Attending public schools from the late 80s to the late 90s, I sort of feel that my generation was on the cusp of the "religious-related paranoia" that seems to have swept over government funded organizations. Sometime between 1st and 12th grade, I remember a certain amount of hoopla about about 3 things: 1) getting rid of such phrases as "merry Christmas" and replacing them with the far less incendiary "happy holidays," 2) about making sure to have a conspicuously placed menorah around such "holiday" seasons, 3) omitting the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. Now as a child, I of course barely understood what any of this meant because 1) if a Jewish kid said "happy Hanukkah!" to me, I would have been genuinely pleased with the fact that someone just gave me good wishes in the spirit of his/her religion, which I can only imagine means a whole lot to them, 2) there were a total of like three Jewish kids per year so to have a menorah towering over other Christmas decorations just seemed a little silly (even to those three Jewish kids), 3) kids have a hard time understanding exactly what a Pledge of Allegiance actually means so one line thrown in there isn't really going to make my atheist friend jump out of his shoes (honestly, we were too busy wrapping our heads around the word "indivisible").
So now that we have the history of my involvement in the Separation of Church and State debate, we can move on to today. Yes, we've all heard the stories about getting rid of the Ten Commandments in tax-dollar funded places and of course the people who sue to get Christmas trees removed from schools as well. I sort of feel those are the "fringe" cases and therefore I won't directly go after them. I however would like to look more into where the debate came from in the first place.
We all hear this phrase "Separation of Church and State" over and over again and I feel like the majority of fellow countrymen think that this phrase has its roots in our Constitution. Well...that's only kind of true. The only real mention of anything related to this phrase is of course the First Amendment where it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Now if you're saying to yourself, "Wow, that seems like a significant jump from that to getting rid of the Ten Commandments in a court house," then you're starting to see things from my point of view. But hey, let's go a little further because there is actually another step leading us to where we are today.
In 1802 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a committee representing the Danbury Baptists in the state of Connecticut. This letter contains a quotation from that aforementioned First Amendment and follows it with the following (Jefferson's words), "thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." So Jefferson said it! Aha! Well, let's look a little deeper at who Jefferson was writing to and about what. The Danbury Baptists were a religious organization that was scared of the lack of protection of the religious liberty in their state. They were a religious minority, fearful that the religious majority might eventually establish an official state religion. In other words, Jefferson was actually defending their right to worship and not taking anything away from anybody (well, except for the people who possibly wanted to establish a state religion).
I guess my place in this whole debate is that of "leave it alone!" Ok, if a public school in the Bible Belt (why do we always pick on them?) decides to suspend a child for repeatedly wearing his kippah, then we can talk because that is the specific prohibiting of religious freedom as stated in the Constitution. However, taking away certain religious devices or items (even from public venues) is not what the Constitution is referring to at all. I would even go as far as saying that a public school teacher is allowed to pray to whatever god he/she believes in as long as he/she does not forcibly lead a class in such prayer. Well, I guess if a teacher decides to break out in private prayer during the middle of class then that the teacher should be fired, but not for any religious-related reason. He/she should be fired for not teaching while "on the clock."
So I guess to sum it all up, I will make a statement that I feel is a more modern variation on what the Constitution has to say about religion: I like that I can go to church on Sundays. I also like that I don't have to.
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