CREATING A CONFLICT BETWEEN PLURIBUS AND UNUM
(…where do religious liberties end…and constitutional rights begin?)

If we recall correctly the State of Indiana, at one time, was a hotbed of Khu Klux Klan activity and membership rivaling anything to be found in the Deep South.

While the Klan may have largely faded from the Hoosier State today, it seems to have been replaced by, or possibly morphed into, an extremely rigid Evangelical Christian constituency with the political clout strong enough to prod the state’s career politicos to pander to it by enacting a so-called “Freedom of Religion” law. A law which could, and probably would, be used to discriminate against gays (or anyone else for that matter).

What Indiana’s legislators and governor have accomplished with such a law is to further increase tensions over modern day lifestyle realities by creating a conflict between –pluribus- and – unum-. It’s a classic example of what happens when an absolute firewall between church and state is not maintained, as the founders of our republic rightly intended.

To a certain extent this is simply another symptom of the culture war that has been going on here for the past several decades; a conflict resulting from a generational divide in America, and the stresses and strains resulting from it, while transitioning from the social norms and values of previous times to those that prevail today.

It just goes to show that extreme – fundamentalism – can rear its intolerant head anytime, anywhere, within any religion…and eternal vigilance must be maintained to prevent it. Maintaining such vigilance here in America, however, has become ever more difficult because we have strayed from the ideal of – E Pluribus Unum – over-emphasizing and promoting the ideal of – Diversity- instead (with even our President doing so).

Frankly, that over-emphasis and glorification of our diversity of national origins, races, religions, or gender identifications, is the root cause of many of our societal problems today. By doing so we have abandoned the assimilating concept that we’re all …Americans first…and something else…second, regardless of where we came from, what racial composition we may be, what religion we may believe in, or even what gender we identify with. As we’ve previously pointed out we now have too much – pluribus – and not enough –unum- to continue calling ourselves…Americans.

It was that ideal of – E Pluribus Unum – (Out of Many…One) which made us the power we are today. If we continue to abandon that ideal there may come a time when we will no longer be…America…and the world will be the poorer for it.

CENTURION