Submitted by Lisa, Sep 7, 2007 17:51

Any church that truly bases their beliefs on the Bible has already declared their principles. The Bible clearly and succinctly, in multiple places, declares God's position (and therefore the church's) on homosexuality. There is no need for a church to have to write any other statement or outline their doctrine. In fact, the only need there is for any christian church to write a separate statement of principle or doctrine would be if they were going to have the audacity to say they were a christian church, but NOT follow the Bible as written. So, for any Christ based religion, we know that the Bible is their "declaration of principle."

Now let's address the constitutionality of a law that addresses religion in any way. My copies of the Constitution (I have quite a few and they all say the same thing) say that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW" means that ANY federal laws regarding religion are unconstitutional . . . ANY. They have no right to make any laws FOR, and any laws AGAINST, religion. Congress has no right to make any laws that have anything to do with religion . . . ANY. That seems to be a hard concept for a lot of people to understand. Probably because most schools and media like to put an improper emphasis on the FALSE idea that the constitution says anything about "separation of church and state." Since it is unconstitutional for the federal government to make ANY law regarding religion, making a law that states that a church must write an outline or statement of their doctrine or principles would be unconstitutional.

We've addressed the "declaration of principle" and the constitutionality of such a law. Now, let's look at the original intent of the Founder's of our GREAT NATION. Their basis for government in America was "FREEDOM OF RELIGION", not freedom FROM religion. In their sphere, (read any dictionary from the late 1700s - early 1800s) when they referred to "religion", they meant christian religion. While they were concerned with keeping any one denomination from dominating government at the FEDERAL level, they had no such concerns at the state level. Most of the original states DID, in fact, have state sanctioned CHRISTIAN churches. The Founder's biggest fear was not that religion would have too much control in government, but that government would have too much control over religion.

On a more personal level, why is it that people who preach tolerance at every opportunity, seem to have no tolerance for anyone that disagrees with them? From my experience, any time a christian falls short of their high standards of conduct, they are called HYPOCRITE. Why is it that anyone who preaches a doctrine of tolerance, but doesn't tolerate those who disagree with them, are not labeled hypocrites in the same way? BTW, most people who use the term tolerance don't understand it's true definition or meaning. According to Webster's, it means to "agree in allowing the right of something that one does not approve." If you are preaching that we should agree to "allow the right of something you don't approve," how can you support a law intending to prohibit anyone's practice of anything of which you don't approve? If you are truly tolerant, that would mean that you would NOT support a law requiring anyone to act in any way that they don't agree with or approve of, because, after all, you believe in allowing the right of something of which you don't approve. Which ultimately would mean that any laws prohibiting the discrimination of anyone for any reason should NOT exist, because that would mean we as a nation were intolerant of certain beliefs. The whole idea of legislating tolerance is the most effective demonstration of intolerance that exists.

Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable.