by PN Schiavone

Created on: October 15, 2008

Religion should not be banned from any public places. The framers of our constitution never intended that their be a wall of separation between church and state, in the way that it is currently interpreted. In fact when reading historical documents of the time, god is mentioned in many of them such as the Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address. This wall of separationgoes back to Thomas Jefferson who used the phase in a letter. The first amendment of the constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...", which seems to indicate that the government cannot choose a state religion or stop anyone from observing their own religion. This wall of separation was simply a term used meaning that government had no authority over religion and no religious doctrine would become the basis of the countries laws. The framers were men of faith and prayed publicly.

The mere mention of a Deity is not picking any one religion over any other. Our money has the term "in god we trust" this does not mean that Christianity is the chosen religion, nor does it mean that Buddhism is the chosen religion. It is merely a statement that says there is a higher power to acknowledge. I live in an area where the school district rents out part of the school for religious ceremonies, some would argue that this breaches the seperation of church and state doctrine. All taxpayers in the area see it as a way the school can get more money for educational purposes.

The ACLU, which is a communist organisation, uses the separation doctrine quite successfully. They have been able to stop silent prayer and even just a moment of silence in schools. Somehow a moment of silence is seen by the Supreme Court as the state sponsoring religion. The ACLU would like to see the abolition of the nativity scene and the Jewish menorah. The ACLU would also like to see that the government does not even cooperate with faith based organisations to feed and cloth the poor.

We as citizens need to get involved in the debate. Is it even possible to remove all religious symbols from our public square. For instance is a Christmas Tree religious or secular? What about if you have Santa Claus in front of the Christmas Tree? Once again we will need the Supreme court to rule over that. Let your elected leaders know how you feel on the subject and elect officials that will help restore our rights to religious freedom.

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