I was the plaintiff in Shurtleff v. Boston, and I am writing to rebut the May 13 letter “Protect the separation of church and state.”
While the Constitution makes only a few references to Christianity — “Sundays excepted,” in Article I, Section 7; and “in the Year of our Lord,” in Article VII — it was the product of many people with a Christian worldview. All but a few of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were members of churches. One of the most misunderstood parts of the Constitution is the first clause of the First Amendment, which simply reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” At the time of the ratification of this amendment, several states still had official state religions and the amendment’s ratification did nothing to change these state churches.
The left has launched a campaign to smear any and all who profess a love of God and country as Christian Nationalists. I wish to allay the concern of letter writer Aidan Scully. We at Camp Constitution are not part of an evil cabal who seek to set up a Christian Reich. We were denied a permit by the City of Boston to fly the Christian flag due to some bad legal advice the city received. This advice cost the city more than $2 million in legal fees and led to the abandonment of the Establishment Clause test from Lemon v. Kurtzman that had been used as a club against people of faith. I would also remind Scully that the American Civil Liberties Union issued an amicus brief on our behalf.
It is ironic that the same flagpole that was used to raise the Christian flag usually has the city’s flag flying on it: the Boston flag that contains a Bible verse in Latin from the Old Testament’s 1 Kings 8:57.
Scully did get one thing unquestionably right in his letter: He correctly referred to the United States as a republic.
Hal Shurtleff
Director
Camp Constitution
Alton, N.H.