by Alyx Grayson

Created on: August 15, 2007   Last Updated: February 28, 2009

America was founded by many people of different faiths and personal beliefs. They understood what it was to be oppressed. In their native countries they were the minority and they were driven out. But when they founded this country, they believed in essential liberties. They believed in freedom of the press, because they felt like a government or a people who would keep secrets or avoid commentary were despotic.

Many of the original founders of the nation were Christians, but they allowed their faith to stand on its own two feet and devoted their nation to democracy. This country offers no official religion. The terms 'Under God" notwithstanding, the United States is a Christian nation and a Islamic nation and a Judaic nation and a pagan nation. In the United States of America, all religions are allowed freedom of expression.

They believed in freedom of speech, because you should have the right to shout at the top of your lungs, something someone else would willingly shout down. You should never be put in prison for saying things like the King is an idiot or the President acts like an uneducated jerk. They did not believe it was treason to speak your mind.

They believed in freedom of religion, because freedom means the ability to worship and to conduct your faith as you see fit. Religious doctrine is by its very nature dictatorial and if you choose that for yourself, then you are free to do so. But religious persecution is one form of madness. Think for a moment, to the time of Adolf Hitler.

They rounded up the homeless and they were expelled.

They rounded up the gypsies and they were expelled.

They rounded up the Jews and they were expelled.

Anything that was different, anything that did not match the ideal of Nazi Germany was expelled, exterminated and destroyed. In our country, we know that that is wrong. We know that it is heinous and it is evil. Why do we know this? Our religion here, the foundation of all religion in this country, is the freedom to practice it and be who we are. In some ways, it is probably one of the most Christian things that our founding fathers delivered to us the freedom to be who we are.

The United States of America embraces that which is different. While racial, religious and cultural differences still exist, the nation's promise of hope and freedom is greater than that of hatred, ignorance and intolerance.

We need to maintain vigilance over that freedom so that we never, ever give it away.

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