Here is my response, the long version. Feel free to use it as you wish. You'll need to edit it a bit to suit your needs. In fact, I edited it myself and turned it into an editorial I put in my local dem newsletter.
This is America?
Unfortunately, yes. These days there is a sad wind blowing in America, carrying with it the attitude of “I got mine, screw you,” from shore to shore, from border to border.
The people who succumb to this ill wind forget that this nation was founded on principles of equality, not “first come, first served.” They forget that their own immigrant ancestors often came over here with pennies in their pocket and lived with one or two families in run-down shacks too. They forget that their own immigrant ancestors were often able to send their children to a public school which taught or at least tutored in their first language, a luxury few children of immigrants are afforded today. They forget that these same immigrant ancestors, even with pennies in their pocket, came to communities in this country where they could read the news in their first language, speak to their neighbors in their first language and conduct business in their community in their first language without trouble. In fact, many communities in this state, including ********, produced newspapers in at least one another language until the time of the first or second world war. Am I now to believe this is un-American? Am I to believe that somehow granting the same courtesies, which my ancestors had, to immigrants here today is now somehow wrong and a threat to everything I believe? No, its just that ill wind. “I got my education and I’m a productive member of my community, screw you.”
As for the suggestion that immigration is the cause for the removal of Christianity from our “lives,” it is false. This country was founded upon the principles of religious freedom from day one. And for two hundred years the Supreme Court of this great land has ruled that religious freedom hinges upon, as stated in the Bill of Rights, the separation of church and state (a phrase coined by our founding fathers over 200 years ago) and thus requires the state to be absolutely neutral in matters of religion.
This means that no law shall dictate your beliefs or the manner of your religious celebration or ceremonies. No one with any power to do so can strip you of your job because of your beliefs, nor can they force you to give up saying “Bless You” when someone sneezes or prevent you from wishing a “Merry Christmas.” No where in the law are you restricted in your beliefs. But it also means no one can be forced to say “Under God” when they say the pledge, or “so help me God” when they swear an oath. It means that no version of the 10 commandments, nor the Koran, nor excerpts from the Baghivad Gita can appear on our classroom walls or on public display in our government building unless they appear for purely secular reasons as part of a purely secular display (historical context, ect.).
As for the pledge, it was written in the late 1800’s by a Baptist minister who never included a reference to God because he believed very strongly in the separation of church and state. It was only included during the Red Scare of the 50’s, which was also the same time the motto, “In God We Trust” was placed on our money. If you remember anything about the Red Scare, you may remember that people in a position to do so, like our Sen. McCarthy, used fear to convince the people of this country that we should trash the bill of rights in order to nail a few bad people. Sounds a lot like today, doesn’t it? In past times, the Christian fanatics used fear to get their religion on public property and in public institutions. People didn’t put up a fuss back then because they thought it wouldn’t affect them. They were Christian and they weren’t “commies” after all so it didn’t matter to them. That same ill wind that caused the Red Scare has returned. “I got my rights, screw you.”
Lastly, to say that America was founded as a Christian nation is to speak a lie. There is no mention of God or Christianity in neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights. Our founders were very clear on everything else specified in these documents. Why would they have been so careless to have left out mention of God and Christianity if we were, indeed, founded as a Christian nation? Our founders established The United States as a secular nation. They were men of many faiths including Christianity, Deism and Atheism, all sons and grand-sons of a “Christian” nation (Great Britian) who understood through their parents’ and grandparents’ experience the meaning of religious persecution and believed that only a secular government could prevent future strife and possibly a civil war. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Read the words of our founders, taken directly from their letters and works. Many of these quotes and can be found with a bibliography at
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.htmlGeorge Washington spoke pointed against religious bigotry and in support of the United States’ new secular government when he wrote to Moses Sexias, a Jew from New Jersey who had expressed concern for his religious freedom under the new government. Washington eased Mr. Sexias’ concerns when he replied that under the new government “all possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship and for happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.”
Moreover, under George Washington’s presidency, a treaty between the United States and the Muslim country of Tripoli was composed, then signed by President John Adams in 1797 which begins, “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”
"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not." James Madison.
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." James Madison
". . . Thirteen governments
thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind." John Adams
"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England." Benjamin Franklin
"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. " Thomas Paine
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence 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 and State." Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists
"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination." Thomas Jefferson in his autobiography.
I humbly submit my response and hope you understand that I will never agree with the baseless arguments made in “This is America?” Arguments that are symptomatic of something I call the “look at the pretty birdie” syndrome. These arguments are designed to keep the citizens of this country too busy pointing fingers at each other and blaming everyone else for what’s wrong in the world so that they don’t take the time to see what is really happening to their dear country. There are people in power in America, including politicians, religious leaders and corporations, who are working hard to rob our nation blind and ensure there is nothing we can do about it. And when they have taken everything they can you can bet they will turn to us and say, “I got mine, screw you.”
Yeah, unfortunately, this is America.
on edit: you can even add the snotty like-it-or-delete-it message at the end.
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