My Two Cents – 4/2/2012

by Lee Rettig

Will the streets in Kittanning old up for another year or two without paving? I don’t think so. When I change streets to miss the bad ones, the streets that were fair or good are not full of pot holes.

Get rid of the garbage collection with its high price! Take the guys off the garbage trucks and let them fix pot holes. How much maintenance is spent on the trucks? The borough has to be making a lot of money to keep the collection going.

I can’t wait for the new school to be built. Elderton and Kittanning Township, I hope you can work things out with the Board.

The commissioners are not very transparent. We would like for them to be on TV to discuss the issues of Armstrong County, but so far, they refuse.

It appears the school board meetings have a conflict in scheduling to air live on TV. The school board says they have no problem being on TV… it’s just timing. We will work it out!

BENNETT: What Does the 1st Amendment Say?

First, it was the angels on the Citizen’s Bridge in Kittanning. Then, it was the Nativity on the municipal building lawn in Ellwood City. Now, it’s the Ten Commandments on the grass outside Valley High School. 

The 1^st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is as follows, and I quote: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of  grievances.”

In a letter to the New Kensington-Arnold School District, a Wisconsin-based atheist group has asked the district to remove the stone monument, given by the New Kensington Eagles over a decade ago.  The monument sits near the entrance to Valley High School’s gymnasium.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the group “Freedom From Religion Foundation,” said they would file a lawsuit, if necessary, to have it removed. She claims the display amounts to an  “egregious violation of the separation between church and state.” The Foundation accuses the district of violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause and cites the 1980 Supreme Court ruling in Stone Vs. Graham that found a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in Kentucky was unconstitutional. This is not surprising, said Vic Walczak, of the Pennsylvania Civil Liberties Union.

So now that we have all of the facts and the case law on the situation, what is your decision?

Wait a minute! Not so fast! You’re about to jump to a conclusion without all of the facts that surround how that clause got in the Constitution in the first place. 

Let’s start with Ms. Gaylor’s comment of a “violation of the separation between church and state.” Now go back and read the 1^st Amendment again.  Did you see anywhere it said anything about “separation of church and state”? I didn’t.

Do you know where this phrase comes from? It comes from President Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Association of Danbury Connecticut, shortly after Jefferson became President. They expressed concern that the right of religious expression was government-given rather than God-given and, therefore, the government might someday attempt to regulate religious expression. Jefferson understood their concern; it was also his own. Jefferson believed that the government was to be powerless to interfere with religious expressions for a very simple reason: he had long witnessed the unhealthy tendency of government to encroach upon the free exercise of religion.

And as we are considering the reasons behind Jefferson’s concerns let us not frget that while under British control the official religion of England was the Church of England. Jefferson wrote, “that the legislature should make no law respecting as establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof:” The separation of church and state is a reference to the Church of England and an official religion which was the reason for the First Amendment in the first place.

The metaphor of “separation of church and state” was for the church staying out of the states’ business and the state staying out of the churches’ business”. Unfortunately, the current implied common meaning and use of the metaphor is strictly for the church staying out of the state’s business. The opposite meaning essentially cannot be found in the media, the judiciary, or in public debate and is not any part of the agenda of the ACLU or the judiciary. This, in conjunction with several other factors, makes the “separation of church and state” metaphor an icon for eliminating anything having to do with Christian theism, the religion of our heritage, in the public arena.  Another factor facilitating the icon to censor all forms of Christian theism is the complete misunderstanding of the “establishment” clause as Jefferson warned.

My friends, we are under attack. Not only by terrorists who attack our buildings, but by those who would tear down the moral fibre that built this great country. All of the players are in place, if we do not turn this country around at the next national election we will be a 3^rd class power with no individual freedoms including religion.

Now is the time, this is the place, stand up and be counted or be part of the demise of the United States of America.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed, is for good men and women to do nothing..

THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION!