A thought for Easter

The United States is beset by horrendous problems, not least including a growing deficit and the misbegotten, tragic war in Iraq. The President and Congress need all the help they can muster from all Americans. It would be a worthy goal to try and bridge the great divide that separates us.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, worried that factions might engender conflicts within the new American Republic. One reason why he introduced the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which forbade lawmaking respecting an establishment of religion, was to avoid religious factionalism. Surely, we are on the brink of religious factionalism today; yet there is still time to appeal to the good sense of the American people and to turn back the prospect of religious warfare in the public square.

Paul Kurtz in Free Inquiry magazine