’s Gettysburg Address, “…that is this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Even in the Pledge of Allegiance the nation is referred to as “…one nation under God…” Religion also plays an important role in politics. As once stated by Ronald Reagan “politics and morality are inseparable, and as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related.” History records it, and current events confirm it. Yet here in the U.S. some people still are not convinced. The new fusion of Christian fundamentalism with a so-called political conservatism has been branded the most potent political force in the nation today. People who practice fundamentalist politics and have school prayer at the top of their legislative agenda talk of a return to traditional values. In my opinion there is no value more traditional than that of separation of church and state. It is our great gift to the history of the world. During the 97th and 98th Congresses, there were repeated attempts to dilute this quality, which has distinguished our society from all others. There have been bills to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over school prayer. Nearly 200 years after the drafting of the Constitution, the Supreme Court for the first time ruled that prayer and Bible reading in public schools encouraged by the State constitutes an establishment of religion in violation of the first amendment. At the time of these decisions, 26 states permitted Bible reading in the public schools and 13 authorized the saying of the Lord’s Prayer. In each case, the court ruled that voluntary school programs including Bible reading or prayer violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. In both rulings, the court went beyond the language of the establishment clause to c...
