Here is (approximately) what I would have said at the Zoning hearing yesterday, had I been able to stay:

Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am Jean Wyant. I grew up in White Hall; I attended Albemarle High School back when it was the only public high school in the county; as a adult I lived for 4 years just off Georgetown Road; and I now live in Crozet.

As a native of Albemarle County, the life and legacy of Thomas Jefferson have been a conscious part of nearly every day of my life. One of the things about Jefferson that impressed me early on was his unequalled contribution to religious freedom in this state and in this country. Jefferson himself considered his “Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom” one of the three most important achievements of his life, on a par with authoring the Declaration of Independence, and founding the University of Virginia.

I need not remind you -- but I will -- that Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom was the basis for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the first of the 10 amendments that constitute our national Bill of Rights.

Jefferson’s concept of religious freedom, as reflected in the First Amendment, is quite simple: Religion, in both belief and practice, is a personal matter; it is not a government matter. Religion is not something that the county or the state or any instrument of government should control, support, encourage, require, guide, ban, or impose. Jefferson and his contemporaries reasoned that keeping government out of religion, and keeping religion out of government, was the surest way to promote the most meaningful freedom of conscience and the broadest personal freedom for the individual; and that, likewise, it was the only way to avoid the devastating religious wars, suppression of religion, and imposition of state religion that had wracked Europe for centuries.

The appellants’ case before this Board is a blatant attempt to have local government impose the appellants’ personal religious beliefs and practices on the rest of this community. I do not quarrel with the appellants’ adopting and practicing their chosen religion. But I do not share their religion, and I strenuously object to the notion that they are entitled to use you, the Albemarle County Board of Zoning Appeals, as an instrument to impose their religion on me or anyone.

We have just experienced a national election in which a number of candidates openly abandoned our American heritage of individual freedom, and actually won election by insisting that the religious beliefs of certain citizens should and will be imposed on the rest of the citizenry.

If that does indeed come to pass, I can only hope that at least Albemarle County, the birthplace and home of Thomas Jefferson, will stand to defend his legacy of religious freedom for all. And I hope that you gentlemen will remain true to that legacy today, by refusing to accord the appellants any right to deny religious freedom to the rest of this community.

Jean Wyant (electronic mail, November 10, 2004)