Open the door for all to participate

To the editor:

How long is it going to take for our society to stop treating anyone as second class? The historic election certainly is a reminder we can grow. However, there are many in this country that may want public office but will not get it based on race or party label or religion.

It wasn’t that long ago blacks and women would have no shot at any high office, much less local public office. I am thrilled the son of an immigrant is now our president, which affirms that we are truly a nation of immigrants.

However, it seems people collectively in our wonderfully diverse nation still think there is a sign on the White House door, “Non-Christians need not apply.” That is simply false by virtue of the words, “No religious test” in the Constitution.

There is absolutely nothing preventing, for example, an American born here of Japanese dissent from applying to run for president. If that person convinces most of the voting public to put her/him into the Oval Office, they have rightfully won that office.

We have a Muslim in Keith Elleson in Congress. We even have an open atheist in Pete Stark in Congress. Yet it is still a widely false belief these same citizens could not be president.

They can’t be president even if they are qualified, because of the phobia of the voting public, not because of the words in the Constitution.

I am thrilled at the growing inclusion as evidenced in this historic event. But, for the same reason people wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney, who rightfully said what John F. Kennedy said, and John Kerry repeated, “I will not use my article of faith to legislate on others.”

Our nation is about pluralism, and blacks shouldn’t have ever been subjected to the oppression they were. Isn’t it time we extend Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to mean the following?

“I long to see the day, when a human is not judged on the religious label, or party label, but the content of their actions.”

It is not for me about shutting doors on anyone but opening minds to open the door for all citizens to participate in the greatest Constitution in human history.

Brian Humphrey

Ocean Isle Beach