Should There Be A "Wall of Separation" Between Church and State?

After he shot Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin three times in the back, confessed assassin Yoga Amur told police, "I acted alone on God's orders and I have no regrets." Throughout mankind history, religious zealots have maned, burned, crucified, and slaughtered those who do not share their spiritual beliefs: Christians killed tens of thousands of "infidels" during the First Crusade: Catholics and Protestants wiped out tens of millions in Europe in the Thirty Years War; and in colonial America, Puritans allied with their governments to ostracize dissenters and transgressors from their colonies. The Founding Fathers, aware of the pain and suffering caused by religious intolerance, wrote the Establishment Clause into the Constitution to keep the political and religious spheres apart from each other. But, as it always happens with constitutional interpretations, there are different views on application of this clause. Edd Doerr executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty, opposes religious instruction in public schools because it creates divisiveness and dissension. On the other hand George Goldberg a writer and lawyer, advocates spiritual teaching whenever states sponsor all religious faiths. I believe nonreligious American would be treated unequally, bring the evil that the Establishment Clause, sought to prevent, if the states sponsored all religious faiths.Public schools should not teach children any particular religious views, Doerr believes, because the aim of public education is to instruct children about the common democratic values that make living possible in a pluralistic religious society. If public schools are going to talk about religion at all, it should be done in an academic context, free of any preferential or critical stance toward any religious group. this neutral objectivity is difficult, however, because reference to any religion in the curriculum, classroom, or textbook could be regarded as a preferential treatment by different believes. Indeed, the argument of preferential treatment has been strained by fundamentalist groups, like the "New Religious Right," who claims that creationism should be taught in the classroom because its probative evidence is almost equal to that of evolution. And since evolution is taught in schools, they further argue that the state is teaching the religion of "secular humanism," in violation of the "Establishment Clause". But, teaching children creationism , as every scientist and educator knows, would destroy the objectivity of science and the American standard of education. Creationism and the attack on "secular humanism" are intended to close the child's mind, as it is evident that the real objections to humanism are directed against critical thinking, sex education, tolerance, and feminism. Feeling the general public rejection of their dogmatic proposals, protestant fundamentalists are going to the courts to try to impose their one sided views. they are claiming their right to protect their children from any secular teaching that interferes with their "sincerely held" beliefs. It is difficult to foresee, however, the damage caused by censorship in education were fundamentalist parents allowed to succeed in this claim. Similarly harmful and unconstitutional the Congress-authorized religious clubs in public schools, which are being used by outside professional missionaries to trap the ambivalent young minds. In all this zeal for new converts, fundamentalists may use deceptive tactics, as when they claimed the Supreme Court had prohibited voluntary prayer in public schools. In fact, the highest court only forbade the government from sponsoring any religious faith. Ultimately, the best thing to avoid conflict between church and state is to provide religious natural education. The other side of the issue is argued by Goldberg. He claims religion should be a part of school curriculum, as long as the state treats all religions equally. The conflict generated by religious instruction in public schools has been created by the broad and improper interpretation that the Supreme Court has given to the Establishment Clause: "Neither [the state nor the federal government] can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another." Thus, when students in a public school want to pray in group, according to their beliefs, the Court make void their right to worship under the Free Exercise Clause, claiming that the Establishment Clause prohibits any public support of religious activities in the school. However, The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment only prohibits the state from imposing a particular religion or from giving preferential treatment to one religion over the others. Accordingly, the state may provide assistance to religious programs in public schools, whenever the assistance is offered to all religions. This egalitarian interpretation of the Establishment Clause is safely found in history, as it was known since its inception that that the "Establishment of Religion" implied the prohibition of preference but not of equality. Teaching religion to children in public schools, whatever their faith be, is necessary because modern parents do not have the time to instruct their children about spiritual values. Moreover, the raising number of one parent households increases the number of children in need of the moral guidance left by their fathers. There are those who claim that because religion is based on faith, it has no place in the factual world of education. But if a person describes a fact according to his convictions and preferences, then religion is also a fact to the believer. I believe that even the seemingly innocuous "moment of silence for voluntary prayer" in public schools violates the constitutional prohibition against establishment of religion because the state would encourage religious beliefs in detriment of those who do not partake of religious dogmas, violating their right to be treated equally under the law. If the state sponsored religions in general for one segment of society, it must also support the irreligious views of the rest; otherwise the formative liberty of nonbeliever children would be influenced by the state. Under state authority, a subtle zeal for indoctrination will begin to hatch, foretelling of the noxious religious persecutions suffered by atheists through the history of mankind. Indeed, as evil continue disfiguring the hopes of men, anxiety will spur contempt toward those who personify disobedience to the gods. It is probable true, as Goldberg contends, that, the Establishment Clause was enacted to avoid the kind of preferential treatment that England and nine out of the thirteen original colonies had given to particular religions before 1789. As pointed out by Justice Rehnquist extensive dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 US 38, at 103 (1985), the Establishment Clause did not require government neutrality between religion and irreligious nor did it prohibited the Federal Government from providing nondiscriminatory aid to religion. There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the "Wall of Separation" that was institutionalized in Everson v. Board of education, 330 US 1 (1947). Regardless of this history, I disagree. the contemporary American Government must have its own vision. Back when James Madison drafted what came to be known as the Bill of Rights, religious faith in a divinity-created world permeated the mind of almost every American. The Founding Fathers, feared most of all the conflict and instability generated by religious intolerance among diverse faiths. Their view of the world, as well as their attitudes toward human creation and destiny, had no other basis that the rational speculation handed down to them since antiquity. Science was in its cradle; but it soon began to grow. If democracy gave Americans their political freedom, science gave them their mental emancipation. Knowledge of things for long unknown, brought to light by discoveries in psychology, mathematics, biology, physics, and epistemology probably gave some Americans the assertive confidence to rule out religion as a mere delusion of the imagination. This new attitude toward existence--that man is a self-creating creature who choose what he wants to be, and who accepts responsibility for the consequences- could also be encouraged by the savagery and misery left by international conflicts, most of them kindled by religious prejudices. Whatever the causes that turned a segment of Americans towards themselves instead of higher powers, their nonreligious or atheistic attitudes are as valid and legitimate as the faith of the majority. Irreligious persons might conceive the violence, struggle, and divisiveness in their country as the result of the believer's irresponsible behavior, to them redeemable by mere magical prayers. They might see the state sponsoring of all religions as chains attached to the human intellect, perpetually hindering the freedom that comes with full acceptance of responsibility. Atheist in this sense are a faction, as were the various religions before the Establishment Clause. They are a faction related to all American believers who profess any kind of faith. In fact, they have also a faith, a belief in the autonomy of men. If the state sponsors religious prayer for children in public schools, it must provide also instruction on the autonomy of men; lest irreligious children by treated as outcasts, suffering not only the scorn of their fellow mates but also discrimination from the state. Even though the historical record shows that the Framers' intent in adopting the Establishment Clause was to curtail preference towards one religion, they knew that, if united government power would likely end up as religion's handmaid.