Response to Ben's Questions

If you were a teacher, what would your stance be on this ruling?
I chose to respond to this question because it directly relates to my parliamentary debate this week. If I were a teacher, I would stand on the side of the U.S. Supreme Court because I also see it as a violation of the constitution, which clearly notes that a separation of church and state is necessary. Before separation of church and state religious minorities in the United States were subject to backlash from the majority because of their personal beliefs. The idea of separation of church and state dates back over two hundred years from Thomas Jefferson and was put in place to protect those who behave out of the religious “norms” in the U.S.

How do you think your stance would change if you taught at a private university?
It seems that professors have a bit more freedom when it comes to private universities. Students choose schools based on certain principles that school represents, so some levels of curriculum are inherent. Personally, I would still respect this law in a private university. Also, I would probably delve further into the history of evolution and the history of church and state separation as well. This is not to say that creationism is not a theological idea to be studied, but I feel it should remain out of science classes because it is not to the same standards as the rest of the scientific community. Science students benefit most from well established scientific theories, thus evolution would be taught if I were a science teacher at a private university.

What is the importance of this case to the conflict between church and state?
Two major ideas resonate as very important for me: The first is protecting the minorities and the second is keeping the religiosity of politics as neutral as possible.
Like I mentioned before, outbursts from the “main” religions in the U.S. started because they felt entitled to their position before separation of church and state was enforced. The U.S. is made up of so many religious and personal beliefs; therefore it cannot adopt one as the norm because someone would always be left out. After all, we were founded by mostly white Christians, yet people of many other ethnic and religious have subsequently followed.
Next, mandating one specific religion onto a political party would cause even more problems with polarization than already exist. Some levels of assumed religion can be attached to particular political parties, but no regulations or demands have been placed on their members. This allows anyone—of any faith—to associate his or her self to a political party. Mandating specific religions would again shut out too many people and could cause a complete failure of a political party.