Religious liberty is cornerstone of U.S.

I am writing this letter in response to a story in the Salisbury Post and at least two letters to the editor about the issue of prayer at government meetings. I have stood with the defendants in Lund vs. Rowan County since before the lawsuit was filed. Religious liberty is a one of the cornerstones of our nation and is the very first freedom guaranteed to Americans by the Bill of Rights.

Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 that contains the phrase “wall of separation between church and state, which became the meaning for the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment that we still use today. Over the past 200 years, the Supreme Court has shaped the constitution to contain a clear Separation of Church and State that protects every religion equally. Over 90 percent of Supreme Court Justices have been Christian, none of them has been an atheist. What rationale would these justices have for interpreting laws against their own system of beliefs?

What Christian activists/zealots do not appear to understand is that when people oppose Christian pervasion, they are not declaring war on Christianity; rather they are fighting for equal treatment, as was the Danbury Baptist Association.

Religious liberty is the right to follow the faith of your choice—or to follow no faith at all. By dismissing this principle, you infringe on the religious rights of others.

If only those who argue against Separation of Church and State would open their eyes as to how we Americas benefit from Separation instead of inappropriately interpreting it as an attack on Christianity.

“Imagine” that we could live in a country where religion was used to lift up all Americans instead of being used to exclude.

Blaine Gorney Ph.D.

Salisbury

Government shouldn’t impose beliefs on others

In Monday’s “My Turn” column Richard Roberts expressed his outrage about how unfair it was for Mac Butner to be removed from the chairmanship of the Rowan County Board of Elections.

I wonder if he would be just as outraged if the person in the same seat as Butner had posted the same kind of remarks about the Tea Party.

Would you be secure in the belief that someone running the Rowan County Elections would be impartial to any Tea Party voters, or would he maybe change to voting totals because of his hatred?

As an individual, everyone has the right to freedom of speech, but those who hold government leadership positions do not have the right to impose their individual beliefs on any one citizen.

Because we have had too much of that in the history of North Carolina and other states in the South, the Republicans, not the Democrats, in Raleigh who hold oversight over Elections in this state believed that Mac Butner’s ideology was too dangerous for him to hold his potion, as they would for anyone who held just as extreme opposite potion.

Julian Torrey

Salisbury