Last week, back at the old joint, I wrote a post about an issue that had come to my attention after reading an article at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. This particular issue involved an assault on religious freedom that was coming from the branch of the Veterans Administration that is responsible for our National Cemeteries - they were (and are) refusing to allow the widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to place a Wiccan pentacle on his memorial marker. Given the long and very inclusive list of religions (more than 30, almost half of which are Christian denominations) that are permitted markers, their endless foot-dragging on the Wiccan application is completely rediculous.
Today, while googling to see if the week of Memorial Day brought any action in the case, I came across an editorial from an author and a source that I don't usually agree with. This time, though, I think they've more or less got it right:
Although our country was founded on a Judeo-Christian base, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution understood that religious freedom was for everyone, not just Christians. In other words, the only way that freedom can prevail for Christians is for Christians to stand up and fight for the minority beliefs and religions of others.Without it, freedom will most likely be lost. And we will be left wondering whose freedoms we are really fighting for.
I'm not sure that I agree that the country was founded on a Judeo-Christian base - I think whether or not that's true depends on how broadly one defines "Judeo-Christian" - but aside from that, I couldn't have said it any better.
The remainder of the editorial, which was written by John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute (that's the folks that brought us Paula Jones), can be found at Christianity Today's website. It's worth a read. After you're done, go give your Congresscritters a call and ask them to get on the VA's back about this.