Freedom

The following came from a discussion I was having elsewhere. I received their permission to post these thoughts here. "With Presidents' Day just a few days away, it's time to celebrate the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, who enshrined the separation of church and state in the First Amendment to the Constitution." "Our Founding Fathers knew that a strong American democracy, and religious freedom for all, required building a wall between church and state. Despite this, religious right leaders like James Dobson, Beverly LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson have waged war both on this central American principle and the freedoms it allows. Their campaign hopes to revise American history, ignoring our commitment to the separation of church and state and replacing it with a government based on their narrow ideology." "Fortunately, our founders made clear their opposition to the mixing of government and religion. Leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison frequently commented on the importance of separating church and state, and, in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, George Washington's administration emphatically stated, "the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." "When our constitution speaks to freedom of religion, it mean ALL religions - not just the Christian ones. In other words, the Islamists have as much validity here in our country as do the Right Wing Fundamentalist Christians, as do the Pagans and Wiccans, as do the Orthodox Jewish, or the Hindu, or the Buddhists. The Christian religion does NOT rank above any other religion in importance or validity in our wonderful, great, free, country."

Thank you for this. I have only one thing to add: that people also have the right to not practice any religion at all. It's not just that no one religion ranks over any other, it's also that religion itself doesn not rank above those who may not practice at all. Some people believe in a higher power and just don't prescribe to any particular organizations definition of that higher power. Some people believe there is no higher power. We all have the right to practice--or not--in our own way.

Ooops, my bad for leaving that out! You are absolutely right... Freedom of and FROM religion! Thanks for adding this!