Something to bash on

[kandrathe]

How dare anyone take Seperation of Church and State seriously!

Or, dare to find out that there is no such guarantee of a "Seperation" in the Constitution, or Bill of Rights.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

To me means Congress will not declare a national religion, or declare that any particular religion or sect for that matter is illegal to practice. It does not mean we should scrub all religiousity from the public landscape.

And so the claim from the governmental side is always, "We're not really endorsing the religion; we don't really care about the religious teaching of the Ten Commandments. Their primary purpose, in effect, is secular." And some religious folks are comfortable supporting that position. But others say, "Look, what you're doing is systematically attempting to de-sacralize a sacred text. You're taking the religious and sacred meaning out of it, at least for litigation purposes, and offering these transparently phony secular explanations." And the principle – the secular explanation of choice for the Ten Commandments – is that these are important: the American law or the law of Western civilization or the Western legal tradition is based on, derived from, the Ten Commandments. These are the foundations of American law.-- Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

To me it is senseless to try to deny the judeo-christian religious context that forms the backbone of Western juris prudence. Can we recognize it publically, or must we go back and try to excise it in an attempt to rewrite our history? Are you really disturbed by the phrase "In God We Trust" on US Currency, or that the US Congress has a chaplain and begins each day in prayer?

Similiar to going around making sure all athletic teams names (that have been in place for decades) do not offend anyone (e.g. Kansas City Chiefs, Cleveland Indians).