A Story of Islam and a New York State Public Schoo/Separation of Church and Statel

When I was 20, I student taught in Upstate New York at two different schools. My second school was in a rural area. At the time I began my placement, the students were studying world religions. The teacher had students work in groups to research various religions (only one group out of every class was assigned Christianity, there were multiple groups in each class reporting on Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confuciusm, which by the way, isn't even a religion! I was told the the teacher decided this representation).

Anyway, one of the student groups decided they would demonstrate how to pray to allah. The teacher then instructed the class to follow the group's instructions. She did as well. I had five Christian students look at me in horror. They didn't want to do it. I told them not to do it, if they didn't want to. I, for one, was not going to pretend to pray to allah.

The teacher told me I needed to respect the students and Islam and participate in the demonstration. I refused.

Guess who got in trouble. ME!
Not only did I get in trouble for telling professing Christian students they didn't have to do something they didn't want, but I got in trouble because I stood up for what I believe.

Christians are persecuted for what they believe because people HATE God. It has nothing to do with separation of church and state. NOTHING. They HATE God.

Let's take a brief look at separation of church and state:

The First Amendment simply states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

However, the court system has reinterpreted this as a "law" which supposedly dictates the separation of church and state.
In fact, the first amendment only applies to CONGRESS! Congress shall make no law respecting...Religious matters were left to the individual States. The Supreme Court began to ignore all historical precedents and decided that the Bill of Rights applied to the States based on the 14th Amendment, which then increased the power of the Federal government, which is contrary to the purpose of the Bill of Rights. (See Gitlow v. New York, 1925).

Again, the Supreme Court applied the Bill of Rights to the States in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 1940. The case was a State issue, yet, the Supreme Court applied the Bill of Rights to the States.

Seven years later, the Supreme court once again applied the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment in the content of separation of church and state in Everson v. Board of Education, 1947.

The intentions of the Bill of Rights were to prevent the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT from RESPECTING one religion over another. It had nothing to do with separating religion from the State. In fact, issues of religion were State matters, NOT Federal.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IS NOT A LAW!!!

Contrary to what people believe, the government is supposed to support and promote religious communities according to the Bill of Rights.

Funny, the only religion that applied to this at the time was Christianity (Yes, I know Native Americans were there, but the founders did not consider them part of the Nation). The Founders of the USA had no idea that America would look like it does today.

Christianity permeated the US government:
In 1777, with the Revolutionary War threatening the flow of Bibles from England, Congress approved the purchase of 20,000 Bibles from Holland to give to the states.

No fewer than six of the 13 original states had official, state-supported churches – "establishments of religion"! I'll bet you didn't know that. In fact, these states – Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and South Carolina – refused to ratify the new national Constitution unless it included a prohibition of federal meddling with their existing state "establishments of religion."

Still other states required those seeking elected office to be Christians.

The Continental Congress routinely designated days of "fasting and prayer" and other religious observances, appointed government-funded chaplains, and appropriated money to pay for Christian missionaries to convert the Indians.

Read the article

Therefore, if people want a separation of church and state. It needs to become a law. Right now, it's nothing more than a legal term that has been IMPOSED from the Federal level (which is unconstitutional). According to the US Constitution, there is no such thing as separation of church and state. Stop forcing opinions that don't exist on other people because you don't like it and go read a history book.