Pre-date

The poison your prevaricating religious zealots are spewing is shameful. Your group, faction, or whatever you assume is right is wrong. I’m direct grandson to  Rev. William Brewster of the Mayflower. He along with many other survivors of that religious freedom journey, signed the Mayflower compact. It pre-dates the Constitution and American flag. It alone spells out the the true beliefs of Our nation under God.  Your taking God out of the foxhole of American service members is poison. You have no right to stomp on threaten or demand to have God removed from the lips of any American. Who gave you the ok to strip the words or feelings from anyone? I think if your not happy what my family and sacrificed lives have done under God. Then you and your alleged 40.000 members or continued complainants need to leave my America. My family my blood was here first, to include Indian bloodlines.

(name withheld)

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Dear (name withheld),

I am writing in response to your May 17, 2015 email to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (“MRFF”).  You are clearly confused or misinformed regarding the mission of MRFF.  I hope I can shed some light regarding MRFF’s work.

 

MRFF is devoted to protecting and defending the religious freedom of all soldiers, sailors, Marines, cadets, and veterans.  It receives several complaints every day from service members throughout the country who suffer religious discrimination or persecution at the hands of their superiors and it does everything within its power to correct the wrongs committed against these individuals.  MRFF works tirelessly to protect the Constitutional rights of the brave men and women who sacrifice so much to protect our rights.

 

Accordingly, MRFF does not seek to “stomp on, threaten or demand to have God removed from the lips of any American” or to “strip the words or feelings” from those in our military.  MRFF does not oppose the right of any service member to worship God or any other deity, but is dedicated to protecting that very right.  In fact, more than 95% of MRFF clients are Christians!  One of the many ways that MRFF defends the free exercise of religion is by ensuring that military leaders respect and adhere to the mandates of the Establishment Clause.  Thus, MRFF does not oppose permissible expression of religious faith, but only seeks to ensure that such expression conforms to the time, place, and manner requirements of the Constitution and case law analyzing the Establishment Clause.

 

Based on your assertion that the Mayflower Compact “alone spells out the true beliefs of Our nation under God,” it is possible that you do not appreciate the scope of the Establishment Clause.  If that is correct, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.  However, that does not change the fact that the Constitution is the law of the land – not the Mayflower Compact.  As you state, the Mayflower Compact pre-dates the Constitution.  While you may see this as evidence of an intention to form our country as a “nation under God,” it is undisputed that the Founding Fathers declined to include such language in the Constitution.  The existence of the Mayflower Compact shows that they were perfectly capable of establishing a government based on religious principles – after all, they only had to incorporate the language of the Mayflower Compact.  Yet, they chose to create a government based on democratic principles.

 

I hope I have clarified the mission of MRFF and adequately addressed your concerns.

 

Blessed be,

 

Tobanna Barker