The Wilkes County Board of Commissioners has taken a stand supporting the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings. For this they are to be commended. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has indicated that they may take legal action to have the plaques removed. This is just one more chapter in the ACLU’s “no good deed ever goes unpunished” book. According to a recent letter from the ACLU to the Wilkes county attorney, the ACLU contends that the government’s display of the scriptures runs amok of the U. S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Does the ACLU know what the First Amendment really says? It states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

   The county commissioners have established no religion. They are not prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. The commissioners have only agreed to display Bible verses in the courtrooms, commissioners’ meeting room, and public schools. Has the ACLU forgotten that when this nation’s public schools were founded, they were established for the purpose of teaching children to read the Bible?

   The Bible was, in a sense, the first public school textbook. And now, we can’t even have ten verses displayed in school without threat of a lawsuit. No Hindu, no Muslim, no Buddhist, no follower of any religion, should feel intimidated by a public display of the passages from the Holy Book upon which this free and democratic nation was founded. America’s birth papers guarantee inalienable rights to religious dissenters of all hues. However, these same papers do not advocate neglecting the power and majesty, fear and respect accorded to the one true God. Freedom of worship and the practice of Christianity are not mutually exclusive in a democratic society. The separation of church and state is a myth.

   America’s founders never meant church and state to be separated; they only intended that the two should function without one dictating to the other. The phrase 'separation od church and state" does not even appear in our constitution notes David Barton, the author of The Myth of Separation. It is found, he discovered, in another prominent document: the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. Article 52 reads: "The church in the USSR is separated from the state, and the school from the church."

If the ACLU must engage in a lawsuit, Wilkes County is as fine a place as any. We have lawyers, too, and I can think of no better way to utilize their talents than in an impassioned defense of our right to publicly display Bible verses. The county should not shrink from such a lawsuit, but view it as an opportunity to stand tall and do the right thing. “If God is for us, who then can be against us?” (Romans 8:31) It is my hope and belief that the commissioners will stand tall and the people will stand united, one county under God.