The Real American Taliban

Yes, the Taliban are among us and they're not Muslim, they're not from Afghanistan but they are Editing Jefferson. We have heard repeatedly that the United States was founded on Christian beliefs. This is possible because Americans are woefully ignorant of their own history. The founding fathers in fact were openly hostile toward organized Christianity, especially the major author of the constitution and the Bill of Rights, Thomas Jefferson..

CHARLES W. Carrico Sr., a Virginia lawmaker, has decided to rewrite the Founding Fathers. Mr. Carrico, a state trooper-turned-Republican-delegate from Grayson County in southwestern Virginia, says he believes Christians are being silenced and persecuted. "America was founded on Christian beliefs," he proclaims. "Christianity is the majority faith in this country, and yet because the minority has said, 'I'm offended,' we are being told to keep silent." Yet Mr. Carrico's "solution," an amendment to a passage of the Virginia Constitution adapted in part from Thomas Jefferson's famous Statute of Religious Freedom, is unnecessary, vague and disingenuous as to its real intent. If incorporated into the Constitution, it would defile the language of Jefferson and embolden religious activists for whom the Founding Fathers' doctrine of separation of church and state is a nuisance.

Mr. Carrico's amendment codifies the "people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage and traditions on public property, including public schools," as long as no one is required to join in prayer or religious activity. The prayer part is unnecessary because it changes nothing. Praying is already legal at Virginia public schools; the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects it, and the Supreme Court, as recently as three years ago, let stand a lower court ruling allowing a daily minute of silence in public schools, during which students may pray. But recognizing religious beliefs and traditions starts to sound ominously vague, and might conceivably include activities clearly beyond the constitutional pale, such as baptizing born-again students in classrooms or erecting shrines in the cafeteria.

This is just one of many attacks on the intent of the founding fathers by the American Taliban including the much publicized battle of Roy Moore to have the Ten Commandments recognized as the basis for civil law. The Radical Christian Right remains the greatest threat to the foundations of the United States, greater than any Islamic movement.