Atheists Have Picked The Wrong Fight At The Wrong Time

January 19, 2005

The election is long over. The votes have been tallied. The people have spoken. Even so, the left still doesn't get it. They continue to attack President Bush, as if the majority of the people are not behind him. Apparently oblivious to the fact that they're in the minority; they've now begun an assault on his faith. Despite America's ideological divide, there's one thing the president shares with the American people: his belief in God.

 

A Harris poll in 2003 found that 90 percent of Americans believe in God. A Newsweek poll conducted late last year found that 82 percent of us believe Jesus was the Son of God. Politics aside, the vast majority of Americans are in agreement with President Bush when it comes to religion. Yet, the atheists are pursuing the president's faith with a vengeance.

 

Michael Newdow, the knucklehead who sued on behalf of his Christian daughter to have “under God” removed from the Pledge, launched another salvo against religion just prior to the Inauguration. He maintained that saying a prayer at the ceremony was unconstitutional. Somehow Newdow was damaged by the prayer, he claimed. Thankfully, the judge threw his case out, citing a presidential precedent for inclusion of religion in Inaugural ceremonies dating back to George Washington.

 

Then President Bush had the gall to profess his faith in a Washington Times interview. “The greatest freedom we have - or one of the greatest freedoms - is the right to worship the way you see fit,” Bush told the Times. “And on the other hand, I don't see how you can be president - at least from my perspective, how you can be president - without a relationship with the Lord.” The atheists went berserk.

 

“He just doesn't get it," said Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, “and he seems to ignore the fact that in our Constitution we do not have a religious test for those seeking public office.” No, you don't get it, Ellen. He was merely stating his opinion. “He does not respect the diversity of the country,” she whined.

 

You see, the politically correct are all about diversity except when it comes to diversity of opinion.

 

Then she said something quite remarkable. “We have freedom of and freedom from religion,” she demanded. What? First of all, there is no such thing as a constitutional separation of church and state. It's nowhere in the Constitution. But we surely don't have freedom from religion. If Ms. Johnson thinks we have freedom from religion then I suppose she believes we have freedom from all of our other rights. Freedom from speech? Freedom from the press? Just because Ms. Johnson's hypersensitivity drives her to apoplectic seizures at the mere mention of God, that doesn't mean I don't have the right to voice my religious beliefs or write about them in this column.

 

The atheists are barking up the wrong political tree. Or, in this case, Bush. We may be divided on the war in Iraq. We may have a divergence of opinion on how to save Social Security. However, we speak in near unanimity when it comes to God. What Ellen Johnson, Michael Newdow and other atheists who stir up trouble don't understand is this country was founded on a firm religious foundation. No, we're not a theocracy. Nor are we an atheist oligarchy in which this malcontented rabble can foist their views on the rest of us. Here's a newsflash for Newdow and the folks at American Atheists. The majority has spoken on the issue of the election. The majority has also spoken on the issue of God. Get over it.