The First Amendment of the Constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” meaning that the government cannot make any law favoring one religion over another or establish a national religion.
This is further expanded in the 14th Amendment, which requires states to guarantee the same rights as the federal government. This means that no state or federal government can make a law telling the people what religion they can or cannot practice. However, to say that the United States of America is a religiously ambiguous nation would be a downright lie. We are a Christian nation; we just do not admit to it. If you do not believe me, look at any piece of U.S. currency from the penny to the $100 bill and you will see in capital letters “IN GOD WE TRUST.” In fact, it is our nation’s motto. Congress made it our motto in 1956 and reaffirmed it in 2011.
If our government is not supposed to have a national religion, how are we allowed to slap a religious motto on every piece of currency and government building? The courts say that because it does not reference a specific god, it is not violating the First Amendment — which is total nonsense. The result of a Christian nation in denial. We claim that all people have the freedom to practice any religion in this country, and, according to the constitution, they should. However, in practice, religious “freedom” is really “free to practice any religion as long as it is Christianity, and, if you want to practice something else, do not do it around me.”
In Indiana, a bill was introduced that would require the Ten Commandments be displayed in every school library and classroom. If you think that is a violation of the First Amendment, you would be right, but it is still being introduced anyway. We are a Christian nation in everything but name. We are not the only state to introduce a bill like this — Oklahoma just announced that the Bible and Ten Commandments must be taught in all public schools. Louisiana just passed a law doing the same. In fact, the state superintendent of Oklahoma called the Bible “one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth of our country.” That is odd; the First Amendment says the exact opposite. And if the argument is to teach good values, why are the Ten Commandments and the Bible the only viable options? Why not teach the Torah, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Tripitaka or any lessons from other non-Christian holy books? Why are the five pillars of Islam or the five precepts of Buddhism not displayed? Why does it have to be the Ten Commandments?
The answer is simple: We are a Christian nation, or our lawmakers want us to be, even if that means violating the very document they took an oath to uphold. Because the hard truth is we do not have a separation of church and state in this country. We have a document that says we do, and we may have settled court cases saying that we do. But the fact that these laws are introduced, much less passed, means that we do not really have freedom of religion. We have religious conformity which violates everything our Founding Fathers wanted for our nation.
If our lawmakers are willing to violate our First Amendment rights, who is to say what rights they will come for next.
