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by Mel Griffith
This time of year we are focused on the holiday season. First there is Thanksgiving, then Christmas, followed by New Years. During this season, we should remember that all these holidays recognize, in one way or another, the importance of God in our lives. Thanksgiving recognizes that the abundance we have in this country is a blessing from God. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ and next year will be 2004 based (probably somewhat inaccurately) on the year Christ was born.
Unfortunately, there are a few among us who want to wipe out the religious significance of these holidays. Those who attack these holidays demand that we officially pretend that they have no religious connections. This is part of a broader attack on all religion, especially Christianity in America. A handful of non-believers are trying to turn the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion into freedom to destroy religion.
So far, Christians have not been very effective in responding to a few self important show-offs who want to prove that they are too powerful to need God. We should be tolerant of all who wish to follow different beliefs, and let them worship any way they please, but we have carried tolerance to such a ridiculous extreme that we fail to challenge those who infringe on our right to openly practice our beliefs. The constitutional guarantee that no law shall be made respecting religion is regularly violated by activist judges who make up and hand out their own laws restricting where the ten commandments, the manger scene, and many other symbols of religion can be displayed.
Some anti-religion activists have suggested that religion should just be kept in the home and other hidden places, kind of the same way that other people produce meth or grow marijuana. No thanks, we prefer to be religious in public, even if that is troubling to some non-believers, because deep down they know we are right. Seeing other people respecting God reminds them they ought to behave better themselves.
Perhaps those bothered by religion in America can consider moving to North Korea where they can enjoy complete freedom from religion and participate in the sort of society that develops where there is no respect for God. They certainly won't be bothered by Thanksgiving. There isn't much there to be thankful for. If they are really intent about keeping religion and government separate maybe they should quit nit-picking in America and take their ideas to Saudi Arabia and see how they go over there.
Next year there will be elections and we will do well to find out which candidates are willing to protect the rights of the vast majority of Americans who are religious from being destroyed by a few malcontented non-believers, a disproportionate number of whom seem to have somehow gotten to be judges. Laws intended to prevent the majority from trampling the rights of the minority are instead being used to let the minority trample the rights of the majority.
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