Liberals have a few political patron saints, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, to name just four.

Some might say Barack Obama, but his halo is beginning to tarnish. He’s still in the running. It’s hard for liberals to reject a political messiah that they crowned.

But Jefferson is the most iconic for liberals since it’s Jefferson they cite instead of the First Amendment when they want to control religion and keep it far away from government, education, and politics.

Instead of “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment or religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus limiting the national government from getting involved in religious disputes, they appeal to Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists and his phrase “the separation of church and state,” a phrase not found in the Constitution.

The non-constitutional phrase, which wasn’t cited by a Supreme Court Justice in a case until the mid part of the 20^th century, has become a wax nose to be shaped in any desirable form in order for the national government to abolish all religious expression in daily life where government has an entry. This means almost everywhere.

Of course, Jefferson is used selectively. The “free exercise of religion” does not apply in cases where liberals say it does not apply. For example, if a religious person does not want to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, it does not apply.

But Jefferson carried the principles of freedom beyond religion with this statement: “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” You don’t have to have religious convictions not to be compelled by the State to support ideas that are contrary to your beliefs.

There you have it. No one should be forced to propagate ideas that he or she does not believe in. It’s “sinful and tyrannical,” Jefferson said.

A court or law that forces people to bend to the government’s will on opinions is the worst kind of tyranny.