Dear Editor,
Will Haun's statement in his November 7th column that "history shows that Christian values are at the heart of America's founding fathers, documents, law and influences" is startlingly absurd. When thinking of the founding fathers, perhaps Haun forgot that George Washington was a Deist and actually refused to see a priest on his deathbed. I also find it odd that Haun uses Benjamin Franklin as an example, especially because in his own autobiography Franklin stated that he was "a thorough Deist". Another one of Haun's examples, James Adams, signed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, which states "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion". Most damning (pun intended), though, to Haun's idea that America is based on Christian values comes from a line in from Thomas Jefferson's autobiography (I have kept Jefferson's spelling in place for authenticity): "An amendment was proposed by inserting 'Jesus Christ,' so that [the preamble] should read 'A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion'; the insertion was rejected by a great majority".
Furthermore, Haun claims that "our systems of checks and balances is based on biblical references" yet he offers no proof. The longest standing government in the Bible, the Kingdom of Israel, was a monarchy.
While Haun is correct that Moses appears in a mural in the House of Representatives, he fails to mention that he is there along with several secular leaders, such as Napoleon and the Roman jurist Papinian. Are they examples of the Jesuit Christianity at the heart of America?
Also, the Connecticut Constitution of which Haun speaks was not in any sense a "document leading up to our Constitution" as Haun says. Rather, it was written in 1639, a good century and a half before the real Constitution and was used for less than thirty years. In actuality, the documents leading to the Constitution were those of Montesquieu and John Locke.
Haun's shock that the Supreme Court would make a decision with no precedents also comes as a surprise. Should Miranda be thrown out, merely because it had no precedent? Regardless, Haun incorrectly interprets Engel v.Vitale (which was actually decided in 1962). The court did not rule that students are forbidden to pray on their own; the justices merely said that government officials had no business composing a prayer for students to recite, which is what they were doing.
ÿI also fail to see what John Winthrop has to do with American tradition. Winthrop was around one hundred and fifty years before the Constitution came about, and his words, while pretty, had no influence on any members of the Constitutional Congress.
Apparently, Will Haun has spent so much time imagining up history that he has forgotten the Ninth Commandment- thou shalt not lie.
David Grossman SPA, 2009
