The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) says a tip from a “concerned citizen” led them to demand that an image of the Chester County Sheriff’s Office be removed from the law enforcement entity’s website.
The image was a “Thin Blue Line” flag with a bible verse that reads, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
It has now been removed from the website.
“The Freedom From Religion Foundation has ensured that the Tennessee-based Chester County Sheriff’s Office will keep religious iconography off of its website,” the organization said on its website.
According to FFRF:
Citizens interact with and rely on law enforcement officers during some of the most urgent and vulnerable times of their lives. These citizens should not be made to feel alienated, like political outsiders, because their local government they support with their taxes oversteps its power by placing a religious statement on government property. Nor should the Sheriff’s Office privilege Christian citizens. Such a show of religious preference undermines the credibility of the police department and causes religious minorities — including the nonreligious — to question the impartiality of law enforcement officials.
FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said the flag imagery was unconstitutional.
“An open profession of Christianity or any religion from an entity sworn to serve and protect is unconstitutional and divisive,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Law enforcement must remain secular in all communications, including the main page of their websites.”
But the Constitution doesn’t say that.
The Tennessee Star reached out to Gaylor to ask where the phrase “separation of church and state” can be found in the Constitution.
In a long response, Gaylor refused to answer that question, but she did mention that the popularized phrase appears in Thomas Jefferson’s letter from the Danbury Baptists.
In a follow-up, The Star acknowledged the phrase’s existence in that letter but noted that the letter is not part of the Constitution and then asked Gaylor again if she could identify where the “separation of church and state” is spelled out in the Constitution.
In response, Gaylor criticized The Star calling it “clearly unobjective (and not well informed).”
In fact, the “separation of church and state,” an often misunderstood concept, does not exist in the Constitution at all.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X/Twitter.
Photo “Chester County Sheriff’s Office Sherriff Deputies” by Chester County Sheriff’s Office.
