An Arizona church moving from Tempe to Chandler has requested to borrow $5 million in tax-exempted industrial development bonds. These IDA bonds are sold by the government and designed to attract commerce and jobs.
While the church plans to build a college and residence hall, the bonds will be used for the infrastructure and athletic fields, according to the Rev. Mike Sproul.
The idea of government bonds being used for the building of religious facilities does not make all the citizens of Chandler happy, including Marc Victor, a criminal defense attorney who is publicly swearing to oppose the move.
"It's nothing more than using government to advance and promote religion," the defense attorney said.
Victor also said if the government distributes these bonds to the church, it is violating the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state.
What Victor is referring to is the First Amendment, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free exercise of." Where the defense attorney's argument - and every left-winger's argument for that matter - falls short is the words "church and state" never once appear in the constitution.
Well, let me rephrase my statement; those words never appear in the United States' Constitution. They do, however, appear in the former Soviet Union's constitution, under Article 124.
Individuals get confused with the idea of separation of church and state because of a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote 11 years after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
In the letter, Jefferson wrote there needs to be "a wall of separation between church and state" so the government would not create a federal religion like the Church of England.
Gregg Jackson, a nationally acclaimed talk-radio host and author, said Jefferson's intent with the letter was to "assure that the individual members of a state ... would be able to freely worship and practice as they saw fit."
These words have been manipulated overtime and wrongly associated with the U.S. Constitution (Jefferson had absolutely nothing to do with the constitution.)
"The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion not freedom from religion," said Jackson. "The Left has been using a Soviet Union doctrine ... to advance the notion that religion has no place in public."
Does this mean the church automatically should receive the governmental bonds? Not necessarily - that is up to the government to decide.
What it does mean, though, is a defense attorney's argument that the church does not deserve the IDA bonds based solely on the reason of a so-called constitutional mandate is ridiculous, not to mention completely inaccurate.
The government has every right to hand out money to churches if it decides to. There is no justifying a separation of church and state.
Chuck Armstrong is a senior in electronicmedia production. Please send comments to opinion@spub.ksu.edu.
