Recent efforts to post The Ten Commandments in public places and to teach them in our schools have brought forth critics to cry “What Could Go Wrong?”
A better question would be “What HAS gone wrong since this once common practice was stopped?”
A short list:
- American schools went from the best in the world to some of the worst.
- Respect for authority has disappeared.
- Out-of-wedlock births went from 5% in 1960 to 40% today.
- Single-parent households have tripled since 1965. It’s 30% today.
- Church attendance has fallen to 47%.
- Drug and alcohol abuse has skyrocketed.
- Violent crime rates have tripled since 1960
The USA was founded on Judeo/Christian Principles. In the Declaration of Independence our Founding Fathers appealed to God as a form of higher authority for their freedoms and inalienable rights.
John Adams stated, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Nowhere in the Constitution is the term “separation of church and state” used. Thomas Jefferson used the words in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in reference to defense of the First Amendment — which prohibits government interference in religious activities. “Separation of church and state” was not to keep religion out of government – but government out of religion.
It’s past time to once again follow the motto “In God We Trust” and to reverse the dramatic decline of this “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” since our nation turned its back on God.
Author: Paul Hemmer
Paul Hemmer is a retired radio personality and station owner from Dubuque. He is also a musician, composer/orchestrator and author of “Entertaining Dubuque-The Untold Story,” and a life-long Conservative.
