Separation of sanity and state

Hypersensitivity to and misunderstanding of the principle of separation of church and state continues to produce absurd results. In Bellingham, Maine, the town has decided to cease the longstanding practice of snow plowing church parking lots because the ACLU complained about it. An administrator said that the town had been performing the service for “as long as there have been churches in the town.� In Madison, Wisconsin, the school district has ordered Chavez Elementary School to stop the practice of taking field trips to Salvation Army sites so that the school children could ring bells to help raise funds for the organization at Christmas time. A parent had objected to public school children helping a “religious-based� charity.

The town snow plowed every church’s parking lot, giving no preference to one denomination over another. Thus, the ACLU’s problem with this practice is that the town had any interaction with religion. Moreover, it is obvious that the act of snow plowing a church parking lot does not “establish� a religion, which is what the First Amendment forbids.

The Salvation Army is a religiously-based organization, not a church. Under the objecting parent’s view, as part of their public school activities children cannot even associate with religious organizations. However, a religious organization is not “an establishment of religion.�

These examples illustrate the danger of placing hedges around the law. In the name of protecting a principle embedded in the law, zealots extend the principle beyond all rational boundaries until the purpose behind the principle is lost altogether. The First Amendment’s prohibition on establishments of religion was meant to prevent the federal government from setting up a state church. The existence of a state church would elevate one religion above others, which would create added strife among religions practiced throughout the country and restrict freedom of conscience by putting the power of the state behind one religion. None of these dangers are present in the actions taken by the town of Bellingham or Chavez Elementary School. The acts are positive aides to religion and religious affiliates that do not contain any of the telltale signs of an establishment.

This should be common sense, but sense is swept aside in the zeal for secular purity in government. We are no longer dealing with the law of the Establishment Clause, only mere shadows designed to frighten people about what the law requires, shadows that disappear when the light of truth shines and reveals the much smaller and more straightforward actual meaning of the law. The question that arises when absurdities such as these examples continue to occur is: how much longer will people allow the ACLU and others to frighten them away from perfectly proper activities under the First Amendment? Are they really going to stop plowing church parking lots and prevent kids from ringing Salvation Army bells just because one person or one organization is offended by such actions? If they do, the shadows will continue to grow more menacing and the fence around the law will increase until the principle we are protecting is entirely forgotten. The disappearance of the influence of religion in the public square will spell the loss of the primary pillar of stable governance, and without that pillar it will only be a short period of time before the edifice collapses.