| Ken Mercer and the other extremist members of the State Board of Education claim that the United States was established as a Christian nation and seek to bring down the wall of separation between church and state. This extremist cabal seems to have forgotten their history lessons regarding one of the primary reasons that many European colonists came to America. We all learned that the Pilgrims came here seeking to escape religious persecution.
The Founding Fathers were not so far removed from the European religious wars between Catholics and Protestant sects all over Europe that they could fail to understand the value of separating religion and the state. In the years 1553 to 1660 there was religiously inspired violence or war between Christian sects somewhere in Europe each year almost without exception.
Mary I, Queen of England (1553-1558), restored Catholicism and in the process had almost 300 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian Persecutions.
In France between 1562 and 1598, there were eight civil wars and other outbreaks of violence that were clearly motivated by religious differences.
The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), began in Bohemia when Ferdinand II became the king in 1617 over Protestant fears he would recatholicize it.
The English Civil War (1640-1660) involved various Protestant denominations and Catholics and included the beheading of Charles I in 1649.
Ken Mercer doesn't understand that separation of Church and State protects his freedom of religion and our children's, but our founders did. |
