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Separation of church and state confuses some
Published 10:37am Saturday, December 23, 2006The letters of Dave Thompson (Dec. 15) and Dick Grennel (Nov. 27) suggest that there is a wide misunderstanding of what separation of church and state involves.
Separation simply means that our government has no official state religion financed by taxation with specific religious observances mandated by law and government officials are prohibited from forcing anyone to engage in any religious activity that violates their conscience.
So many in our area seem to want teachers to read from the Bible and lead the students in public school in prayer. I wonder how these same people would feel if the teacher would read from a Hindu sacred text like the Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Blessed) and lead the class in a prayer to a Hindu deity?
God is not taken out of the school or anywhere else. Any student or teacher may pray to his or her God privately and read any religious literature they desire privately. All that is prohibited is that government officials must never use the police power of the government to mandate religious services or observances.
Separation of church and state is also no attempt to confine religion within the walls of a house of worship.
Everyone, clergy included, are free to engage in political advocacy or debate, to seek office or promulgate his or her beliefs as long as they do not attempt to use government police power to force people to listen or engage in religious activity contrary to their conscience.
This is one of the great freedoms we Americans enjoy which has enabled us to live in peace in spite or great religious diversity in sharp contrast to what we see going on in Iraq today.
Mr. Thompson is concerned about majority rights. The fact is the majority rules. Our constitution wisely restrains the power of the majority in certain areas involving the personal freedom of individuals guaranteed to all Americans including freedom to chose our own religion but also in other areas. When I entered the military service in 1942 and was stationed in the South (I am white), I observed that a U.S. citizen of color could not eat in the same restaurant with me nor use the same restroom I did.
It is our Constitution that guarantees equal rights to all Americans. It was the our courts, not the ACLU or any other private organization that stopped the reading and the pledge in the case mentioned by Mr. Thompson. This was the majority speaking through our courts.
I believe our Constitution — which allocates certain rights for each of us — continues to be fully supported by the vast majority of us.
Though all advocacy groups will occasionally go to extremes, we properly applaud their work, which helps insure we stand behind our Constitution, which protects us from an oppressive dictatorship of the majority.
Arthur J.L. Meether
Fergus Falls
