Andrew Criado's column ("Prohibition of religious symbols not supported by Constitution; shows lack of morality," Oct. 2) is so rife with overstated and unsubstantiated claims as to read like a satire of a conservative trying to sound as oblivious as the liberals he so vilifies. His unbelievably jingoistic attitude occupies the opposite end of the spectrum that he places liberals on, and seems rather uncharacteristic of one espousing the religious ideals that he has. I was under the impression that the "eye for an eye" doctrine was frowned upon in Christianity.

The separation of church and state that has arisen from the Constitution's establishment clause and the case law interpreting it serves a purpose of preventing "one religious denomination [from being] officially preferred over another," as stated in Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 244 (1982).

Another case held that where a statute authorizing activities of an agent of the government, such as a judge, would be unconstitutional, the activity in the absence of a statute is also unconstitutional.

While the Ten Commandments certainly lay a valid moral foundation, numerous societies somehow survived without them prior to their creation. God is most definitely not requisite to a basis for law, otherwise how would any of the non-Christian societies have ever maintained order? This same order justified countless injustices in the past one of the more recently overcome being the lack of women's suffrage.

In regards to the attack on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Criado seems to miss the point that the ACLU defends not the content of speech, but the right to speech itself. Despicable as the KKK and other highly unpopular groups may be, the freedom of speech still exists, and the ACLU acknowledges that they will do what they can to defend it. Allowing speech to be curtailed simply due to its unpopularity is one step in the direction of totalitarianism.