I read the guest editorial of Oct. 20 by Sunny Fry (“John Doe God”), and I felt a need to respond because she clearly and correctly describes a subject that affects everyone, believer and unbeliever, and that is government interference in the constitutionally protected religious right of every person to pray or even not to pray according to their individual beliefs. There is no time in a public forum or by law whether local, state, or federal, wherein the government should in any way interfere or try to coerce individuals into a religious function, prayer or otherwise, to which they may be individually opposed, and for this I credit Ms. Fry and her editorial column.
This gets even worse when the federal government directly violates the constitutional religious freedom of an individual group of believers, in this case, the Catholic Church by passing and intending to enforce a law that directly contradicts the religious beliefs and freedom of the Catholic Church. When this is allowed to occur as it has under Obamacare, not only Catholics but the religious freedom of all Christians and/or other religions is obstructed and denied since to deny the consitutional religious freedom of one is to deny the relgious freedom of all.
If this is allowed to occur, then the constitutional freedom of every citizen is no longer protected at any level, for this then allows any government – local, state, or national – to dictate to the people what rights they may or may not have. When this happens, we are no longer a free people but subject to the whims of any group who may have power to determine our way of life. On this subject, Ms. Fry, a Methodist, and I, a Catholic, are in definite agreement.
The writer lives in Calabash, N.C.
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