GIVE ME YOUR TIRED

The Statue of Liberty, our symbol of freedom and of our nation, was given to the United States in 1884 as a gift from France as an expression of friendship. The inspiration for the Statue came from Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye, the sculptor was Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, and the framework was designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. Our Statue of Liberty stands 151 feet tall and was placed on a pedestal on Liberty Island, New York, raising the height to 305 feet. The American poet Emma Lazarus conceived the poem in 1883 which gave the Statue its eternal meaning of freedom which reads.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

In the early twentieth century, we saw the beginning of new religious movements. The Pentacostal movement originated in 1901 with Charles Fox Parham at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas. Seeking to defend the Bible from modern liberalism, a group of Christian ministers published a twelve volume writing called The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth from 1910 to 1915. The term fundamentalist first appeared in 1920 in a Baptist weekly newspaper, the Watchman Examiner.


After the world war years, Americans were generally raised the same, and our families gave us the same value system. In school, we were taught a morality based on the Bible and the Ten Commandments, we would say the Lord's Prayer, recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, and sang God Bless America.

The non violent religious movement of the 1950s and 1960s emerged as the civil rights movement in the United States. This finally afforded racial equality for African Americans, one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This movement was led by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the movement was pushed forward by President John F. Kennedy. African Americans had begun to receive recognition in the fields of art, music, and sports. But it took an unknown lady in Montgomery, Alabama named Rosa Parks, who was arrested on December 1, 1955 for refusing to move to the back of the bus for a white person, that sparked the drive for civil rights. Reverend King, the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, was elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which had begun the Montgomery Bus boycott and ultimately led to the end of segregation on city buses. Reverend King quoted Scripture and urged non violent civil disobedience to turn the tide in favor of racial equality, a movement that culminated in his famous I Have A Dream speech on the Washington, D. C. National Mall on August 28, 1963.

Starting in 1958, Bible readings in public schools were attacked with the court case of Abington Township versus Schempp in Pennsylvania. School prayer in public schools was challenged in 1959 with the court case of Engel versus Vitale in New York. In Engel versus Vitale, the Supreme Court reversed 80 previous court decisions in 1962 and ruled, to protect freedom of religion, that an official state prayer for public schools was unconstitutional. In Abington Township versus Schempp, the Supreme Court in 1963 ruled against Bible readings in public schools.

Secularism and atheism themselves became puritanical in the late twentieth century, as God, the Ten Commandments, the Bible, and school prayer were stamped out of public schools, such that religion and a moral upbringing in society has been marginalized for a whole generation of Americans.


The Supreme Court needs another chance to restore school prayer in our schools. To quote Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who wrote the dissenting opinions in both Supreme Court decisions on school prayer (Engel vs Vitale) and Bible readings (Abington Township vs Schempp).

In Engel versus Vitale (1962), he wrote:

"With all respect, I think the Court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how an "official religion" is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation."

In Abington Township versus Schempp (1963) he wrote:


"If religious exercises are held to be an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state created disadvantage. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism, or, at the least, as government support of the beliefs of those who think that religious exercises should be conducted only in private."

President John F. Kennedy, in opposition to the CIA and the military industrial complex, became an advocate for peace following the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 22, 1962, evidenced by his American University speech of June 10, 1963. His second speech on peace was given during his proposed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on July 26, 1963, which he signed on October 7, 1963, after his third speech on peace to the United Nations September 20, 1963.

He said:

"For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal."

Martin Luther King Jr., in addition to his cause for civil rights, also began to voice his opposition to the Vietnam War in a quest for peace. He was shot dead on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. America was told it was a "lone gunman." That evening, Senator Robert Kennedy delivered a speech in honor of the slain man: "Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort."

Senator Robert “Bobby” Kennedy was favored to win the 1968 Presidential election. After easily winning the California primary in Los Angeles, Senator Kennedy was shot to death on June 5, 1968.

To many people, the loss of three great leaders who served justice and peace began the loss of faith and trust in our government. They say all these events have led to the subsequent loss of values and direction in our society and country.

The peace initiative of President Kennedy was carried on by Presidents Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) and Ronald Reagan (1981-1989).

The advent and arrival of the Third Millennium has brought new threats to our culture of Life and our individual Liberties. Traditional Bioethics came under attack when the first step towards euthanasia became legal in Oregon and same-sex union became legal in Vermont. The specter of a police state grew as the administration supported the invasion of our privacy through domestic surveillance and proposed the disarming of America, thus removing our best defense against tyranny. The Constitution was written to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Corporate greed and uncontrollable government spending have threatened our children and our long-term survival.

Our children need to learn about God, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments if we are going to preserve our Western culture. We must support marriage and the traditional family. We must speak up for responsible government and preserve our Bill of Rights and the sovereignty of our Nation if we are to enjoy our God given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

America needs to Trust in God and live in harmony with our Creator if we are to Save Our Nation.