Strengthen the Separation between Church and State

Strengthen the Separation between Church and State

First Amendment issues of the separation of church and state and state establishment of religion have long been litigated in the federal courts. Until recently, the Supreme Court had a consistent track record of preventing the intermingling of religion and government, especially when it came to the nation's public schools. Yet this past year, a newly activist conservative court has set about rewriting some of the Warren Court's judicial legacy. In the 1995 case of Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, declared that the University of Virginia was constitutionally required to subsidize a student religious magazine on the same basis as secular publications and activities. This decision opens the door to greater government financial support for religious organizations. Groups like the Christian Coalition and the American Center for Law and Justice, the legal wing of Pat Robertson's financial empire, saw this narrow decision as a victory for their agenda of weaving together government and religion, thus tearing down the wall of separation between church and state, To justify their pursuits, they site the need for moral leadership in this country, which many view as ethically and morally rudderless. Yet Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, and other similarly thinking individuals and groups are promoting an agenda more far reaching than their mainstream supporters have in mind. The move to infuse government with a greater religious presence has almost nothing to do with instilling traditional values and morality, and almost everything to do establishing Christianity, specifically evangelical Christianity, as the state religion. ...

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... such unions. The United States has the highest level of religious involvement in the western world precisely because we have no state religion, as most nations in Europe do. In that region, state-sponsored churches are moribund, and religious enthusiasm is lackluster. America has a vast diversity of religious viewpoints because the spiritual aspect of people's lives is free from the intrusive tentacles of Uncle Sam. If it were not for our separation of church and state, odds are the evangelical faiths that gave rise to the Christian Coalition never would have existed. Therefore, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson are destroying the agent of their own creation. They would never want socialized medicine, yet they are trying to implement socialized religion. But if you don't want government meddling with your body, why would you want government interfering with your soul.