“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That is the first sentence of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Baptist Church from Danbury, Connecticut, explaining the Establishment Clause very eloquently. “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Over forty previous decisions of the Supreme Court have upheld this principle to the extent that it required the removal of the Ten Commandments from courtrooms across the country. Very prestigious Justices weighed in on this point, including Justice Bryer, Justice Souter, Justice Ginsberg, and Justice O’Connor. Sandra Day O’Connor made the very astute argument, “We are a religious people, but the separation between church and state was the very thing that freed Americans to practice their faiths.”
It appears that the Supreme Court has again blundered into overstepping its authority to overrule a couple of hundred years of precedence, not to mention trampling on our Constitution. The Constitution has obviously had much more thought put into it by people of greater prestige and wisdom than our current Supreme Court has. It exposes the current Justice’s religious prejudices, and partisan politics, along with their personal opinions. As in the discipline of physics, every action will lead to an equal but opposite reaction, their poorly thought-out decisions will eventually come back to bite us. Court-packing evolving to a one-party rule is the next step. Relevancy of the Court will become an increasing issue making a shambles of the three branches of our government.
Religion is based on writings going back at least three millennia. It is the infallible word of God. The problem comes in that each infallible scripture of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the dozens of the others, Buddism, Hinduism, Mormons, and all the other 4,300 religions of the world do NOT AGREE with each other on many points! Colorado’s Third Congressional District Representative Lauren Boebert in her learned wisdom, says she is tired of hearing this “Separation of Church and State junk!”
If prayer were again allowed to be said in public schools, how many prayers would have to be recited to make it fair and equal, or would it just be the Evangelicals who would get that privilege? How would most Christians react if they were forced to participate in Muslim prayer, even if they did not have to touch the ground with seven parts of their body as the Quoran requires? An all-knowing God would understand that silence is golden under certain circumstances.
Lauren further explains that the church should tell the state what to do, not the other way around. My question to her is, “Which church? Would it be the Baptists or the Anabaptists or possibly the Rastafarians?” Lauren only needs a turban, and she would then qualify to lead the Christian Taliban and realize her wish of a Full-On Theocracy like in the good old days. Was life so much better when we had the absolute certainty that we were the center of the Universe and the sun revolved around us? We almost burned Galileo at the stake which we did to his predecessor, Giordano Bruno for not following what the Holy Scriptures said. It gave us the authority to burn heretics and hang a few witches. It was not that long ago, in 1826, when we executed the last heretic, Cayetano Ripoll, for teaching Deism.
Just look at the question of when life starts. The IRS does not allow a deduction for a baby in utero regardless of time from conception nor can a pregnant woman use the car pool lane by herself. It is not a person, our government says. Jews quote the Bible, “And God formed the man of dust of the earth, and breathed upon his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7. Therefore they believe life begins with the first breath. Muslims say ensoulment happens at 120 days, and Buddhists don’t believe there is a soul. I want a religion that has a direct line to God so we can rely on it to tell us what we should do, or should we just ask Lauren Boebert.
It is considered unethical and even illegal for a student and teacher or a patient and doctor to have a sexual relationship precisely because there is an inequality that makes that indecent, immoral, and worse. Teachers have lost their jobs and doctors their licenses to practice over that issue. Along the same line, how then can it be acceptable for a football coach to pray on the 50-yard line encouraging the team to join him? Besides, what message does that send? I was unaware that God watched high school football, and if He did, He really shouldn’t be asked to take sides! Of course, it would be even worse if He answered the prayer by taking sides!