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After giving the matter some thought, I’ve decided to push for a theocracy. Enough of this separation of church and state nonsense. At the approval of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in 1791 only Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Delaware had no established religion, Since then all States have disestablished the established, State supported religion. It seems to me, there is no reason the State of Iowa can’t re-establish a State religion. Only our own constitution says we can’t. We will have to get rid of Sections 3 and 4 of Article I of Iowa’s constitution but surely we have the political will to do that.
Iowa can have its own religion, so let’s get one. The question is which one. Should we take a vote, have a plebiscite, draw straws, or what? There are several to chose from as we all know and I am assuming that once we have a State religion, that religion’s doctrine, prayers, and rituals will be imposed on our public schools and other State institutions. There are numerous protestant denominations plus non-denominational churches and TV evangelists who have Iowa followers, Catholics, Moslems, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and I’m probably missing a whole bunch. It seems to be a rather thorny issue. After all religious people have been killing people of different religious beliefs for centuries. I can only assume most of us would like to avoid a religious war because we can’t agree on a State religion.
I personally think we should draw straws — it’s only fair. But what about atheists? What do we do with them? Clearly atheists should not be in government if we are going to have a theocracy. They’ve made their choice and they can just live with it. After all, all you have to do is say you believe and you’ll get a pass anyway. It’s really pretty easy. So I say let Governor Reynolds draw the name of the new State religion from a hat. We could have the Iowa Supreme Court in attendance to ensure no cheating. And voila, it’s done-a State religion.
Richard E. H. Phelps II
Mingo