Not What Jefferson Had in Mind

This story is not directly Virginia related, but all Christians and all freedom loving people everywhere should be concerned about the growing repression of free speech, particularly directed against Christians right here in the United States. This is not what Jefferson had in mind when he penned the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, stating that "Almighty God hath created the mind free."

This particular instance, one of the worst that has come to my attention, occurred in Philadelphia in October, where 4 protestors at a gay pride event are being charged with ethnic intimidation, criminal conspiracy, and riot for essentially reading the Bible in public. Charges against seven others arrested with them were dropped simply for the reason that the other seven could not be seen reading Scripture in a videotape of the incident. A link to the video can be found here at the bottom of the press release.

Interestingly enough, we see here the actual reading of the Scripture targeted, not even necessarily anti-homosexual opinion. It demonstrates the real goal of the homosexual agenda, which is complete suppression of Christian dissidence against their movement and eventually the affirmation of their lifestyle. They will not be satisfied with an open marketplace of ideas in which they can still be criticized. They will only feel secure when every voice that rises up against them has been quieted.

Jefferson's companion in the quest for religious freedom in Virginia, James Madison, wrote that the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom "extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind." I fear that our nation has lost sight of their vision, and the costs may be more than we can bear.