Reader John P. Stoltenberg, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, offers these suggestions for us to adopt. I’m all in favor of them:

  • If you don’t believe in gay marriages or in abortions, don't have one. If you don’t believe in euthanasia or in physician-assisted death, then die your own way.
  • Maintain strict separation of church and state.
  • Allow no displays of religious icons or symbols in government buildings or on government lands.
  • Recall our ambassador from the Vatican.
  • Allow no state or federal voucher programs.
  • Remove "under God" from the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, and "In God We Trust" from all American currency.
  • Do not allow the teaching of "Creation Science" or of "Intelligent Design" – Christian Right religious dogma – in public schools.
  • Repeal President Bush's executive order creating the “Faith-based Initiatives.”
  • Allow no "Official School Prayer" in public schools.
  • Don’t allow our public schools to become battlegrounds between warring religious factions competing for the power to use the schools to misinform our youth.
  • Don’t allow our state or federal governments to become battlegrounds used by religious factions competing for government money and government power.
  • Allow no "Official School Minister," Official School Priest," "Official School Rabbi," or any other official school religious leader, in public schools.
  • Allow no teaching in public schools that any deity gave us our rights; we earned those.
  • End the practice of swearing on the Bible in the inauguration of state or federal government officials – including presidents.