Are We Losing Our Religious Freedoms?

What do the words Religious Freedom Day mean to you? Religious would be in the text of Religion meaning what faith one chooses to believe in - be it Christian, Baptist, LDS, Buddhism, etc. Freedom we are familiar with thanks to the Constitution and all those History classes we had to take in grade school. Day is of course meaning a singular day of the calendar year.

I would imagine it to be a day where you're entitled to celebrate what you believe in without persecution. Instead of focusing on our differences, we focus on the fact that we all have something/someone to believe in.

Each year, the President declares Jan. 16 to be Religious Freedom Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the 1786 passage of Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. In his declaration this year, outgoing President George W. Bush said there was no human freedom "more fundamental than the right to worship in accordance with one's conscience." According to Bush, the day celebrates "the first liberties enshrined in our Constitution's Bill of Rights, which guarantee the free exercise of religion for all Americans and prohibit an establishment of religion." "Our Nation was founded by people seeking haven from religious persecution, and the religious liberty they found here remains one of this land's greatest blessings," added Bush. "Though we may profess different creeds and worship in different manners and places, we respect each other's humanity and expression of faith."

In comes Jerry Rutherford, a Southwest Florida man and president of World Changers. For the past two years Jerry has been distributing free Bibles to high school students on Religious Freedom Day. In November, he routinely submitted his request to set up tables offering free Bibles to district students on Religious Freedom Day.

This year, Jerry was turned down by the district's superintendent. Jerry then appeared before the Collier County School Board on Thursday to ask for a reversal of the decision but received the same response.

"This rejection is a slap in the face," said Rutherford, according to Naples News. "The decision to deny access to community groups that are religious in nature is censorship and bias."

During the meeting with the district board, Rutherford cited the 1998 decision by a federal appeals court in Peck vs. The Upshur County School Board. The case upheld a West Virginia school district’s right to give out any outside materials both religious and non-religious in a passive manner one day a year. The Orlando-based Liberty Counsel also sent a letter on behalf of Rutherford to the board asking for the reversal of the decision. The Christian legal group had even offered to litigate the district’s position for free.

But the board said it would stand behind the decision made by Thompson.

Rutherford says it's unconstitutional that he has been barred from passing out Bibles when the district allows other community groups, like the military, to distribute literature to students.

"We're losing our religious freedoms and that is very scary to me," he said, according to WINK News.

Are we, in fact, losing our religious freedoms? I mean, we can't even seem to get religious freedom on a day that was designated to give us that religious freedom?!

Did you know that when my husband and I last visited the bookstore, Borders, that they had absolutely zero copies of any books that have anything to do with the Constitution?? Seriously - we asked. I have a feeling that it might be because so many people are currently trying to rewrite the Constitution and ignore what it really says. Does anyone out there really know what is written in the Constitution anyway (without googling)?

Ignoring the Constitution is the same to me as someone who picks and chooses which parts of the Bible will apply to them and which parts they feel they can't and won't apply to their life. There were 10 commandments - not 7. Ya know? The Constitution was written to be the foundation of our country - just as the Bible is to our faith. Despite how liberal or conservative you are, you have to respect that this country was founded on beliefs that God exists. "In God We Trust," right? I'm not saying that everyone who lives in our country should be forced to believe in God, but I don't think it's the right time to go rewriting the Constitution because you don't personally want a free Bible.

"If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag."
-Author Unknown