Todd Starnes has declared war on America, just as Osama bin Laden did, and for much the same reasons.

“There may be a war on religious liberty, but the true target is Christianity,” he claims. “We need patriots who will take back this land. We need patriots who will say we are still one nation under God.  … The winds of revolution are blowing …”

What he means is the establishment of a Christian dictatorship in America.

To justify that revolution, Starnes invents (by mischaracterization) incidents of hostility toward Christianity. He declares wrongly, “Our Founding Fathers considered religious liberty our first freedom, and the bedrock upon which all other freedoms rest.”

Starnes may have arrived on that thought based on the First Amendment. The First Amendment was the third amendment submitted to Congress by James Madison in 1789. Only because of the defeat of the first two did it become “our first freedom.” Those who gave it great weight thought of it as the freedom of conscience (the right to think as one pleases).

Somehow, Starnes elevates 600 incidents over years out of millions of religious events and activities every day into a war on Christianity.

Religion, particularly Christianity, has had a profound effect on America and its history. No one needs to rewrite it, lie about it, or mischaracterize it. We have nothing to take back.

Every American can exercise their faith when and wherever they please as long as they do not interfere with another’s right to do the same.

Jon Albrecht, Dixfield