LETTER TO THE EDITOR | We have a right to our own opinions, not our own facts

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Editor,

During this super-heated political time, we sometimes hear such statements as “the founders of our nation were all Christians,” or references to Alexis de Tocqueville’s presumed observation that “America is great because of its churches.”

It’s true that 18th century America was profoundly influenced by a range of Christian perspectives and that Tocqueville saw great value in the contributions of churches to public life in the early 19th century. But Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson counted themselves deists, rejecting among other things, the divinity of Jesus; John Adams was a Unitarian, and even George Washington in his later years famously refused to take communion on the deist grounds that it was a meaningless ritual. The word “God” appears nowhere in the Constitution, precisely because virtually all of the founding fathers, Christian or not, were deeply committed to religious freedom for all faiths, including Islam, and to the separation of church from state. As for Tocqueville, the quote so often attributed to him appears nowhere in his writing.

It is well to recall Daniel Patrick Moynahan’s wry observation that we have a right to our opinions, but not our facts.

Sincerely,

LARRY DALOZ

Clinton