Faith in separation of church and state

Re “Justices weigh ‘faith-based’ case,” March 1

What good is the 1st Amendment if citizens cannot sue to prevent the White House from spending tax money to promote religion? The Supreme Court should proclaim that taxpayers have legal standing to challenge faith-based initiatives such as those engineered by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

President Bush’s shameful record of insinuating religion into politics demonstrates that the government will not police itself. The courthouse doors must therefore remain open to courageous plaintiffs who safeguard everyone’s future by mounting constitutional attacks on creeping theocracy.

THOMAS BOWDEN

Irvine

The writer is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.

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When Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asserts that challenging the administration’s faith-based programs would be “unduly obtrusive” and would amount to “supervising the White House and what it can say, who it can talk to,” he’s apparently forgotten a key phrase that appears in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, referring to governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” In other words, Justice Kennedy, the White House should be supervised by “we the people,” as another document puts it.

STEVEN A. WELLS

Glendale