I’m aware that this might be one of my least popular posts but, before you judge me remember that I am being pragmatic in my view on this and it hasn’t much to do with my personal belief system. Many of you may know that there is a controversial ceremony being held in Oklahoma City this September 21st. On the day in question, a well known Satanic group will be conducting a Black Mass in a public park. They have rented the space and sold tickets to their event which is completely sold out. When asked, the parks department sighted their first amendment rights and left it at that. This particular event is not much of a concern to me. It’s their right and they are staying within the law throughout their ritual. For example, in a portion of their ceremony that calls for the use of urine (ummm… totally gross!) they are substituting vinegar. Kind of like drinking grape juice at communion, only that wine is divine and urine is, well, peepee.

This is the same group that would like to use federal funds (maintenance) and space for their satanic statue. The idea of a goat headed man, no doubt, strikes fear in the hearts of good Christians everywhere. There is major outcry about this… It’s been cited as offensive and anti-American. Offensive, I get. I mean, being offended is subjective. What offends me may not offend you and vice versa. But anti-American? I don’t get that at all. Don’t we have freedom of religion here? Isn’t that part of what makes us great? You may say “but our founding fathers were Christian and built our country on Christian based values!” Actually, that is not correct. Most of our founding fathers were Deists and many of them believed the bible to be false.

So, if we are to allow Christian monuments on government funded properties then, do we not also have to allow Muslim, Buddhist and even Satanic groups their space as well? Or better yet, with the separation of church and state should we keep it all neutral? Why should we spend public monies on things that appeal only to a select group of Americans? Why do we justify that as ok? Because our founding fathers put “In God we trust” on the dollar? Wrong again, Benjamin Franklin was long gone by the time this was added. We didn’t put that on our money until the late 1800s. But we are “One Nation Under God!” it says so in our pledge of allegiance! Well, that’s a pretty new development as well. That wasn’t added until 1954.

See, these things are just words. They don’t dictate what we feel in our hearts or how we raise our children. We aren’t doomed if we are tolerant of the beliefs or non-beliefs of others. In fact, if we teach our children to be tolerant of the views of others and educate them to be firm in their own resolve, are we not doing better by them than we would be teaching them that ours is the only way? Who are we to decide that all others should conform to our standards. Is that not the real picture of anti-American?