A Separation Most Vital

Awesome article on Salon.com detailing the many reasons why this country is not a Christian nation, claims of the religious right notwithstanding:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation/index.html

The fundamentalist extremists in the country never fail to exceed their own standards of arrogance when it comes to their assertions that the United States is a "Christian" country and anyone who disagrees can GTFO. The occasional mention of "God" and a "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence does not necessarily infer that this country was founded on "Judeo-Christian principles." Religious conservatives harp mercilessly on the fact that the Pledge of Allegiance has the phrase "under God" in it but they don't mention the fact that those words were not in the original Pledge, but rather added to it in 1954, not really that long ago.

The founding fathers back in the 1700s were not a homogeneous bunch of Bible-thumpers. They were a diverse group including Rosicrucians, Freethinkers, Free Masons and others. For the religious conservatives of today to appropriate the history of this country into their own narrow-minded, modernist version of Christianity is wholly invalid and quite an unreasonable stretch. They seem to think they have a monopoly on God and everyone should conform to their own particular brand of delusion. Two principles upon which this country most definitely was founded were religious freedom and a strict separation of church and state. It was no accident that the founding fathers worked so hard to keep religion out of government and government out of religion. The whole purpose of this country's formation was to provide religious freedom to those who had been persecuted by the majority, for their beliefs. And today it's happening all over again.

To insist that the laws of this country be modified to conform to the beliefs of the majority, at the expense of the freedoms of the minorities, is one of the most blatantly treasonous and un-American things that could ever happen.