Thursday, December 30, 2004

Land of the Free?

Charles Colsen provides this disturbing information.

Samples:

A St. Louis public school student was “caught” praying over his lunch. As punishment, he was lifted from his seat, reprimanded in front of classmates, and ordered never to pray in school again.

At a New Jersey Veterans’ cemetery, an honor guard member was fired for telling a deceased veteran’s family, “God bless you and this family.” . . .

McKinney, Texas, “has no problem with people meeting in their homes for football watch parties, birthday parties, or even commercial gatherings to sell Tupperware.” But when a few couples gathered in a pastor’s home, they were told, “The City prohibits a church meeting in a home unless the home sits on at least two acres.”

Our soldiers are not dying abroad for such bureaucratic stupidity.

Freedom is not free. Unfortunately there are costs we must continue to pay to maintain our freedoms, and we must work to calibrate those who wish to steal our freedoms by defining freedom -- specifically reminding people the meaning of the First Amendement:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Please note the absence of a timeworn phrase: "Separation of church and state."