A lot of polls are bandied about to show either support for separation of church and state - 59% according to the Interfaith Alliance/Zogby International - or support for prayer in schools - usually around the same percentage according to sources that are faith-based polls. How accurate these polls are depends a great deal on what is being asked.
For example, the poll supporting prayer in schools doesn't take into account other government entities. If prayer is okay in schools, then it should be legal for all governmental departments, i.e., transportation, county registries, city councils, police departments, etc. Even if this premise is found acceptable, it doesn't take into account the actual implementation of the prayers. What are the guidelines? Are the prayers to be led by the department heads, the teachers, the students, the employees - just who gets to say the prayer?
And, are all prayers included? Who gets to decide if the prayer is Christian or Jewish? Who determines if the prayer is specific to a particular faith - a prayer to the Virgin Mary by a Catholic or a prayer that speaks to the exclusion of other faiths or a prayer that affirms one denomination as the one true faith, beliefs held by many Protestant churches.
What do you do with people who do not believe in the mixture of church and state? Would an IRS employee be excused if his or her Southern Baptist department head led a prayer to Christ? This point also leads to a determination of bias - say this employee who does not participate in his boss' prayer can he expect this lack of participation to affect the evaluation of his job performance by his boss? Or, say a Jewish student is excused from a Christian prayer by his teacher, is it likely that the student might suspect that this exclusion will color the way his teacher views him and could affect the way the teacher grades him?
Many people who do not believe in the separation of church and state often point to the fact that at least 75% - and possibly more depending on the poll - believe in God. Of course, there is the large number of people who believe in God but also believe in the separation of church and state. But, let's assume a sizable majority - 60% - of the American people believe in God, but not the separation of church and state. Do they all have the same beliefs about God? There are over 2,000 different religious denominations in this country - the vast majority of which are Christian. If we are one nation under God, then why don't we all go to the same church.
Even within denominations there are subsets that greatly disagree with each other - Orthodox or Reformed Jews, Baptists and Southern Baptists, conservative Catholics and progressive Catholics, etc. So, when it comes to breaking the wall separating church and state, whose concept of God do we allow in our schools, and our governments? Do we allow all - which would include Wiccans, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists? If not, then who gets to choose which religions may take part in our government?
I suspect that when people talk about there being no separation between church and state, they mean that there is no separation between their church and the state. Somehow they do not see that allowing only their beliefs in, means that all other citizens, regardless of their belief or lack thereof, do not have this same access. And if that isn't establishing a governmental religion, then what is?
So, the polls that support prayer in school don't answer the hard questions. Why stop with schools - all governments federal, state, local should have prayers. Either all religions are included in this access or somebody will have to have the authority to choose whose prayers are included and whose are excluded. Would this authority be determined by majority - then Catholics would win. Or would it be put to a vote? Would the vote be national or statewide or local (then would it be city or county)? Answers to these questions would probably indicate whether one's support for separation or being against separation is a matter of one's faith - but whose faith wins?
