Despite claims from the extremes on both sides, the United States was neither founded by a group of fundamentalist Christians with the intent of creating a theocracy, nor by a group devoid of religious beliefs with the intent of marginalizing the religious.

The founders held a wide range of beliefs. Some do in fact appear to have been the type of traditional Christians that today’s Evangelicals could be comfortable with, but many others subscribed to a very different version of Christianity or Deism, and some probably didn’t believe in a God at all.

Fortunately for us, these people were smart enough and far sighted enough to build a wall to protect churches from government interference, and to protect the government from turning from a Democracy into a Theocracy. Unfortunately not everyone today is thinking as clearly as they were, and this wall is being eroded.

Just as the US government is not supposed to be creating religious doctrine for churches, religions should not be dictating government policy.

If you are not religious, are you comfortable with your tax dollars being handed over to religious organizations to help them not only in community aid programs but also in the evangelistic campaigns that are usually tightly interwoven with those programs?

If you are religious, are you comfortable with the idea that the government is helping other religions and sects, or that if this wall of separation is broken down we could one day live in a country where your particular religion or sect is marginalized by government policy, or even outlawed?

Simply put, while certain religious organizations and politicians may find a short term benefit in the marriage of church and state, in the long term it is a danger to both.