Menorah Madness

In response to Sheila Link’s letter “printed under Menorah Madness” in the Press Enterprise, I would take exception that to her statement that the United States of America is a “Christian Country”.

As I can recall from a long ago civics class, this countries first non Indian inhabitants were either people from England who were trying to escape persecution for practicing their religion, or Spanish explorers who enslaved the native Indians and forced Christianity upon them.

The USA was founded on the principle that religion was a private matter and not the function of the government to either promote or reject. The same philosophy also applies to all public entities. If a church or an individual wants to display Christian symbols on their private property, that is acceptable but, a public agency does not have the right to display them on public property. If a public entity wants to display seasonal symbols, at the very least it has an obligation to display the symbols of all religious groups that want to contribute to the display.