Re: “Based on religious values” and “U.S. wasn’t always secular,” Your Turn, Jan. 10:
The following letter, written by Board Member Richard S. Pressman, responded to two letters in the San Antonio Express-News arguing that the origins of the country show support of having a dominant religion.
The two letter writers argue there is no such thing as separation of church and state — except on the federal level — because several Colonies were founded on propounded religious intolerance.
So one would have to believe that the Founding Fathers put that clause in the First Amendment because they wished to continue the tradition of religious intolerance that had existed in some Colonies but did not wish the federal government to be responsible for it.
Hence, in Massachusetts, only the descendants of the Puritans would be allowed to vote and anyone who proselytized for another religion would be hanged. In Virginia, only Episcopalians would be allowed to vote. All others would be whipped. And every state would choose its dominant religion.
It is precisely this twisted logic that has our nation in so much trouble today.
Instead, the founders stated time and again that they wished to avoid precisely the intolerance that had existed before independence — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” means it’s a terrible idea to do otherwise.
Thomas Jefferson, for example, agreed: “Erecting the ‘wall of separation between church and state,’ therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”
