LETTER: God belongs in pledge

To the editor:

A recent letter to the editor (“Under God Unconstitutional”, 9/18/2006) informed me that the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. I find it to be a cruel irony that the author’s name is Jon Adams. I don’t think that John Adams, our second president, would agree with this claim. He, as well as the majority of the Founders, were deeply religious and worked to make America a “Nation under God.” Ignorance of the founding of our nation is at the root of today’s misunderstandings about “separation of church and state.” One quote from Patrick Henry sums it all up: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” Some want to eliminate anything that has to do with God or religion from government, but that was not the founder’s intent when they wrote, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Their intent was to prevent the formation of a national denomination, such as the Church of England. The phrase, “a wall of separation between church and state” comes from the private letters of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was one of the 90 who framed the first amendment. During those debates, none ever mentioned “separation of church and state.” Don’t you think that they would have mentioned it, had that been their intent? If anything mentioning God has to be removed from government, then the Declaration of Independence must now be considered unconstitutional! President John Adams, as well as every single other president, then violated the constitution while taking their oath of office when they said the words, “so help me God.” I guess that we’d better obliterate the etching of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from off of the wall of the Supreme Court building. God played a prominent role in our nation’s history. Why have we turned from Him today?

Ben Nilson