By now, most people are familiar with the letter written by Rep. Virgil Goode, in response to reports that Rep.-elect Keith Ellison plans to use the Koran when he is sworn into office. Goode said, in part:

When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. [...] I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America... As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.

Naturally, Goode's bigoted letter triggered protests from civil rights groups and The Council on American-Islamic Relations, who asked Goode to retract his comments. But Goode refuses, saying:

I wish more people would take a stand and stand up for the principles on which this country was founded.

Good idea, Mr. Goode. Perhaps more people, like you, should take a few minutes to read the words of another Virginian:

Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others [...] Be it enacted by the General assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, not shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, that that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

Perhaps Rep. Goode should stand up for the words of Thomas Jefferson in his Statute of Religious Freedom.