Keep church and state separate

Sam Killay
Claremont
To the editor,

December remains more than 10 days away as I write this. Heck, it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet. Despite that, somehow the world’s creepiest Nativity has already found its way back onto Broad Street Park. So I guess that means it’s once again the time of year for me to remind Claremont that religious symbols absolutely do not belong on public property. 

Total separation of church and state, as I observed last year, serves to the betterment of both. It’s the duty of the government of this city to represent all of its citizens, regardless of religious beliefs, fairly and equally. Endorsing one particular religion — soon two, since I assume it will be no time until city workers also install the sad little electric menorah, just as soon as they can pull it out of whatever dusty hidey-hole has kept it all year — to the exclusion of all others feels to me like a curious & unnecessarily partisan stance. 

In my time living in Claremont, besides Christians and Jews, I’ve also met Wiccans, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and a few of my fellow atheists. We all pay our taxes here, too.

So again I find myself proposing that the city disburden itself of the obligation of caring for these religious items by donating them to appropriate local religious organizations, who will then be able to display them proudly on their own private land, where such symbols rightly belong.

 

Sam Killay

Claremont