SEPTEMBER 2010

SECULAR LAWS - WHAT??

We all hear or read about secular this, secular that, and of countries and/or laws which are portrayed as secular.  So just what are they talking about?

To be secular is to be unbiased by religious influence.  To be secular a law must be based on evidence and fact.  Also, secular must be religion neutral, not non-religious.

So, let’s take a look at the facts and the objective observable evidence of such things as providing funds for various social programs – housing, food, education and medical – to those who need such assistance.  We find in Detroit, where all this has been routinely provided, the population of the city has dropped by almost 50% in the last two decades and about 50% of the young adults are illiterate.  You will find block after block of abandoned buildings of all sorts.  There are areas just too lawless to try to police. 

Are the laws that continue to pour funds into completely failed programs in Detroit and other cities secular laws?  What evidence and what facts demonstrate that such laws do anything but continue the destruction and degradation?  Are these laws instead based on some flawed philosophy?

BUT  WE  MUST  KEEP  A  SEPARATION 
BETWEEN  CHURCH  AND  STATE

Much is spoken about – and is equally much misinterpreted – regarding  what Thomas Jefferson said of the “wall” between church and state in reference to the first of the ten amendments which make up our Bill of Rights.
 
It should be recalled that Jefferson was not in the United States during the drafting of the Bill of Rights and he did not take part in any of the discussion or decision making regarding those amendments to the U.S. Constitution – he was the U.S. Minister (equivalent now to an ambassador) to France.

It is also necessary to understand that Jefferson’s comment was in one of his letters and that his statement had no legal weight whatsoever.  To hear his comment so often quoted, you’d think that he was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court writing a decision in a landmark case – he was not and did not.

Regarding our freedom of religion, as stated in the First Amendment, Jefferson wrote in a letter dated January 1, 1802, was: “…that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

As we see now with the issue of the proposed mosque in New York City, people get into arguments mixing philosophical differences (right & wrong, should & shouldn’t) with legal concepts.  Legal differences are usually easily resolved; philosophical differences may never be resolved.