To the Editor:
On Friday, June 8, Fairfield was one of 164 towns and cities across the country that held rallies for religious freedom. There has been some media coverage on these events, but usually under the terms of “health” or “contraception mandate,” referring to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contraception mandate. The true reality is of the greatest assault against the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in the Bill of Rights.
This bill protects churches against the government “prohibiting the free exercise of religion,” etc.
For the first time, U.S. churches are being moved to civil disobedience, under threat of severe penalties and in violation of their deeply held beliefs and teachings.
Citizens must not be complacent or take for granted our precious religious liberties and freedoms we have enjoyed for over 235 years, lest we forget Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and other brutal dictators of past and present. Our democratic way of life is lost to secularism and socialism, communism under other guises and terms.
We must exercise our privilege and responsibility to vote our informed conscience or our country will fall from “a nation under God with liberty and justice for all” to government rule and coercion, not government “by, of, and for the people” but the people for the government, for the state. Our fundamental freedoms come from God and not from government.
Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s.
Mary LaFrancis
Fairfield
