Religious Freedom

                The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is our need to study the Constitution of the United States and learn for ourselves exactly what is in it.  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently spoke at the Archbishop Rummel [Catholic] High School in New Orleans.  

                The Justice stated, “To tell you the truth there is no place for [requiring neutrality regarding religion] in our constitutional tradition.  Where did that come from?  … To be sure, you can’t favor one denomination over another but can’t favor religion over non-religion?”

                Justice Scalia said there is “nothing wrong” with God being invoked by presidents and others in their speeches.  President George W. Bush spoke to Congress after the 9/11 terrorist attack:  “The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain.  Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”

                The Justice stated:  “God has been very good to us.  That we won the revolution was extraordinary….  The Battle of Midway was extraordinary.  I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor.  Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor - in presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways.  There is nothing wrong with that and do not let anybody tell you that there is anything wrong with that.”