RevBigfoot.com

The Community Issues Council, a group made up of one nutjob, promoting “Christian Citizenship Action in Tampa Bay,” recently teamed with a local businessman(sucker) who ponied up $50,000 to purchase billboards in the Tampa Bay area to publicly lobby for an American government the dynamic duo believe was intended “only for people who are moral and religious” and to combat the “separation lie.” (Christian Group’s Billboards Denounce Separation of Church,State)




Among the many holes in this tattered and torn bid for a “return to our Christian roots,” is the implication that “religious” people are always “Christian” people. Another is the admittedly blatant misquoting of historical figures like George Washington, to whom one billboard attributes the statement, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”


Terry Kemple, the CICs president and sole employee, admits Washington never said that, but asserts, “…if you look at Washington’s quotes, including his farewell address, about the place of religion in the political sphere, there’s no question he could have said those exact words.”


That’s kind of like someone saying, “Terry Kemple does so much work fighting gay marriage there’s no question that he secretly sucks cock”


Sorry, Mr. Kemple, there’s great question that he would have said those exact words.

What Washington actually said (George Washington’s Farewell Address) was:

“Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Lying about what someone - especially a president - said seems an odd way to frame the value of the “Christian nation” argument, not to mention adirect violation of a principle Christian commandment against bearing false witness. But you knew that right Terry?


For the record, George Washington also said:

“..If I could now conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution. …For you, doubtless, remember that I have often expressed my sentiment, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience. (emphasis was mine)

– George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789, in Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, Vol 1. p. 495, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom


Actually, a true understanding and appreciation of the character of our founders, the vision with which they led, and the facts of both Christian and American history, should evoke outrage in any reading these simplistic and ignorant attempts to derail 230 years of social and scientific progress.


In 1783, as he was stepping down from office, Washington sent the equivalent of a “memo” to the states (The foundation of “our empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition”) . In it, he said:

There are four things, which I humbly conceive, are essential to the well being, I may even venture to say, to the existence of the United States as an Independent Power:
1st. An indissoluble Union of the States under one Federal Head.
2dly. A Sacred regard to Public Justice.
3dly. The adoption of a proper Peace Establishment, and
4thly. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly Disposition, among the People of the United States, which will induce them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the Community.
These are the Pillars on which the glorious Fabrick of our Independency and National Character must be supported;
Liberty is the Basis, and whoever would dare to sap the foundation, or overturn the Structure, under whatever specious pretexts he may attempt it, will merit the bitterest execration, and the severest punishment which can be inflicted by his injured Country.

“Liberty is the Basis,” Mr. Kemple. The lies that should be combatted are the ones you’re propogating across Hillsborough and Pinellas, lies that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Wiccans, the churched and the unchurched, believers and unbelievers alike prove wrong everyday, as they work and live together to build one nation from many faiths and philosophies.


The $50,000 would have been better spent sheltering the homeless, or feeding the hungry, or buying medical care for those without it.