Those religionists again ....

The Director of Michigan Atheists is in a lather about a bill in Congress to designate the first week of May as "American Religious History Week."

This heinous resolution is designed to establish a Christian theocracy in America. It is preceded by seventy-five
whereas's, many of which overtly distort American history or are obvious lies. To get the full story please see
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:H.RES.888

This all sounded rather over-the-top, so I decided I did want to read those 75 "whereases" to get a proper perspective. As a result, here is the letter I am sending to the Honorable John D. Dingell, my representative in the House:

I have just read through H. RES. 888, establishing a religious history week, and there’s something a little strange about it. The stated goal is to “affirm the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day.” A laudable goal, but that word diverse seems dreadfully out of place here. You see, that interminable list of justifications preceding the resolution points solely at the Christian god and doesn’t include a single statement that reflects any but an evangelical Protestant’s point of view. Not one.

So I have to suspect one of two things: either this is yet another Trojan horse by the religious right to justify their claim to special status (contrary to Article VI), or the authors of this bill are just pig-ignorant of US History (three attempts to claim that Thomas Jefferson believed in mixing church and state? Oh my). Either way, I hope you will be too properly embarrassed by this tawdry scrap of nonsense to vote for it, unless it undergoes extensive revision so as to support a more honest description of America’s diverse religious history.

Scott Hanley
Ypsilanti, MI

Of course, I actually suspect both of those two things, although with religionists, it's so hard to tell when ignorance leaves off and sheer dishonesty takes over.