BY SHARON MARTIN
Our governor denied more than 100,000 poor Oklahomans access to preventive healthcare just to make a political point. She refused to meet the president of the United States when he visited Oklahoma … to make a point. Now, she’s putting a nativity on the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion.
We’re not fooled one bit by your political showmanship, Gov. Fallin. Holy is as holy does.
I have no problem at all with nativities. I welcome the menorah. I’m OK, too, with a giant head wearing a spaghetti strainer. Our Constitution guarantees the free expression of one’s religion so long as it does no harm.
But I have a real problem when any of these things are erected on state property, and I consider dangerous a group that seeks to provoke by placing a nativity on every state Capitol lawn.
Kathie Jackson, Nativity Committee of Tulsa, says she is just practicing freedom of speech. No. Saying “Merry Christmas” to all you meet is freedom of speech. Forcing the display of one’s private belief on property owned by all the citizens of the state is a form of bullying.
Mary Fallin is an accomplice to the crime.
If you study history, you know that many of the rebels who are responsible for the creation of the United States of America were adamant that people of all faiths, or of no faith at all, be welcome here.
Benjamin Franklin wanted a representative of every religion in Philadelphia – including both Jews and Muslims – to be part of his funeral procession. Thomas Jefferson considered the “wall of separation between Church & State” to be one of his signature achievements.
The idea that Christians are better off if Christianity becomes the state religion is as false as Gov. Fallin’s piety. Christians will lose as much as anyone else if the government gets to decide what one is to believe and how one is to worship.
As for the governor’s piety, an annual food drive won’t make up for all the harm her policies inflict on the most vulnerable in this state.
– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
So well said. Concise and to the point but covers all. Thanks, Thanks.