I'm always amused when the Religious Reich compares itself to the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. They scream about how this nation was founded by Christians, for Christians, and of Christians. The Bill of Rights is secondary to this all-important fact, and even if it wasn't, they never would have been able to forsee such blasphemies as feminism, Wicca, and a media that has the annoying habit of catching them with their pants around their ankles.

Well, it's interesting to note that most of the states would not ratify the Constitution until those freedoms were assured. It's interesting to note that a large part of the financing came from Jewish backers. And it's very interesting to note that the founders weren't a bunch of politicians fighting for the status quo at the expense of the people they governed; they were strong men who were tired of being pushed around and told how to live by people whose lives were completely disconnected from their own.

And certainly they couldn't forsee the changes. But they were wise enough to know that their goverment would have to be able to change with the times, be open to new ideas. That's why they incorporated the bit about the amendments. And if the Religious Reich think that the country shouldn't allow for people like me, then they're welcome to try to get such an amendment through the process. They'll fail.

The Founding Fathers themselves are irrelevant, anyway. Their world has been gone for two hundred years! Does the Reich want a return to that world? Do they think it will be an improvement? Our Founding Fathers were great men. But they weren't Gods. They owned slaves. They grew hemp. They had illegitimate children. Even if the Reich could somehow bring them back today, it wouldn't be the same.

Times have changed; whether for the better or for the worse is irrelevant. We now know that our leaders are human, not some supreme fairy tale stock so delicate that they can feel a pea under thirty mattresses, so righteous that the Gods change the world to suit their needs, so wise that their word is never questioned. Those times are gone, and they won't come back. They can't.

The world is different now. The newspapers, the television cameras, the internet-- in short, the free flow of ideas-- these are things that have changed the face of the world. People have seen who our leaders, political and religious, are with their campaign scandals, sexual dalliances, and hypocrisy. We've seen them as humans, and the heavenly throne they claim to grace is something in which we can no longer see them. We don't condemn them, we don't judge them, but we don't let them tell us how to think anymore.

© 1999 by Cather "Catalyst" Steincamp