Columbusite said:
No one is denying people their constitutional right to exercise their religious freedom. Christians have had government favoritism (from specifically religious things like school led prayer, 10 commandments in government buildings, "under God" added to the pledge, to Christian based laws like anti-gay laws, inter-racial marriage bans, racial minorities and women being treated as 2nd class citizens, slavery, etc) and when that is taken away somehow Christians are being discriminated against. Enough of this blather about religion being kept out of the "public square". Religion is already in the public square, but it isn't supposed to be government sponsored such as in this case. As I understand it the "under God" part was added with the intent to show our country was a godly one. The problem is, that is for the people to do on their own, not the government. I hardly see how that is anti-religious.
Whenever my religious beliefs include denying you any legal or inalienable right, then you have an argument.
But the words 'under God' take nothing at all away from you, require nothing of you, impinge on not one iota of your personal freedom, property, pursuit of happiness, security, opportunities, or well being. You are not required to say them, believe them, or approve of them.
To remove those two little words, however, does take away from those who want the words in there.
It doesn't matter whether the words are "under God" or "under Zeus" or "Donald Duck" or "Santa Claus", if they do not infringe on anybody's rights, and the majority wants it that way, then the majority should prevail.
Such should be the rule of thumb in all such matters. If the community wants a creche on the courthouse lawn at Christmastime, if the community wants traditional Christmas music in the winter concert, if the community likes that granite statue engraved with the Ten Commandments on the Courthouse lawn, then it takes nothing at all away from anybody else nor infringes on anybody's rights for that to happen. If the community, however, allows the creche, they also allow a Minnorah if some in the Jewish community want that too. The community should not be allowed to discriminate against one group in favor of another. As long as there is no intentional discrimination, there is no foul.
It comes down to the principle of "the free exercise (of religion) shall not be prohibited" by government. None of these things are an establishment of religion by government. All of these things are the free exercise of religion by a particular community. The ACLU should be required to butt out and the anti-religious should get a hobby or something and learn that they cannot dictate how others shall enjoy their constitutional right to an exercise of religion.
The day a teacher is discriminating against or rewarding children for having a particular religious belief or non belief; the day the community discriminates against one religion in favor of another; etc., then I'll be right there side by side with you protesting that, as that would be a violation of the Constitution.
But there is nothing stated or implied or intended in the Constitution that all vestiges or evidence or practice of religion be removed from public property. The founders made sure the government could neither require religious beliefs from anyone nor reward or punish anyone for the religious beliefs they held. But they never intended that those in government not be religious or express their religious beliefs. And there certainly would have been horrified to see (expressly unconstitutional) laws that stripped all evidence of religion from the public sector.