Dear Editor:
As Americans and as citizens of Kentucky, we count as most precious among those hard won and sacred promises, for which our fathers bled, those articles of freedom, memorialized in our Bill of Rights, that guarantee to ourselves and to our posterity freedom of religious belief and conscience, and the right to be heard in disputes at law by fair juries and impartial judges. It was, after all, to secure these rights that we became a nation unique to history, a nation with the courage to shake off, as unworthy of a free people, the petty tyrannies that enslaved by draping judges in clerics' robes.
To make this quite clear, the very first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution denied the government of all of us any rights to "the establishment of a religion," and the Constitution of Kentucky, in Section 5 of its Bill of Rights, states, "No preference shall ever be given by law to any religious sect, society or denomination; nor to any particular creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical policyand the civil rights, privileges or capacities of no person shall be taken away, or in anywise diminished or enlarged, on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma or teaching. No human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience."
Regrettably, every so often we get real comfortable in our freedoms, and forget just why we are a free people. This permits those who don't really believe in our way of life to take a shot at getting us to forget who we are and where we came from, and to try to gain religious control over us by un-American attempts at getting their views of religious truth made into law universal.
As did my ancestors who fought in the war for American Independence, I have devoted my professional life to defending our freedoms. My battleground has been in our courts. I became a candidate for election to the office of Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court in the November 3rd election because of my commitment to these principles.
And guess what happened then? From the ashes of what should be the history of dogmatic theocratic tyranny there has arisen a religious group that thinks, as such always do, that they have a pipeline to truth, that they are the only real Christians, that they know what's best for everyone else, and it therefore follows that they should control our laws, because, as they see it, what they say is true and anyone who doesn't agree is evil and wrong.
We've met their kind before, and "We the People" and the constitutional rights our forefathers died to safeguard have thus far kept them at bay. This time around, the vile ancient serpent, that democracy must every now and again crush under its heel, has chosen the high sounding name "Northern Kentucky Right to Life," arrogantly implying that a certain infallible correctness attends their interpretations of those rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that gave our nation birth.
This outfit has now, in the public press, endorsed my opponent, the present Justice, and, because I do not worship at their altar, maliciously denounced me as a murderer of babies--a lying defamation that would clearly justify a lawsuit for libel, were it not so ridiculous, and were I not so committed to freedom of speech for everybody, including them.
In endorsing my opponent, who has been on the Kentucky Supreme Court for sixteen years, they say he has always faithfully voted their way. They claim to have put him there, so they should know.
What you should know is that Kentucky judges are supposed to be impartial, as required by our laws and by our code of judicial ethics. That's why the system works, even if imperfectly at times. In is also why we don't have religious inquisitions, witch burnings, or heresy trials. In that the present Justice has been endorsed by this organization, one might fairly conclude he is not impartial, for this group only endorses candidates they think can be relied upon to vote their way. To my knowledge, the present Justice on your Supreme Court has not repudiated this endorsement. As I have pledged to be impartial, I am proud not to have their endorsement.
You can read the actual election laws, the ethical standards, and other Kentucky and Federal laws, and learn more about how your government works by checking my web page. You can also learn a lot more about me. Just tell someone who knows how to work a computer, like an eight year old, that www.EdwinKagin.com is the Internet address.
Please vote while you still can. It is a right you could lose if we should ever, to our great loss, go backwards and accept the idea that only those of certain proper religious orientation can be good citizens. By whose foot will all shoes then be cut? Our freedoms are quite fragile, and are all too easily lost. It is truly said that people get the kind of government they deserve.
This year, this election at least, you really do have a choice.
Sincerely,
Edwin F. Kagin
Last updated: 25 January 2005