Department of Justice Has Found Religion

According to “Justice Unit Puts Its Focus on Faith” (March 7), almost in a clandestine fashion the religious rights division of the Justice Department quietly has been promoting special treatment for religious groups that accept government funds. One case cited in which the Justice Department has sided with a religious group involves the Salvation Army’s requirement that its employees embrace Jesus Christ to keep their jobs.

These special “religious civil rights” are scary stuff. They are a direct affront to our constitutional separation of church and state. Yet, with this activity having gone on for three years, so far one hears only a “deafening silence” on such serious threats to our basic democratic freedoms. When will our citizens, even religious ones, wake up to put an abrupt halt to efforts to usurp the tenets of governance that have made this country a just and fair nation?

Robert C. Lutes

Temple City

*

Separation of church and state is dead. We see government funding religious organizations, illegal election activities by churches guided by the administration, selection of judges based on ideology and government defending religious discrimination by organizations receiving public money. You better have the “right” Christian beliefs because Big Brother is taking our money to impose President Bush’s personal beliefs over facts and justice.

Brad Jenkins

Irvine

*

Whether or not one finds a particular practice by a religious citizen or organization to be “politically correct,” if the practice is recognized by the courts or Congress as being central to the “free exercise of religion,” it is deserving of legal protection.

For too many years, religious liberty was the forgotten civil right, and the Department of Justice did little to defend it. Whether or not one agrees with the department’s position on a particular case or controversy, the fact that defending religious liberty has returned to the core of its mission is most welcome.

Nathan Diament

Director of Public Policy

Union of Orthodox Jewish

Congregations of America

Washington