Be vigilant, but be constitutional

By Jerry Speer, Las Vegas

Thursday, Nov. 27, 2014 | 2:03 a.m.

In a recent letter (Religion, politics must be separated, Nov. 13), the writer claims the separation of church and state is written in our Constitution. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that mentions the separation of church and state.

Whatever Islam’s position is on separating politics and religion, or on any other matter, our Constitution prohibits us from discriminating against it on the basis of its adherents’ beliefs. The writer implies that since Islam doesn’t comply with a (non-existent) clause in our Constitution, its adherents voluntarily ceded their right to protection under the First Amendment, unless they accept that non-existent clause and adopt it as a tenet of Islam.

The prevailing Neocon position, that our government is the enemy of the people, somehow is not subject to the same judgment. A large number of American Christians openly support this notion of the evils of our government. The doctrine of separation of church and state is not used as a reason to deny them their religious rights.

There are many prominent Republican politicians who don’t agree to the separation of church and state. Among those are Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, Sen, James Inhofe and many other Republican non Conservatives. (non Conservative can be defined as Neocon.)

Should these activists be “a target of U.S. law enforcement or military action in accordance with prevailing U.S. law” as proposed for their Muslim counterparts?

We need to maintain our vigilance to protect ourselves from extremists who would do harm to our country, but not by inventing a Constitution that supports our biases.