America's Founding Fathers sought to erect that wall for a good reason. It is not because they were hostile to religion (though the Deism toward which many of our Founders leaned was a worldview rather different from what many Christian conservatives nowadays suppose in their declarations that the United States was founded as "a Christian nation"). No, it was not any aversion to religion but rather a love of peace and a respect for individual liberty.
Our Founders knew well the costs of allowing coercion and faith to marry. Europe had been through a couple centuries of the most brutal religious warfare. In their wisdom, America's Founders attempted to set up a society that would not recapitulate such bloody sectarian strife. And a vital part of their strategy was to keep government neutral in matters of religion.
And they also believed in the rights of individuals to find their own path in life, thinking it more suitable for the dignity of human beings that they be allowed to make their own mistakes than that they be compelled to hew to a path someone else had determined to be right.
The state is unique as a component of society. What makes it unique, as the political scientists have long said, is it's "monopoly on the legitimate use of force." Paying taxes for our public schools is not optional: our house can be forcibly taken from us if we refuse to pay our property taxes. The courthouse is not a church: we can choose not to attend a church, but if we are caught up in a legal battle there is only one courthouse, and its decisions get enforced.
Thus, keeping the state out of the business of taking sides in religious matters is vital both to maintaining social harmony and to preserving human liberty.
But there's another basis, too, for good Christians in America today to deciding to relent in their quest to put the might of the state behind their own religious views. It runs counter to the core ethical teaching of the man they regard as Christ the Lord. Jesus taught: do unto others as you would have others do unto you. What could be clearer?
If you would not want a majority of Hindus to be able to mandate that your children would be indoctrinated with Hindu beliefs, then do not use your power, as a majority, to subject the children of Hindus (and Muslims and Buddhists and atheists and Unitarians and all the rest) to your beliefs.
As you would have others do unto you. What could be clearer?
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