THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610250041
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 29 lines
A. P. Roosendaal's Oct. 4 letter, ``Voters should remember that the court is supreme,'' touched a lot of bases. I'd like to respond to the areas dealing with secular humanism's relationship to religion. Secular humanists, first of all, don't hate religion. In fact, one of the most important tenets of this philosophy is that all humans are not only entitled but responsible to make up their own minds, individually, about everything.
In his recent book, Why the Religious Right is Wrong, Robert Boston devotes a 17-page chapter, titled ``Free Exercise,'' to a review of Supreme Court decisions regarding free exercises of religion in the U.S. since 1879. Most of the cases dealt with minority religions, and the courts defended the rights of the religionists in most cases, the Religious Right's contrary rhetoric notwithstanding.
As for Mr. Roosendaal's resentment over ``Clinton's justices''' tirade against ``any role of religion in any public institution'' - it has no role under our Constitution. And the case of the use of public funds for the propagation of religious doctrines, no matter whose, is as clear a case of the violation of the ``provision'' clause of the First Amendment as anyone could ask for.
RONALD L. CHANDLER
Norfolk, Oct. 8, 1996 by CNB