The goal has always been an extraordinarily diverse but generally harmonious union. This, even in the midst of today’s deliberately polarized dissension, is achievable.

The greatest thing about being an American citizen with a long-established heritage, is having roots from all over the world, and living in a society that recognizes, promotes, and celebrates that diversity, while insuring equality and freedom for every citizen. Freedom is every heart’s desire and every just government’s goal, but prior to our Constitution, liberty was a mighty illusive concept. My ancestors risked everything they had in their quests for liberty, because, in case after case, their homelands had very little appetite for religious freedoms.  In far too many cases, Kings, Queens, and powerful religious institutions attempted to dictate religious beliefs and enforce their own narrow morality on society. Bigotry, intolerance and bondage were generally the result, and the freedom we enjoy today was little more than a dream. Even today, in the 21^st century, in a country recognized around the world as the land of liberty, there are those who, given the opportunity, would deny the right to personal choices and forcibly impose their religious beliefs on others.  If you feel compelled to spread the good news of your gospel, by all means do so, but even in Scripture, believers were never called to forcibly inflict their religious interpretations on others. They were called to go out as sheep among wolves, to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with their God. They were called to share the good news of salvation through a loving, forgiving Savior, and then leave people be to make their own personal choices. Our goal in America is not now and has never been, a society in which we are each fundamentally alike and of one accord.  There has never been any expectation that we’d each become alike. The hope has always been that, through a democratic government and its resulting system of justice, we would honor each other’s personal freedoms and peacefully coexist. The goal has always been an extraordinarily diverse but generally harmonious union.  This, even in the midst of today’s deliberately polarized dissension, is achievable, through civility, compassion, rational dialogue and the joint pursuit of the time-honored goal of our Constitution: the mutually beneficial amalgamation of all our diverse populace and their beliefs, into one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.  SC