The Saturday edition of The Dallas Morning News carried a review of a new book entitled &uot;A Nation Gone Mad.&uot; The subject of this book was not last week’s federal court ruling prohibiting the use of God in our Pledge of Allegiance, but as far as I am concerned it could have been.

I was in Dallas this past week when this ruling was handed down and I read all the Texas newspaper articles relating to this subject. For the most part I find that Texans think as we do in Alabama

they respect the flag, they are patriotic and they believe in God.

Like most of us they are deeply concerned about the erosion of America’s values and the role of our courts in our nation’s trend away from God-centered government.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance, as recited by millions of American school children, is unconstitutional because the words &uot;under God&uot; violate the First Amendment clause prohibiting the &uot;establishment of religion.&uot;

This ruling is the latest in a series of judicial decisions that tear at the very fabric of the greatness of America. What will be declared unconstitutional next?

Will it be the statement &uot;In God We Trust&uot; on our currency? Will it be denying the U.S. Congress the right to open their daily sessions with prayer, a custom which has been in effect since the founding of our nation? Or will it be making us re-write the great American song, God Bless America?

Wise men wrote the United States Constitution, but clever judges have been destroying it, bit by bit, turning it into an instrument of arbitrary judicial power instead of a limitation on all government power.

Letting judges change the law by verbal sleight of hand is especially dangerous in a country where the people are supposed to have the power to control the laws they live under via their elected representatives. Our nation has stood longer than any democratic government in the history of the world. We are the envy of the world, but we derive our greatness from our value system, which is based on God’s revelation to us, the Bible.

Even in some of the more favorable articles that I read in the Texas newspapers, I am not certain that the writers are getting to the heart of the matter.

The very first verse in the Bible says, &uot;In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth&uot; (Gen. 1:1). John tells us in the New Testament that &uot;All things were made by God, and without him was not anything made that was made&uot; (John 1:2).

The world in which we live was brought into being by God, its continued existence is dependent upon him, and mankind has been given the highest position of honor and responsibility in the universe.

Our founding fathers had no problem acknowledging God and our dependence upon him, and as I wrote in this column several weeks ago, Alexis de Tocqueville reported in 1831 to the French queen that America’s greatness was found in its churches.

God cannot be happy with a nation which is taking prayer out of the public schools, is denying reference to his name in our Pledge of Allegiance and is otherwise chipping away at the very foundation of the greatness of America.

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God n 95 percent according to a recent Harris poll – so we need to reinforce government of the people, by the people and for the people.

I pledge to you that I will do everything I can as a state senator to accomplish the objective of restoring America to a God-centered government.

Until next week, remember &uot; I’ll go with you or I’ll go for you to help you solve any problem related to state government. Call me whenever you feel I can be of assistance.