Oh, brothers and sisters, there’s foul news afoot. Some bunch of blasphemous Yankees from the North (as opposed to Yankees from the South) are trying to take away our God-given rights to pray and pass out Bibles.
A group from Madison, Wis., calling itself the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has attacked the mayors in Rogers and Springdale for participating in the National Day of Prayer.
The anti-religion group also claims it forced the Rogers School District to quit letting the Gideons hand out Bibles at Bellview Elementary School.
You know, I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels with a Gideon Bible in the drawer. That family must be bigger than the Duggars.
Oh, by the way, the foundation sells T-shirts that read, “This is what an atheist looks like” that will cost you $20.
A T-shirt that reads “Village Atheist” will run you $22 - obviously they don’t charge by the letter.
They also have a spot on the website asking for donations and reminding readers the donations are tax-deductible.
Apparently, the group hates everything about churches except for passing the collection plate.
The foundation also brags about its accomplishments - and that word is used loosely - on its website: “FFRF won a historic federal court decision declaring the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional in 2010.
“In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience,” wrote U.S.
District Judge Barbara Crabb, Madison, Wis. An appeals court in 2011 threw the case out on standing (not the merits), but FFRF continues to pursue two challenges of gubernatorial prayer proclamations in Colorado and Arizona.”
The King James translation of that statement is the foundation lost, but is still throwing money away.
Anyway, the foundation contacted the oft ces of Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse and Rogers Mayor Greg Hines about their oftces sponsoring “prayer breakfasts” May 3 as part of the National Dayof Prayer.
The Yankees might have a point in that oft cials with the two cities probably shouldn’t have promoted the event and sold tickets through the mayors’ oft ces.
Sprouse and Hines may never meet over a chess board, smoking pipes during a Mensa Club meeting, but they’re usually smart enough to stay within the law.
“We are shocked at the bad manners of these mayors who align themselves with events advertised as ‘Christian evangelicals need only apply.’ This kind of meddling in religion and promotion of one religion over another is what one would expect in a theocracy, not in our secular republic,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, a foundation co-founder.
For the record, the First Amendment to the Constitution says nothing about a separation of church and state. That phrase came later in a letter written by Thomas Jeff erson.
And no one is forcing anyone to participate in the National Day of Prayer.
If you don’t want to go - don’t go.
But the best response to the Yankee atheists perhaps came from Rogers city attorney Ben Lipscomb, who answered stupid with stupid.
Lipscomb replied to the foundation.
This is what he wrote to Ken Earl, the foundation’s law clerk:
“As a graduate of East St. Louis, Illinois College of Law and Sheet Metal Work, I too have heard of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
I distinctly remember class that day, because the professor not only covered the entire First Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution (I think he called them the Bill of Rights, or something like that), but low hydrogen arc welding as well.
And in my humble opinion (which, by the way is the only one that counts, being that I am the City Attorney) the City’s participation in, as well as the planning of, the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, does NOT, in fact, violate the sacred document in question.
With Warmest Personal Regards,
Ben Lipscomb
Rogers City Attorney and Welder”
Now, who can argue with that?
BOB CAUDLE WRITES A HUMOROUS COMMENTARY ON LOCAL, STATE AND NATIONAL ISSUES. HE IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY INSULTER.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 05/19/2012