To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Rebuild the Wall of Separation Between Church and State
Because governmental sponsorship, selection, and solicitation of religious rituals, practices or beliefs necessarily creates a potentially coercive atmosphere that may inadvertently promote or interfere with establishments of religion and with persons' free exercise of religion, and could potentially be susceptible to the biases of officials who might surreptitiously attempt to establish a state sponsored religion or to promote particular religious beliefs, the best public policy for protecting essential civil liberties involving the freedom of religion from governmental interference is to prohibit any such governmental sponsorship, selection, and solicitation of the practice of religion in public governmental forums.
Accordingly, we call on Congress to immediately undertake to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution designed to protect against governmental interference with religious liberty that results from governmental sponsorship, solicitation, or selection of religious practices such as preaching sermons, reading religious texts, creating religious displays, or conducting rituals and prayers. The amendment should include a requirement that all governmental bodies and agencies are to remain neutral about religion and religious beliefs and shall strictly adhere to the principle of maintaining a wall of separation between church and state.
The proposed amendment shall also provide that nothing in the language of the amendment shall be construed to permit any prohibitions or restrictions being placed on a person's free speech rights by any governmental bodies or agencies, specifically including any speech that is related to religion or religious beliefs, during that person's attendance in governmental forums, or during their participation in any normally allowed public comment periods.
Accordingly, we call on Congress to immediately undertake to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution designed to protect against governmental interference with religious liberty that results from governmental sponsorship, solicitation, or selection of religious practices such as preaching sermons, reading religious texts, creating religious displays, or conducting rituals and prayers. The amendment should include a requirement that all governmental bodies and agencies are to remain neutral about religion and religious beliefs and shall strictly adhere to the principle of maintaining a wall of separation between church and state.
The proposed amendment shall also provide that nothing in the language of the amendment shall be construed to permit any prohibitions or restrictions being placed on a person's free speech rights by any governmental bodies or agencies, specifically including any speech that is related to religion or religious beliefs, during that person's attendance in governmental forums, or during their participation in any normally allowed public comment periods.
Why is this important?
The recent U.S. Supreme Court's 5 to 4 majority decision in "Town of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway" (announced in early May, 2014) so radically ignores previous precedents and commonly understood interpretations of religious protections provided by the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that the predictable consequences of the majority's opinion may be to render them almost meaningless in any practical sense. The majority's decision is also extremely bad public policy because, by opening the doors of government to sectarian religious doctrines, it will almost certainly substantially increase the risks of religious disputes and strife developing in America. We are well served by maintaining a separation between church and state, as history has long shown.