Opinion

Separation of church and state isolates life

Richard Whitrock
Opinion Columnist

For many years, Americans all over the country have grown up in an environment that fosters the separation of church and life. While the separation of church and state is a necessary and wonderful part of our nationis makeup, it has been taken too far.

The government is not allowed to fund faith-based organizations that help people, and children are highly discouraged from displaying their faith in schools. Apparently, you can only help people if you ignore religion -- belief in God automatically negates any good a group can do for society. For the most part, the public life of America is one of enforced atheism.

The First Amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion …" To put it more clearly, the countryis leaders cannot sponsor an official church of the state, nor can they force anyone to believe or not believe in any specific religion.

The Constitution stops there, but separation zealots in the courts have taken interpretation too far and effectively forced a head-in-the-sand, religion-does-not-exist-on-public-property government policy.

The alienation of church from state has progressed steadily, beginning with the elimination of prayers from the classroom, then from sporting events and so on. Some places have banned teachers from joining student prayers, and some people even push for getting rid of the Pledge of Allegiance because it has the word "God" in it. If things keep up, no religious displays will be allowed in schools.

Although the First Amendment guarantees the right to freely practice religion, this separation has gone too far. It is harming society, beginning with education.

As all educators can tell you, education is most effective when the subject being taught is related to other subjects. For example, teaching English by reading science-related works helps students develop both the ability to read and the understanding of scientific principles. This way, students find it easier to grasp how separate concepts taught in different classes relate to each other.

The way education is enforced is vastly different. While a minimal amount of such interdisciplinary education is given, schools mostly maintain a strict separation between disciplines and even between the classroom and the rest of life. Things taught at home have no place in the classroom, and neither do things taught in church. Children grow up forced to separate their lives into days of the week: Monday through Friday, they are not allowed to have religious beliefs; Saturday they can do what they want; Sunday they can believe in God.

Growing up in an environment that separates religion from everything else is partly to blame for how far things have gone. Too many people have grown up in a climate that segregates their lives so much that they cannot deal with religion as a part-time belief.

The reality of life is that religion exists in the world, and people who believe in a particular religion should not be forced to ignore their beliefs just because they are around others with different beliefs. When these students get out of school, they are unprepared to deal with those who do not separate their lives according to what day of the week it is. The idea that anyone is religious on a day other than Sunday is almost foreign because of this forced compartmentalization.

Separation of church and state is necessary, but that does not mean the state must ignore and alienate its people from religion. Most people would argue that this violates the way they want to raise their children. It is ludicrous to think that if they want to raise their kids to believe in a different God or no God, then they can choose not to let their children be exposed to religious beliefs.

Can a father say he believes black people are evil and that his childrenis school cannot allow blacks into classes with his child because it violates his wishes? Racial segregation was ended for a reason -- yet religious segregation continues without a thought.

The fact that some parents do not believe in God should not determine whether or not their children are exposed to religion in schools, just as the fact that some parents are racist should not determine whether their children have contact with minorities in schools.

Whitrock, a sophomore architecture student, can be reached at rick_whitrock@hotmail.com.