Letters to the Editor: America is losing its religion. Louisiana shows the backlash is underway
To the editor: How could our democracy’s venerable church-state wall lately have come under constant attack? (“Supreme Court should not approve Louisiana’s provocative Ten Commandments law,†editorial, June 25)
Even we agnostics would concede that “God knows why.†Christian conservatives fear the steadily growing percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans. If recent trends hold, the unaffiliated will outnumber Christians within the next 20 years.
This prospect doubtless has alarmed the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative Christian justices. Hence they welcome all manner of supposed religious-liberty cases, the better to foster religious proselytizing, however subtle or overt, from school grounds to statehouses.
It’s a desperate gambit aimed at preserving American Christians’ shrinking majority — not to mention their disproportionate political (and judicial) influence.
Alas, the torrent of faith-indulgent rulings likely won’t abate anytime soon. Never mind how constitutionally sinful it is to favor theocracy over democracy.
Gary Dolgin, Santa Monica
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To the editor: It would seem that the same conservatives who do not want to have our children feel any guilt about the past treatment of African Americans and thus have banned critical race theory from classrooms now want the Ten Commandments displayed in those classrooms.
How many of us have clandestinely taken a cookie from the cookie jar, held Taylor Swift as an idol or worked on Sunday (or is it Saturday?).
We should constantly remind our children of those sins, but not the sins of our racist past?
Larry Harmell, Granada Hills
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To the editor: Educators in Louisiana who have an issue with the new Ten Commandments law should post them in a prominent place in their classrooms — but upside down, as a signal of distress.
Dan Proctor, Northridge
