Don Wildmon

AFA/AFR founder

 Dr. Wildmon gave the following comments at a rally for Judge Roy Moore, the Alabama jurist who refused to remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom.

June 1997 – We gather today to continue the eternal struggle for religious freedom. Since the beginning of time there have been those who have sought to deny others religious freedom. Sometimes they carry the title King and sit on a throne. Sometimes they carry the title Dictator and rule with gums. Sometimes the carry the title Clergy and stand behind a pulpit. sometimes they carry the title Judge and wear black robes. But they have always been there, and will always be there.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there of …” Our forefathers put that first in the amendments because they knew – from experience – that governments have always sought to establish a religion, and to prohibit the free exercise thereof. Out government is no different.

Government did not give us religious freedom, God did. But government has continually tried to take it away. Those who file over us are jealous of Him Who rules within us.

Our struggle today is not about the posting of the Ten Commandments on the wall of a courtroom of the right to pray in that courtroom. We struggle today to determine whether we will allow a handful of individuals who wear black robes – the new Pharaohs, the new Kings, the new Caesars – to strip us of our God-given freedom.

There are those who fear the awesome power of God when it is turned loose in the marketplace of ideas. So they seek to constrain us, deny us, subdue us. It shall not be. Let those who seek to deny use our rights understand: You did not give us our religious freedom. We will not let you take it away. Those of us who worship the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have the same rights as those who worship the gods of Wicca, Sophia, or secular humanism.

Those who went before us paid an awful price  sometimes even life itself – to secure and protect this freedom. Should we do less> Like Moses in the wilderness, let us not lose the will to fight, no matter how long or how difficult our struggle.

So I say to Judge Moore, keep the faith. I say to Governor James, keep the faith. And I say to all of you, keep the faith, For the slide of those who come after us, let us keep the faith and pay the price so that religious freedom may once again reign in the courtrooms and classrooms across this country.

And to all who yearn for religious freedom, let us remember that our greatest foe is contentment, our greatest danger is neglect, our greatest enemy is apathy.

Let us work to elect men and women who share this yearning for religious freedom. Let us work to keep this “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

We must never forget, nor let others forget, that that includes those of us who have faith in the
transcendent God.