Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Freedom of Religion is Not Free

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a country where one of our founding amendments was “Freedom of Religion”? Where anyone that lived here would be free to practice whatever religion they truly believed in, without prejudice. Where Muslims could be Muslims, Jews could be Jews, Buddhists could be Buddhists, and Christians could be Christians. No religion was considered, “Better then the other”, and all were equally recognized.


This morning I was driving to work and I passed a Christian school. I thought how wonderful it must be to have a place where you can freely demonstrate your religion. Where you know you are not going to be judged because you pray in school. To have a place where you truly fit in. But, shouldn’t that be free for everyone? Shouldn’t you be able to pray in peace?

Why are we not allowed to pray in schools? If we have freedom of religion, couldn’t we pray wherever we are free? And, couldn’t we bow to “Allah” instead of pray to “God” or “Jesus”?

Supposedly, we are not allowed to pray in schools because not everyone prays, and the people that don’t pray will be left out. In search for equality, we are segregating. Instead of being able to pray in a public school people are forced to build these “....Christian.. ..Schools....” that are in turn segregating the people that are not “Christian”. Is this the direction ....America.... is moving? In order to celebrate our own faith we have to build ourselves a temple to worship.

Freedom of religion is not free. When you start having to build yourself a place to pray, freedom becomes a little less easy