By JENNIFER GATES

First, I’d like to respond by saying to Andy Absher: everyone picks and chooses quotations. It doesn’t matter if one is “liberal” or “conservative,” “Christian” or “Muslim” or “Jewish,” or any other label. Second, one cannot possibly be expected to include every quotation or every thought on religion and government into one 250-word letter to the editor. You set up an impossible expectation with comments about using “one quotation,” Andy. However, I will point out that I at least included citations for my quotations so that others could look them up on their own. Third, I would like to point out that most of your letter was centered on a character attack, which is exactly the kind of hateful thing I was arguing against in my original letter.

Fourth, please look up Everson versus Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947). In the words of Justice Hugo Black: “The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the federal government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state,’” 330 U.S. 1, 15-16. The Supreme Court of the United States interpreted separation of church and state, as you have just read, to mean that the federal and state governments cannot “pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another.” That includes Christianity, since Christianity is a religion. This is the precedent by which the Supreme Court has been ruling for decades.

Furthermore, James Madison may have started out being against any amendments to the Constitution, but he later went on not only to draft the first 10 amendments but also to become known as the father of the Bill of Rights. He became convinced that a Bill of Rights was necessary, although he wished for it to be added into the main body of the Constitution rather than being seen as an attachment to the Constitution. (For more information on James Madison, please check out his biography at www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jm4.html and/or http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761576510/Madison_James.html.)

And finally, what I said originally is that we need to refrain from engaging in religious hatred and from creating laws framed by one religion to govern people of many different religions. Even James Madison would have agreed with that, and our Supreme Court has continued to uphold this view to this very day.

Jennifer Gates is an Anderson resident.