My LTTE about loon accusing Pres. Obama of not respecting religious tradition of our nation...

[Rozlee]

16. We tend to deify our founding fathers themselves.

They were far from perfect. The had slaves, they denied the rights of Native Americans while asserting their lack of full humanity as they did those of slaves, and Benjamin Franklin was a sexual reprobate (in a nice way) once writing a pamplet called, "Advice To A Young Man On The Choice Of A Mistress" and joking about how he was surprised he'd never gotten an STD from all his randy exploits.

In various of the thirteen colonies, Catholic schools were banned, priests could not give mass, they were kept out of public office and their ballot was denied. Thomas Paine wrote a book, "The Age of Reason" that debunked the Bible and Thomas Jefferson wrote "The Jefferson Bible, the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth", in which he removed all references to Jesus' divinity and once referred to St. Paul as the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus," and to his apostles as a "band of dupes and impostors." As an atheist, I don't consider many of the above all bad, but still, the right-wing demagogues certainly don't want to hear it. And I'm sure if I met the founding fathers, I'd like a great many of them and would love their enlightened view toward secularism. Some, I'm sure, would probably turn me off and remind me of teabaggers.