Editor, Times-Union: The following is the brief explanation of my Nov. 23 letter to the editor on the subject of church and state and a proposed constitutional amendment concerning the religious liberty and establishment clauses in the first amendment. Before I start I would like to correct a printing error that the Times-Union made in my Nov. 23 letter to the editor in the third paragraph of that letter. It should read the following: Nor shall such aforementioned entities subject the people domestic or foreign to such horrendous and oppressive acts as extermination or persecution because of one’s beliefs or the lack thereof and not extermination or perfection as was printed in the Times-Union. First Part of the Proposed Amendment Neither Congress, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, the president and his or her Cabinet, the federal bureaucracies, nor the executive, legislative, judicial, or bureaucratic branches of government of the various states, counties, localities, and territories of the Union; nor majorities of participating American voters in elections or referendums; nor a foreign faction, foreign power, foreign alliance, and international or transnational authority shall prohibit or infringe upon during peacetime or war. The first part of my proposed amendment printed above clearly spells out who is restricted from prohibiting or infringing upon the peaceful, voluntary and open expression of religion or irreligion, which are all four branches of government executive, legislative, judicial, and bureaucratic whether at the local, state and federal levels, along with majorities of participating voters in elections, foreign powers and international organizations. This first part, along with the rest of the proposed amendment, has the effect of maintaining a true mosaic of natural religious liberty and diversity that best represents America. It also keeps socialist-style intervention into and absorption of the free market of religious activity at bay. It would also end any possible piece-meal or wholesale attempts at establishing compulsory unity of religious belief and practice in public and private for a given population in the communities and states across our country and the national at large. The first part of this proposed amendment can also be used for protecting other freedoms found in the Bill of Rights by ensuring that the first amendment and other rights are not trumped by international law, courts or treaties; interfered with by foreign powers and alliances; obliterated by a Leviathan federal government; eviscerated or perforated by a Lilliputian swarm of municipalities and states. Nor would it allow that clause in the first amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights to be chained to the outcome of thumbs up or thumbs down votes by the shifting sands of partisan factions at the polls. The reminder of my explanation of this amendment will follow at a later date. Alexander Houze Leesburg
