Separate And Equal

    Early settlers came to America seeking freedom to worship as they chose, rather than follow the dictates of a ruling government. The slogan of separate but equal was used in the 20th Century to justify separate schools for children of different races, but in many regions the schools were not equal, either in physical structure or in educational practice.

   In the early years of American colonization, however, beginning with the Puritans in New England and later the Irish Catholics in Maryland, many people came to America because their status in the home country was indeed separate, but not at all equal. In addition, slaves brought here from Africa were not considered equal, or even fully human.

   Times have changed, but some attitudes have not. To call for a single standard of religious worship and to combine that standard with a single government standard is to collapse and destroy all the principles that early settlers sought, and to replace them with a combined church-state system.

   That would return us to the very system that early Americans came here to escape, and they wrote that freedom of and for religion -- or for non-religion -- into the Constitution itself in 1789.

   Therefore, it is essential in order to preserve the American way of life that we cannot, should not and must not in any way combine a church – any church – with the state.

   They are separate and must remain so, even as they are equal in importance.