MY TURN: CLN does NOT violate First Amendment

Over the last few weeks, Michelle Lippert (“My Turn” on Nov. 7), Cecil Kelly (Oct. 2 letter to the editor), and Richard Cripe (Oct. 23 letter to the editor), have offered their opinions regarding the library board, what it is doing and why. I’d like to respond.

Let’s first clarify some definitions: (If you have a question here, check your Webster’s dictionary.)

To ban: to legally prohibit. To ban is not merely to remove a book from a library; it’s an action by a legal entity to remove a book from publication and distribution. Libraries and library boards do not have this power.

Censorship: an official empowerment to forbid publication, circulation or representation if said work contains anything objectionable.

The library board does not have legal prohibition powers; the government does. Therefore, the library board by definition can ban nothing nor forbid the publication of anything. A government banning or censoring would be for the entire country, not merely a single county. The library board can choose not to purchase books, and this is not banning. It is wisely spending our tax money on books that it has chosen to put into our libraries. Simply because a book is published does not mean that a library board must purchase it. The board has formed its discretionary policy.

I agree with Mr. Kelly that book choice is a personal choice. But I don’t agree that we taxpayers should have to pay for his choices. Feel free to buy your own books — there’s no ban on them — and stop asking us to fund books contrary to the board’s policy. Some of us wish to protect our children from the type of books that you are demanding to be placed in our libraries in children’s areas! Furthermore, this board is not removing the books from the libraries; it is moving them so minors cannot access them.

Ms. Lippert brought up the First Amendment and quoted it. It says that Congress cannot establish a religion nor prevent a person’s free exercise of religion. She calls this separation of church and state and says, as an explanation as to where this terminology came from, that the courts later established this.

Here is the actual history of the establishment clause and where separation of church and state in our country came from: The founders of our country came here for religious freedom. They did not want the government to mandate a state church that all must attend or at least pay taxes to. England’s Church of England is a prime example of this. In 1801 the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote back that there would not be the establishment of a church on a national level. The phrase “wall of separation between church and state” is in this letter and is later called the Establishment Clause, which is the term that is used today, which we now term “separation of church and state.” This is not about interjecting religion into state affairs; it prohibits the government from establishing a national religion.

Ms. Lippert stated, “the United States was not founded as a Christian nation.” And she went on to try to prove her point. Yet John Adams stated the following: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

I would suggest that Ms. Lippert do some further research as to what led to the American Revolution. The Black-Robed Regiment was instrumental in our even having a revolution. The English gave this name to the courageous and patriotic American clergy in reference to the black robes that they wore when preaching, and they blamed this regiment for leading to American independence. The list of these members includes preachers from Massachusetts to Georgia, with a wide variety of types of churches. For more than 20 years before 1776, these preachers’ sermon topics included every single right that is listed in the Declaration of Independence. Our very Declaration was preached from the pulpits first! John Adams declared, “the pulpits have thundered!”

Almost half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence either had seminary training or a seminary degree. John Adams claimed that the Revolution “connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” When the Declaration of Independence was passed, Sam Adams, his cousin, stated that this was the day the colonists “restored the Sovereign to Whom alone men ought to be obedient.”

By the way, do you know the battle cry of the soldiers of the American Revolution? It is this: “We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King but Jesus.”

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Lynne Pursel is a Post Falls resident.