Dear Leaders of The Interfaith Alliance:

You deplore incivility, but fail to recognize that it is prevalent in our society, because the U.S. Supreme Court (and ACLU) have said it is "protected" by the First Amendment. Name- calling, vituperation, hate mongering and hate marches (remember Skokie?)  -- all this is "protected."  And being thus protected it is implicitly fostered.

How can one reasonably condemn public conduct that our high court supports on allegedly Constitutional grounds?  There is something wrong here.

You insist there must be "better ways to talk WITH and ABOUT each other."  You fail to realize that these ways have long been prescribed and followed in our nation's history, i.e., parliamentary deliberative discourse.

In truth, the speech that is absolutely free is orderly face-to-face civil discussion.  Ardent free speech champion Alexander Meiklejohn said so, again and again, some 50 years ago.  He said this process can and should be enlarged.

What is there to prevent Interfaith Alliance leaders from inviting Pat Robertson to meet person-to-person in order to at least achieve agreement as to what specifically is at issue, realizing that both parties are sincerely seeking what's best for the nation?  You can thus exemplify civility.

The First Amendment does not say Congress shall make no law respecting religion; it says Congress shall make no law respecting AN ESTABLISHMENT of religion.  And it says Congress shall make no law prohibiting the FREE EXERCISE of religion, meaning it can make multitudinous laws promoting such free exercise.  Religion, both the profession and practice, are individualistic things.  Each citizen must be free from coercion or imposition by state authorities in his or her search for spiritual meaning.

And speaking of civility, you might occasionally consider responding to the thoughts and suggestions of those from whom you continuously seek monetary donations.  The word speech did not mean one-way expression in colonial times.  It meant conversation.  It meant intercommunication between people, not mere message sending.  Look it up.  See also Gen 11:1, Psalms 19:3, and Ezek 3:5.

 Respectfully,
 Louis Worth Jones
 
 

1999