[I]f American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.
Virgil Goode, my Congressional representative, yesterday defended the letter he sent constituents concerning Rep. Keith Ellison by suggesting that it represented core American values (quoting feedback from a supporter during his Fox News interview). Well, you can't get any more American than apple pie and George Washington. We don't have apple pie on record concerning religious belief and public office, but we do have George Washington's words. Some of them follow.
To the Members of the New Jerusalem Church of Baltimore, ca. 27 January 1793:
We have abundant reason to rejoice, that in this land the light of truth and reason have triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened age and in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.
To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 18 August 1790:
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship[.] It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, [than] that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance[,] requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
To the Society of Quakers, October 1789:
The liberty enjoyed by the People of these States, of worshipping Almighty God agreable to their Consciences, is not only among the choicest of their Blessings, but also of their Rights—While men perform their social Duties faithfully, they do all that Society or the State can with propriety demand or expect; and remain responsible only to their Maker for the Religion or modes of faith which they may prefer or profess.
Washington was writing to congregations or associations of three minority religious groups: the Swedenborgians, Jews, and Quakers. Three groups as far outside of the mainstream of orthodox American Protestantism as you could get in the late 18th century.
One of those sentences in particular is so apropos that it bears repeating. Maybe someone could set it in nice old-style type, frame it, and send it to my congressman to put up on his wall next to the Ten Commandments:
In this enlightened age and in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.
(Source note: all of the quotations are taken from the standard edition of Washington's correspondence, The Papers of George Washington, published by the University of Virginia Press. Respective references: Presidential Series, vol. 12, pp. 52-53; Presidential Series, vol. 6, p. 285; Presidential Series, vol. 4, p. 266. Editorial clarification in brackets in the second passage is mine.)