More Shots Are Fired in the Evolutionary War

Reading your column left me with a very bad feeling that was pretty much summed up in your next to last sentence. You praised Emily Long for exercising her constitutional right. Your biased thinking was quite apparent throughout the whole article, but this comment was quite telling. It’s OK for Emily to exercise her right of free speech, but it’s not OK for the teacher to do so!

Even though the state of California says that evolution is the only type of cosmology that can be taught in the government schools, does this mean the teacher cannot speak his mind and and exercise his constitutional right? Since when does the Constitution of the United States give a student rights that the teacher cannot share? Somewhat peripheral to this issue there lies another issue of concern to me, and that is why the student regularly is considered more expert when it comes to constitutional issues?

For well over 100 years, the Supreme Court of the United States steadfastly resisted every attempt to “separate church and state.” The only early mention of “separation” was a speech made by (Thomas) Jefferson that said that there should be a wall of separation between the church and the government. This was not, however, to keep the church out of the government but to keep the government out of the church! It was, indeed, an unfortunate day when our Supreme Court, in 1947, finally did decide that there was a “separation” clause in our Constitution.

I challenge you to find either “separation,” “church,” or “state” anywhere in the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers of our nation clearly recognized the need of biblical Christianity, with its moral absolutes, as imperative and essential to the proper social order of our unique form of government. A cursory examination of an early document relative to our nation’s foundation will clearly reveal that there certainly was never any separation of our founders’ Christian beliefs from their convictions of government.

Certainly, our Constitution guarantees Emily Long an absolute right to disagree with John Peloza’s “purposeful design” ideas. But that same Constitution guarantees John Peloza, and any other Christian in this nation, the right to express that belief!

ERIC SNYDER,

Westminster