Editor, Townsman:
The discussion around the upcoming presidential election has generated more heat, than light, but since the founding document the Declaration of Independence does not contain the word “Christ” or “Christian,” and since the Constitution of the United States with amendments doesn’t either, this nation is not a “Christian” republic. Neither did the more state’s rights-oriented Articles of the Confederation that the Constitution replaced in 1787.
For those yearning for the simpler land of June Cleaver, and Ozzie and Harriet, unfortunately, that world only existed on TV. Yet, in New York Harbor, the “Mother of Exiles” (a.k.a. The Statue of Liberty) still stands, with its inscription that says in part:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
—Emma Lazarus, 1883
John Weiss
30 High St.
