To the editor:

There are a couple of things disturbing about the Andy Fritz “controversy” as reported by The Messenger on Oct. 25. Neither of them involves Councilman Fritz who has been elected and served uncontroversially on the City Council previously for many years.

Very disheartening is the level of misunderstanding of the role of religion in government displayed at the council meeting by some people who really ought to know better. In the United States, religion is not at the center of government, as it is in Iran or Israel. The practice of religious belief is protected by the separation of church and state in our Constitution. The Constitution, in fact, prohibits the state from favoring one religious belief over another. So, the U.S. is not a Christian nation any more than it is Buddhist or Muslim. Our government is made up of laws, passed by elected representatives, signed by the president and adjudicated by the courts. The Bible is not the law of the United States.

Secondly, since the earliest an actual special election would be held is still months away, and since the scheduled election for Mr. Conrad’s vacant seat would be up for a vote in the fall of the year 2023 anyway, it is senseless to spend some 20,000 tax dollars to elect someone who would hold the position for mere months, only to have to run again. So, why was the council chamber “packed?” It’s because some people like to jump to conclusions based on rumors and scuttlebutt instead of the recent public history of Mr. Fritz’s service to the community. Mr. Fritz’s choice of religious views is frankly not anybody’s business but his own.

Dave Hearn

Fort Dodge