Separation Of Church And State

This small city's namesake military base was decommissioned after World War II, but over the years Fort Oglethorpe, population 7,000, has retained its utilitarian, base-town ambience. Public life here unfolds on two busy four-lane thoroughfares clogged with used-car lots, fast-food joints and pawnshops. All that's missing are the troops. What Fort Oglethorpe does not lack is churches -- enough churches, in an array of Protestant flavors, to deliver salvation to brigades of sinners.

A baseball fan who says he was ejected from Yankee Stadium after he left his seat to use the bathroom while "God Bless America" was playing sued the New York Yankees and the city Wednesday. Bradford Campeau-Laurion says in his federal lawsuit that his rights were violated at an Aug. 26 game between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox when he tried to pass a police officer, who was being paid by the Yankees to work at the Bronx stadium.

The way Jacquie Sullivan sees it, the motto "In God We Trust" is more about patriotism than religion. So when the Bakersfield councilwoman, 68, heard on a Christian radio station in 2001 that protesters on the East Coast were trying to remove the phrase from public buildings, she considered it her civic duty to reverse the trend. "I just shook my head in amazement when I heard," she said. "I thought, if they're working to take it down, I'll start working to put it up."

The College of William & Mary, the nation's second oldest, lost its president last week after a culture-war clash that began when he ordered the removal of an 18-inch brass cross from the altar of the historic Wren Chapel. His decision, an act of legal principle to some and a blunder of liberal activism to others, touched off a revolt among conservative bloggers and alumni of the state-supported school in Williamsburg, Va., and led to his resignation Tuesday.

A watchdog group that advocates the separation of church and state has filed complaints with the Internal Revenue Service against seven churches, including one in Orange County, where pastors on Sunday endorsed presidential candidates or delivered political sermons -- defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups.

A long-running dispute over a cross in the Mojave National Preserve in Southern California may give the Supreme Court a chance to shift the law on church-state separation. Bush administration lawyers urged the justices last week to take up the case and to reverse a series of rulings that would "require the government to tear down a cross that has stood without incident for 70 years as a memorial to fallen service members." The appeal may be well timed.

Bill Ritter Jr. was not the first governor of Colorado to declare the first Thursday in May as a day of prayer. But he was the first to attend a celebration of the National Day of Prayer at the state Capitol, joining a crowd of several hundred Christians in 2007. His appearance at the event caught the attention of a Wisconsin-based atheist group, which has mounted a campaign its leaders hope will dissuade him and other governors from participating again.

Whether the issue is a Nativity scene in a town square or the Ten Commandments at a city hall, Americans never seem to tire of debating whether public displays of religion are constitutional. Year after year, courts give their blessings to some displays and the ax to others. After more than 200 years debating the 1st Amendment, why haven't we found consensus?

Three newly elected school board members in southern Orange County want to rename the two-week winter vacation the "Christmas" recess. Ellen Addonizio, Anna Bryson and Larry Christensen, who were elected to the Capistrano Unified School District Board of Trustees in November, say they are not pushing religion into public schools, but are honoring the federal holiday that falls on Dec. 25. "Traditionally, it was always called that," Christensen said. "It's what it is: Christmas break."

THE Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem once remarked that in the Jewish hamlets of his native Ukraine there were only two people who really were serious about God. One was the local rabbi and the other was the village atheist. These days, American public life often seems awash in cheap piety and religious sentiment -- things quite distinct from genuine conviction.