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Religious convictions undermined
(by Dave Lange - November 12, 2008)
Religious convictions undermined
Among my deeply held religious convictions, I am opposed to forcing my neighbors to yield the use of their property for my personal gain. I also would not want to jeopardize their lifeblood and perhaps their very lives in a quest for self-enrichment.
In the church where I was brought up, we learned that the Ten Commandments prohibit such actions as killing, stealing and coveting our neighbors' property.
Being an American, as well as a religious man, however, I understand that citizens of this great, diverse nation have the right to their own beliefs and that I do not have the right to impose my interpretations on those of other faiths, including Wiccans, Satanists and even atheists.
Recently, a church near where I live invited a drilling company onto its property in order to collect royalties from natural gas extracted from God's earth. To comply with state law that requires a minimum of 20 contiguous acres for such operations, several neighboring homeowners had to be co-opted into the collaboration. One of them did so only after being threatened by a mandatory land-pooling edict available to corporate drillers through the government. Now, the driller is free to tap into the gas deposits that lie deep below the church's property, as well as neighboring lands, including my own, and the church is welcome to profit from it.
All of this occurred shortly after a similar drilling operation about one mile away caused an explosion that destroyed one home, which could have been deadly, and contaminated the water wells of dozens of others, which basically took away one of their life-sustaining possessions.
As I said, this is a free country, and people of other religious denominations don't have to agree with my understanding of the Ten Commandments. In America, we have a First Amendment which prohibits the government from subjecting other people to my religious beliefs and vice versa.
But on Election Day last week, the government forced me and other citizens of many faiths to enter religious institutions, including the one with the gas well, in order to participate in democracy. Prominently displayed on the wall behind the table where ballots were provided was a Christian cross, which just might be offensive to certain Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucianists and others who value the separation of church and state.
Two years ago, a group of Orthodox Jews in Cleveland Heights succeeded in having the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections reverse a decision that would have compelled them to cast their ballots in a Christian church.
But the beat goes on to transfer polling places from public buildings, including schools, to churches and synagogues.
Citing security concerns, the Solon School District was able to convince the elections board this year to shift polls from Roxbury Elementary School to a nearby church. A national school-security organization in Cleveland wants all polling removed from schools, based on the notion that something might happen somewhere, sometime on Election Day.
Whatever happened to the notion that it's a government responsibility to provide a safe and secure environment for elections? Better yet, why not hold elections on Saturday and Sunday, when children are not in school and when most voters don't have to contend with their work schedules? Why not respect the First Amendment?
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