Reminder about first amendment rights

The purpose of this letter to the editor is to clarify several points about our rights under the constitution. The First Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

What does this mean? England has a church religion, the Church of England. The United States does not allow for such a state faith. This law, however, has been interpreted by some as the “freedom from religion,” or the separation of church and state.

Recently, our current President spoke from the pulpit of a church on a Sunday morning. He did nothing wrong or unconstitutional. And yet, we often hear from some churches fear losing their tax exemption if they allow politics to be heard from the pulpit. Apparently, this concept is applied only to conservative politics. Liberals use faith communities to spread their messages all of the time without fear that those church could lose their tax exemption.

The First Amendment also states we have “the right of of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” During the pandemic demonstrations were allowed, but not the free exercise of religion.” Churches were closed for fear of the spread of a disease. Sounds right, and yet, demonstrations were not closed down.

I find it interesting there has never been a study around the spread of the virus through the many demonstrations we had during that time. No one should go to church sick, but I submit, churches should never be closed because of the dangers of spreading a virus. It wasn’t about the spread of a disease. These closures were more about controlling people than saving us from disease.

We have a constitutional right to exercise our faith. Of course, health concerns should be taken into account, but these concerns should never prevent the free exercise of our faith.

The First Amendment tells us there can be no law “abridging the freedom of speech.” And yet, some of our local institutions are claiming they can rule out civil, political or religious discussions in their buildings. Their claim is that they can lose their tax exemption or Federal funding if they were to allow the freedom of speech. I agree these institutions should not sponsor a specific point of view, but have no constitutional right to hinder the free expression of those who enter their doors. Administrators who attempt to control speech this way do not understand the First Amendment.

There are those who would control the freedom of speech by calling what some say as “miss-information.” The best way to to deal with what some believe as false information is not to control speech, but add more of their own speech clarifying what they believe to be the truth. They can present their own arguments to clarify why they disagree, but they should not have right to stop it.

Too often people base their thinking on emotive thinking instead of logical thinking. They get angry without giving it a logical thought, first.

If you don’t like what someone is saying respond in a civil manner with a good logical response. If you don’t want to hear what someone is saying walk away, don’t listen, or avoid that person. You don’t have the constitutional right to shut them down any more than they have the right to shut you up.

The United States is not a perfect place. It never was, and never will be. I do believe, however, we are a work in progress. I believe we have a more perfect republic than it was in 1776, and I pray, we will be an even more perfect republic in the future.

Chuck Cooper,

an American citizen