Editor, Times-Union: The following is my seventh letter in my series of letters on the various positions that one’s government can have on religious liberties. The previous six letters were printed in the Times-Union on March 23, 2011; April 6, 2011; May 9, 2011; July 15, 2011; Oct. 3, 2011; and Feb. 24 of this year. This letter will list part three of my explanation of the Libertarian Principle on Freedom of Religion which was printed on July 15.
Explanation - Part Three 6. “Acts of forced conversion” include either the direct approach of being coerced into swearing an oath or performing a ritual where one renounced their current faith and pledges allegiance to a new one. Or the indirect approaches of compulsory church attendance/non-attendance, mandatory funding of churches, coerced compliance to the tenets and decrees of a particular religion, etc. 7. “Acts of intrusion into the internal affairs of one’s congregation, denomination or faith,” unless one’s church is involved in some kind of criminal activity. There is no legitimate reason for government intervention into and the attempted micromanagement of matters of theology, church doctrine and the normal everyday activities of one’s church, denomination, or faith and the general public’s spiritual lives. 8. The “incremental or outright establishment of a universal state church/state religion or militant atheism” means the selection whether by law, decree, or actions of a particular religion or even militant atheism as the sole legitimate and legal religion of a country. Which is the only one that can be legally and must be openly practiced by all, while all others are prohibited from open open or even closed practice forcing them to go underground to be free from persecution. Such a system would also give a false sense of unity of religious belief or non-belief to the corruption of both institutions of church and state along with any real private or public morality. It would also aid in the establishment of authoritarian or totalitarian tyranny by the government in other areas of society by conditioning the general public to the so-called necessity of such measures in those areas. Finally, such a regime’s stated goal of having only one religious belief system and ending all others would be as successful as America’s prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, except this time it would involve the attempted prohibition and active suppression of matters of conscience best left to individuals and their voluntary associations with others in practices of religious belief or non-belief. My next letter in this series will include a proposed constitutional amendment about religious liberty that can also be used as a model for other rights and the remainder of my recommended reading list on this subject. Alexander Houze Leesburg
