Response to ‘Symbolic Murals on Schools’

Your September 28, 2022 edition included a letter to the editor from Anne Van Tatenhove regarding “Symbolic Murals on Schools.” Sadly, Ms. Van Tatenhove’s knowledge of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights is lacking. First, our Constitution does NOT state that our rights are “endowed by Our Creator.” Those words derive from the Declaration of Independence, which has no legal standing.

While our nation’s ethics and values were originally drawn in large part from Judeo-Christian principles, our founders were intentionally explicit about government’s interaction with religion, as directed in the 1st Amendment: government may not establish a religion. Nor can government push any religion onto any of us. Ms. Van Tatenhove may wish to review the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which provided what is known as the “Lemon Test” to determine the extent to which government and religion may mix. Specifying and promoting just one religion, or no religion at all, which Ms. Van Tatenhove suggests, fails the Lemon Test.

–Brian A. Foster, Castro Valley