A HEAD START ON RENAMING OUR FAIR CITY.

Byline: KIMIT MUSTON Local View

I believe separation of church and state is a good idea. People who say we need God in government usually mean their god and not mine. But seemingly, the only alternative to those determined to force us into heaven are those equally determined to lock us out - by whom I mean the American Civil Liberties Union, another noble idea that has often achieved a level of ad nauseum through its own efforts.

The ACLU was founded in 1920 to force us to live up to our Constitution, including the parts that are occasionally uncomfortable, such as the First Amendment, which begins, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercising thereof'' - which roughly translates as ``if you respect one, you disrespect the rest.''

That deceptively simple concept has removed countless anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic rules from the law books. It's forced the removal of countless creches from town squares and ended organized prayer in public schools. And it recently produced an ACLU threat to sue the county of Los Angeles unless it removed a small cross from the county seal, which appears on every official county document.

We may be a nation of churchgoers, and this city may have been founded by his Most Holy Majesty The King of Spain, Defender of God's One True Church, but religion should have no place in our self-image, or rather in the ACLU's image of our self image.

Some people got agitated when the supervisors caved in to this ACLU threat, but our leaders didn't have much choice. And what's the big deal? I never even noticed the cross. It got onto the seal only 47 years ago, and even assuming some telekinetic psychic Pavlovian response to being in proximity to tiny unseen tiny crosses, I don't remember any drops in the crime, divorce or premarital birth rates because of the cross' presence on the seal. And I doubt we'll get to hell any faster because it's been removed.

So chalk up a quick and easy, if minuscule, victory for the ACLU. Said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney of the ACLU of Southern California, ``Those who suggest that a reasonable defense could be mounted against such a clear constitutional violation are engaging in an uninformed, disingenuous campaign.''

And the ACLU is nothing if not ingenuous. These cheerful Chicken Littles are constantly vigilant ere the next threat to our constitutional freedoms should sneak up on 'em. And the next great threat appears to be the profusion of city and county names in America with religious origins.

Sound a little silly? It does to me. But when asked by an enterprising reporter if the ACLU was planning on forcing cities and counties to change their names, an ACLU spokesman said any such plans were probably at least ``ten years off.''

Now there's a relief. We citizens of the city of Angels, of Saints Francisco, Diego, Antonio and Peter and Paul and every saint in between now have ten years to think up new names by which to identify ourselves in purely non-religious terms. Given that our local bureaucrats operate on a geological time scale, we need to start looking for a new name and quick, before all the good ones get taken.

I've already done some thinking about this, so I'll help get things started:

Naturally I first thought of naming the town after myself. Kimit, California does sound like a great place to visit, but who the heck would want to live there?

Before the Spanish started putting up subdivisions, I believe the Yang-na tribe called this place, ``Ours,'' which is a great name, but I'm not sure their word ``ours'' means the same thing as our word ``ours.'' We might just call ourselves, ``Here,'' and then refer to everywhere else as ``There,'' but that could get confusing. And ``Laker Town'' seems to be out of the running for now.

We might rename our town ``La Brea,'' after the pits on Wilshire where creatures have the life sucked out of them by a black viscous fluid. Or not. I even considered changing our name to ``Beverly Hills,'' just to stick it to those snobs shopping on Rodeo Drive, but then, Tuesday afternoon it came to me in a flash, a new name that would fit our terrain, our vision, our history and our future.

So I humbly suggest as the new non-religious name for Los Angeles, California - Shaker Heights.