BE IT RESOLVED, as citizens of the United States of America:

We will uphold the Constitution for the United States of America, as drafted by the Founding Fathers and subsequently amended, as the supreme law of the land;

We will uphold Article 6., Section 3., of the Constitution which declares that all "Senators and Representatives" who compose the national Congress of the United States of America, "and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution" and that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States";

We will uphold the religion clauses of the First Amendment which declare that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof";

We will uphold the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment which applied First Amendment restrictions and liberties to all states and citizens of the United States;

We will further uphold the declaration in the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty which states that "no man shall be compelled to support any worship, place, or ministry whatsoever";

We will further uphold the understanding, as written in 1811 by the acknowledged "Father of the Constitution," that the Constitution is the "rightful authority to which governments are limited by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions" and that "the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies" is contrary to the Constitution (Writings of James Madison, 8:132-133);

We will further uphold the principle and warning, as stated by Founding Father James Madison, that "strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by ecclesiastical bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history" ("Detached Memoranda," William and Mary Quarterly, 1946, 3:555); and

We will indeed uphold the proposition that America is a nation based upon the principle of written law wherein "the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions" (President Thomas Jefferson, January 1, 1802), and that, in accordance with the acknowledged laws of the land, people of all religious faiths, or none, are welcome to participate in its social and political functions.

Copyright 2000 Gene Garman