
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 26, 1993                   TAG: 9307290442
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RALPH C. WIEGANDT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T PROMOTE `TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY'

IN RESPONSE to Anne B. Kincaid's July 21 commentary, "Government and religion have to mix":

Hogwash! It appears that the Kentucky legislature has indulged in high-sounding, self-righteous rhetoric intended to distance and sanitize members of that body from the transgressions of their political colleagues. Lip service to ethical conduct and a cheap trick at best, which Kincaid has swallowed and is attempting to sell to the rest of us in support of her own ill-conceived notions of what religious freedom ought to be.

Religious freedoms are not that which suits Kincaid, the Kentucky legislature or even the majority of us, but rather "are of the natural rights of mankind."

To mix government and religion by legislative resolution, or by declaration suggesting that "we are a Christian commonwealth, state or nation," is to commit the terrible sin of separating us, as between "us and them," under a tyranny of the majority. Our political system embraces all religions by endorsing none.

Recall the tortured history of the founding of our nation, and look to the present-day strife, turmoil and suffering wreaked on the polarized Middle East to see the chaos wrought by the commingling of the affairs of religion and state.

If Christians presume ourselves and Christianity to be proprietary in affairs of state, we are diminished as Christians, and our democratic institutions become less so.

Religious belief and principles are matters of individuals' personal choice and conscience, which may and should be then delivered to the public forum. Please, no religion of state or state religion.

In the Virginia code, Section 57-1, "Act for religious freedom recited" authored by Thomas Jefferson, and Section 57-2, "Rights asserted therein reaffirmed," remain Virginia's law. I endorse them to be read by your readers.

Ralph C. Wiegandt of Fincastle is an attorney and chancellor of The Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia.

by CNB