What has happened in this country that the above words taken from the CONSTITUTION upon which this country was founded have been so ignored and abused?

How is it that an individual can be rejected, discriminated and abused because of their religious beliefs, sexual orientation or racial and national origin in a country that claimed to believe that all persons were created equal and entitled to a decent quality of life and the pursuit of happiness?

How in a country that has often been called the “MELTING POT” can we now discriminate because of a persons race, creed, social position or nationality. Do the words on the base of the Statue of Liberty which proclaim “"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" from the poem THE NEW COLOSSUS written in 1883 by Emma Lazarus, mean nothing?

This weekend we honor all the men and women who gave their lives during the many battles to insure our freedom and the rights accorded by the CONSTITUTION including the more than 4000 that have given their life fighting what seems to be an endless war in Iraq.

This weekend might be a good time for us to re-examine the state of this country in regards to sustaining these rights and what we need to do to insure we erase all prejudice and injustice from the country. We need to make certain it is the citizens who choose our elected officials and not big business, special interests or the political parties elite .

The winner of an elected position should be the person who receives the most popular vote.

Recently we have seen slurs against political candidates for their race and for their religious beliefs. We have had candidates claiming that they represent the “white working class” better.

I believe that the person who is elected should represent all the people who make up this multicolored, multinational, multi-religion nation. The men and women who have died to protect the principals of our Constitution were not of one color, one race or one creed. Our country has been called The Rainbow Nation because of our diversity let us not change that.

We have individuals who claim they are representatives of Almighty God discriminating against others because God created them with a homosexual orientation and others who would deny a woman or a non white the presidency.

We are spending Trillions of dollars fighting a war when we are overlooking the needs of the poor, aged, homeless and affordable quality education for every citizen not just the rich.

With freedom comes responsibility and sadly far too many citizens of this country do not fulfill one of their prime responsibilities, that of voting in elections, but they are among the first to complain about what our elected officials do or fail to do.

We fulfill one of the tenants of the Constitution, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” by voting into office those who will make the necessary changes to erase the destructive and discriminatory ways that are splitting our nation asunder and not by some “super delegates” or special interests or political back room deals.

Recently someone sent me an email that had “DO YOU REMEMBER” as its title. It had me reminiscing about how life was back in the 50’s and 60’s and how in those days the worse thing you could get punished about in school was “smoking in the rest room” not having a gun in school. In those days people rarely locked their doors. Neighbors looked out for one another and made sure that they shared their good luck with those who were not as lucky or out of work and during the depression and rationing during WWII neighbors shared hard to get goods with each other when someone was lucky enough to have butter or other rationed materials.

Violence was abhorred and not promoted as entertainment. Sales persons were trained to be courteous and the “the customer was always right” was most companies motto.

In my neighborhood the entire area of a city block gathered together at least twice during the summer months to have a “Block Party” one being the Fourth of July in addition, every summer we would have a Clam Bake on one of the islands in Boston Harbor. At Christmas, the young people would go around caroling while all the residents would be holding an open house with all kinds of goodies for people to eat.

Sadly, today, many people do not even know their next door neighbor and interpersonal communications have degraded to electronic emails. Neighbors watched out for each others children and if someone was sick they took turns assisting the family.

As Christians, we proclaim we are all brothers and sisters in Christ and as such, we need to begin to have respect for each other and look out for each other and be concerned about the needs of others. We need to be more mindful of the concerns of others and especially of our environment. We need to claim our rights to the “pursuit of Happiness” not only for ourselves but also for ALL our neighbors. We need to be welcoming to all who come here as Christ was welcoming to all who came to Him.

On Memorial Day, we need to honor the brave men and woman who gave their lives to uphold the principals our country was founded upon and those brave individuals who came back from defending those rights maimed and disabled and make certain that their valor and sacrifice was not in vain and that they are given proper medical and psychiatric care. We need to re-evaluate our priorities and fulfill our obligations to them and to our children and grandchildren, that as a nation, we will not give up our hard fought freedom but will do what ever is necessary to maintain freedom, justice, equality and the pursuit of happiness for ALL. We need to be more mindful for the needs of others by making certain that ALL citizens have an equal opportunity to receive affordable medical care, quality affordable education and housing and freedom to worship God by whatever name they call Him as long as they are not hurting anyone else.

If we truly believe what our founding fathers said; ““We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We need to assure that we make the necessary changes in our country to change the direction it has taken in recent years.

We need to practice the Corporal Works of Mercy and follow the teachings of Christ in His Sermon on the Mount and try to Love our neighbor as Christ loved us. If we can do that we will take a giant step toward bringing about a more perfect Union and a country that truly is the “America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crowned thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.” and a fitting tribute to all the brave souls that fought to protect and insure it remained that way. AMEN