In a controversial decision virtually guaranteed to increase resentment between scientists, educators, fundamentalists and constitutional rights buffs, United States District Court Judge Clarence Cooper ruled against the Cobb County School Board on January 13th that the inclusion of a religiously neutral disclaimer sticker in school science textbooks was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Prompted by the ACLU, Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education (GCISE) and even former President Jimmy Carter, the lawsuit, filed by Jeffrey Selman and four other parents, is an ongoing expression of the religio-political battle raging in education, religion, science and civil liberties.
In 1802, representatives of the Danbury Baptist Association wrote to Thomas Jefferson inquiring about his refusal to follow in the footsteps of presidents George Washington and John Adams, who declared religiously-based national holidays of fasting and thanksgiving. Jefferson’s response referred to a symbolic “wall of separation” between religion and the state, a phrase that finds expression again and again in the debate over the extent religion should play in the public arena.
The institutions of religion and government have been noted in most every world civilization since the inception of recorded history, and for better or for worse most all societies have attempted to marry the two. Whereas Muslims and Jews, for example, both operate under systems of government that could be defined as theocratic or God-centered, one of the fundamental attractions to theoretical American democracy was its refusal to go this route: enter the outdated concept of religious freedom.