Alan Keyes: Courts Perpetuate 'Separation' Lie -- and Americans Are Buying It
by Jody Brown and Allie Martin
April 6, 2004
(AgapePress) - Lawsuits and disputes over public display of God's law -- the Ten Commandments -- have been widespread across the country, complainants arguing that such displays on public property constitute endorsement of religion, a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- sometimes referred to as the issue of "separation of Church and State." Activist courts in America have demonstrated by their recent rulings a prevalent anti-Christian bias in such cases.Last fall, Judge Roy Moore was removed from his position as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court because he refused to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building. A federal judge has now dismissed a Christian broadcaster's lawsuit to have Moore reinstated as chief justice of the state. Broadcaster Kelly McGinley had claimed that her federal due process and voting rights were violated when the non-elected state Court of the Judiciary -- which had the final say in the Moore case -- removed Moore from office for ethics violations.
Meanwhile, a city council's decision in Duluth, Minnesota, to settle a lawsuit and remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property has divided the local faith community. A member of St. Edward the Confessor Episcopal Church says he is very concerned about the secularization of the country and is tired of all the victories of the American Civil Liberties Union. But the church's pastor says the monument needs to go, adding that she believes very strongly in the separation of church and state.
'Separation' Issue a Lie
Conservative spokesman and former ambassador Alan Keyes says most Americans are against controversial decisions coming from activist courts on issues of religious freedom, such as the Ten Commandments cases and inclusion of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Keyes, in an address to a Ten Commandments rally this weekend in Dallas, said the problem is that Americans have bought into a lie of the so-called "separation of Church and State."
"When are we going to get this through our heads?" Keyes asked. "For the last 40, and 50, and 60 years, the lawyers and the judges who have pretended that there is some reference to separation in the Constitution have lied to us -- and we must no longer act as the victims of this lie. It is by means of this lie that they have made our reverence for law the enemy of our reverence for God."
While some have argued that such judicial rulings constitute persecution of Christian believers -- and Keyes says persecution of Christians is indeed possible -- the founder of the Declaration Foundation says it is not the type of persecution spoken of in the Bible.
"Now I would say partly that we'd better prepare ourselves for that persecution, that we'd better go back to those parts of scripture where Christ makes it clear that this is part of our Christian vocation," Keyes said.
"But I also believe that we should not sit back and simply accept this fate as inevitable -- not when we know that this whole structure of persecution will be based upon a lie."
That lie, Keyes said, is the mythical "separation of Church and State."
Associated Press contributed to this story.
