Is the 1st Amendment still relevant? ~ By Pat Boone

From WorldNetDaily

By Pat Boone Posted: October 17, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009

Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

How profoundly simple, how elegantly clear and understandable can you get? Our Founding Fathers labored and conferred and, yes, prayed, over this First Amendment to our hallowed Constitution. They honed and pared and polished it, until it still shines like a rare diamond. Which politically it is. It says exactly and precisely what they intended. How is it, then, that today, certain people are straining and misrepresenting and actually twisting it completely out of its pristine meaning? A man named Newdow, in San Francisco, adamantly quotes just the first phrase, before the comma, in his diabolical quest to wrench the two words "under God" out of our Pledge of Allegiance. Though he is trained as a lawyer, supposedly able to interpret the wording of a law – certainly including the wording of the Constitution – he manages to convince a majority of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that he is correct in claiming that those two words might be unconstitutional! And that misguided Court then decrees that school children in nine Western states should stop including those words in the Pledge we've all been saying since 1954. When I confronted Newdow personally on the "Crossfire" TV show, I asked him if he was aware of the next phrase in the Amendment, and why he stopped short of quoting that? He stammered and mumbled something unrelated to my question. And then, when I asked, "You're aware, aren't you, that your atheism is a religion, a faith system based on a premise you can't prove – while the faith system of most Americans is based on a premise the evidence for which is everywhere?" He answered defensively, "Well, I'm not trying to force my belief on others." And I shot back "Are you serious? What do you call what you're doing? You're trying to silence 99 percent of America because you – one man – don't believe our affirmation! You're not trying to force your belief on us?" [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]