Separation helped inspire the American Revolution; for without it the founding fathers would not dare bend the consensus of a colonist more or less comfortable with the Anglican Church and the many sects derived thereof. So, too, the growing number of Catholics in the colonies were content with the papal bull for the direction their lives would take. Suddenly from the Declaration of Independence there grew a conscience that began to break out of the box.


There is no denying that a devout person has a veritable conscience, but it is not totally free from authoritarian strictures and developed under anxiety of what others like minded would think, along with drawing a line in the sand of preconceived practices. The idea of separation is to permit the body politic to explore all the variables of human action and develop civic laws conceived by a dynamic morality, in lieu of religious decree. Even though the Constitution is the bedrock of certain inalienable laws, it leaves room to breathe and grow by interpretation and amendment; yet it does not permit prostitution of the law of the land. For instance, the right to bear arms was clear in its intent during the early years of state’s competing with each other to protect state sovereignty against infringement by another state, or, in its infancy, a subversive central government. Its further intent was to grant the right to protect an individual’s private space against a criminal act. The first intent was misinterpreted as an excuse for the Civil War. Since its end, the nation has been relatively solidified and the right to bear arms is actually a right for each state to show its solidarity behind the central government by facing up to its quota of a national guard, and a militia for any strife within its borders. The second intent is forever a right for as long as there is crime.


Out of the box thinking, too, would prohibit an amendment sanctifying marriage between a man and a woman, thereby forbidding homosexual unions and in direct opposition to the equal rights clause. Moreover, there is no justification for such an amendment because it is a religious fiat of condemnation. Though I would personally take offense — irrespective of religion — in seeing a bearded guy in a wedding gown — there are other laws for that — my perception has no relevance to law. An amendment, however, that specifically addresses equal rights for couples of all persuasion living together would seem to me to skirt the sanctity of marriage, which in light of increasing divorces is a mockery anyway.


As for coping with many other variables, there is a great temptation to espouse “when in Rome...” and to universalize customs. I myself take umbrage when at an ATM I have to first choose a language. Yet with a nation historically built on immigration and with the ease in which computers can translate, I reason that it is a matter of convenience for immigrants, having equal rights, to ease into the ways of the nation. [It took the Catholic Church two thousand years to present Mass in respective native tongues.] This is not to say, that English should not be the national language; otherwise, the nation would become another tower of Babel or Europe and become dysfunctional in its united front. That said, children of non-English speaking parents should be given remediation in English as a symbol of equal rights if they are to succeed.


Granting, the formation of an individual relies heavily on religious preconceptions, it is nonetheless paramount to acknowledge that one’s beliefs are a private function and should not interface publicly unless it is fortified with charitable action and thought.