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Billy Long of Mobile, Ala., kneels in prayer yesterday as the group behind him expresses support for the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judiciary Building. Long is part of a caravan headed for Washington.
Rally participants raise their hands and bow their heads as the Rev. Adlai Mack of San Diego, Calif., offers the opening prayer during yesterday's Ten Commandments caravan stop in Fredericksburg. |
Alan Lester came all the way from Muskogee, Okla., to Fredericksburg to show how much he believes the country needs God's presence everywhere, including public buildings.
Ken Michel came from Spotsylvania County to show how much he thinks religious expression has no place in government buildings.
Worlds apart in ideology, the two men stood perhaps fifty feet apart during a peaceful but passion-filled rally yesterday near the Mary Washington Monument.
About 200 people turned out for the demonstration, part of a multistate rally to raise support for public postings of the Ten Commandments.
On a federal judge's orders, a Ten Commandments monument recently was removed from the Alabama Judiciary Building.
To Michel, it was a sage decision that rightly separated church from state. To Lester, it was an affront to the nation's Christian majority.
"The whole basis of our government was founded on that [Christian] God," said Lester, who slept in the back of a pickup truck on the drive up because he didn't have money for a hotel room. "Don't push Jesus aside."
But not everyone is Christian, and Michel, of Spotsylvania, said government can't promote one religion over another.
"The founders of the country were quite aware of what state-sponsored religion would do to minority beliefs," Michel said. "The government's responsibility is to stay neutral with regards to religion."
Michel stood with a small group of people who were glad to see the Ten Commandments monument removed from the Alabama courthouse.
But this was a rally for people who want the Ten Commandments posted in public places, so they were in the majority yesterday.
Hazel Townsend of Northport, Ala., rode a bus to Fredericksburg with people from the Christian Coalition of Alabama. The retired bookkeeper said she couldn't recall being part of a protest rally before. But this was too important to miss, she said.
"We're standing for what we think is right, and we're standing for God," Townsend said. "We want to keep teaching our children biblical principles because once we stop doing that, we're gone."
The country was founded on Christianity, she said, and added that people who believe differently should move away if they can't tolerate public displays of religion.
"Let them go back to where they came from, that's what I'd tell them," Townsend said.
The preachers and others who addressed the crowd also spoke of the country's Christian roots. But they talked about the Constitution as well.
The Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, a Fredericksburg resident who heads the Christian Defense Coalition, said the constitutional right to religious freedom includes the right to post the Ten Commandments in public places.
"We're encouraging Congress and the Supreme Court to promote and honor freedom of speech, particularly religious expression, in the public square," Mahoney said.
Larry Darby, Alabama director of American Atheists, takes a different view. He says the federal judge curtailed religious expression in a constitutionally permissible way--one that protects people from being subjected to views they don't share.
"Taking the monument out of the building does not prohibit the free exercise of religion," Darby said. "They're still free to practice their religion in their homes and houses of worship."
But for people like Lester, that isn't enough. Lester said God should be everywhere.
"What does the pledge say?" Lester said. "'One nation under God.' It does not say 'One nation under Buddha.' It does not say 'under Allah.' It says 'under God.'"
The "Keep the Commandments Caravan" is moving on to Washington, where a prayer rally is scheduled for 9 a.m. tomorrow in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
To reach JANET MARSHALL: 540/374-5527 jmarshall@freelancestar.com
