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ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) -- Proponents of the separation of church and state are trying to purge religion from the country, Mayor Dan McArthur told a Columbus Day rally of supporters of religious expression in public settings.
He said those people want to remove crosses, the Ten Commandments and other religious emblems from buildings and take God out of history books.
"How do we make sure that doesn't happen? We need to make sure we elect people that feel there is a higher being that they will be accountable for their acts to," McArthur told the gathering, which drew about 50 people.
Robert Anderson, who has organized the distribution of Ten Commandments signs in protest of the removal a Ten Commandments from an Alabama courthouse, said liberal judges and "subversive forces like the ACLU" were working to do away with religion.
"They will not be content until they win or we win," Anderson said. "We cannot give up."
Larry Meyers, one of the event's organizers, said Christopher Columbus was guided to North America by God to establish a place where there would be no religious tyranny or "mobocracy."
He said people should be permitted to engage in activities such as prayer in school and singing religious songs in public meetings.
"None of these things infringe on people's religious freedoms," he said. "People are still free to worship as they want to."
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
