By Dave Britton
Reader Contributor
I write this on “Constitution Day,” Sept. 17, 2025, in the wake of last night’s monthly session of the Bonner County Republican Central Committee at which the chair, Scott Herndon, presented a resolution to honor Charlie Kirk, an influential American right-wing activist who was shot and killed Sept. 10 for apparently politically motivated reasons.
Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA and contributed to building the Christian nationalist wing of the Republican Party. The full text of the resolution can be found at bit.ly/BCRCCKirkResolution.
The irony of Constitution Day comes from the reasons I expressed when I moved to amend the resolution by striking the words “and biblical” from the last sentence, and the reasons for my vote against the resolution when my amendment did not pass (it failed and the resolution passed, both by 23-3 votes).
The core issue for me is the U. S. Constitution’s protection of our freedom of religion. The text of that last sentence in the resolution is an explicit commitment to “contending for a conservative, Republican and biblical worldview in politics and civic engagement.” I’m a rational, responsible Republican, so I would prefer to avoid the term “conservative” as being too emotionally loaded and ambiguous, especially in these times. But I absolutely cannot support a “biblical worldview in politics.”
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” are the first two provisions of the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution. This is clear and definitive by itself, but there are lots of further analyses and historical and legal discussions and precedents that clearly establish that a publicly elected official acting in an official capacity in the U.S. must not seek to impose a biblical worldview or its effects on their constituents.
Historically, Quakers were among the first religious groups in the early American colonies to have to protest to defend their freedom to practice their religion. It is in the spirit of their “Flushing Remonstrance” of 1657 that I stand against the intrusion of a “biblical worldview” into the laws, regulations and practices of our government.
According to Wikipedia, “The Flushing Remonstrance was a 1657 petition to Director-General of New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant, in which some thirty residents of the small settlement at Flushing requested an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship. It is considered a precursor to the United States Constitution’s provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights.”
It is sad, in my view as a person of faith — a practicing Quaker and a recorded minister of the Sandpoint Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), that a flank of the Republican Party disrespects this and will readily engage in dismissing or glossing over the fundamental right we have to worship as we choose, neither impeded by nor differentially favored by government policy or practice.
Dave Britton serves as Beach Precinct committeeman for the Bonner County Republican Central Committee.
