Hugh Odneal, Jefferson City
Dear Editor,
The News Tribune's Kansas City Star commentary on March 11, "Josh Hawley is right: Old GOP is dead," seems to criticize Hawley for attending Yale, yet five presidents also attended Yale.
The Star also stated Pompeo was wrong about our Judeo-Christian founding of America stating instead that "the religion skeptical Founding Fathers who specifically designed a system of government independent of any faith." This reveals how little this person knows of our nation's founding, the religious convictions of our founders, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The preamble of the Constitution states, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
In the First Amendment to the Constitution, it was the government, not religion, that we need to be protected from. "Congress shall make no law ..." (governing religion), but no stipulation on religion other than being peaceful.
Perhaps a quote from John Jay, the first chief justice, clarifies how best Christianity was considered, "No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart form the moral precepts of the Christian religion. ... Should our republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance this great experiment will then surely be doomed."
Most of our politicians and many citizens have forgotten this fundamental precept of governance and our true history. We were founded by an imperfect group of people who believed in Christian values. No they were not all Christians, but the vast majority were, four were ministers! But they realized the moral precepts of the Christian religion were beneficial to all, even non-Christians. We have become a nation demanding acceptance and promotion of abortion, same-sex marriage, trans, open borders, special interest and opinion groups for their benefit, even prosecuting those who dare oppose or disagree.