Don Wildmon
AFA/AFR founder
October 2003 – The issue isn’t a granite stone with the Ten Commandments inscribed on it. Never has been. The issue is much more diverse and important than a piece of stone.
The issue was best stated by none other than Federal Judge Myron Thompson, who said that a display of the stone containing the Ten Commandments and a host of other historical quotations is illegal. The disputed display was in the Alabama State Judicial Building. Thompson said the central, most important issue was this: “Can the state acknowledge God?” (See related story here.)
After asking the question, he went on to answer it: “No.”
That is the issue. Lest we fail to understand what has occurred here, let me explain. A single lower court federal judge has bluntly told every American that America is now officially an atheist nation.
In one swift stroke of the pen, Judge Thompson tossed out more than 225 years of American history and law. In one swift stroke of the pen, he has instituted a new form of law based on what he wants it to be. Rex has become lex – the king has become law. He wears a black robe and he says he is the law.
Go back and read the First Amendment, the one Judge Thompson destroyed in the name of preserving it. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” the First Amendment says. Congress has passed no law establishing religion. But what Congress refused to do, indeed, because Congress refused to do it, Judge Thompson did. He instituted as the law of the land the religion of atheism, which says there is no God.
Not only did Judge Thompson usurp the power of Congress, he also took away the rights of every individual and state. The second half of the establishment clause of the First Amendment reads: “…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
This is precisely what one lower federal judge has done. He told Americans who disagree with his official state religion of atheism that he can and will prohibit the free exercise of their religion – unless, of course, that religion is atheism. He stripped both Congress and the people of their rights. He set himself above the law because he considers himself to be the law.
From this day forward, our entire judicial system must be based on the religion of atheism. Follow that to its logical conclusion. In the future there will be no frame of reference from which to decide law. Law will become what any judge wearing a black robe and sitting in court desires it to be. The First Amendment has been ripped apart in the name of upholding it. Orwell’s 1984 has arrived.
No, you will not notice any drastic changes immediately. There is still a remnant of citizens who grasp the truth. But when that remnant dies out, those who come after us will see a big difference.
The state will become intolerant of any religion other than atheism. That, of course, will come into conflict with people of conscience whose religion differs from that of the state. That is when the persecution, quite legal I might add, will start. It was the atheist Santayana who said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote: “The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
Indeed, Santayana and Jefferson were right.