We Have a Muslim Problem in The U.S.

Since the beginning of the Second Gulf War (post-9/11), there has been an anti-clerical movement in the United States and abroad. Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism, but that paradigm has shifted over the past decade, or so, to include all forms of organized religion. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to remove the church from all aspects of public and political life, and its involvement in the everyday life of the citizen.

Anarchist and Communist movements are anti-religion and anti-clerical, but not all anti-clericals are irreligious or anti-religion. Some have opposed clergy on the basis of moral corruption, institutional issues and/or disagreements in religious interpretation, such as during the Protestant Reformation, or more currently, instances of pedophilia in the Catholic Church. Anti-clericalism became extremely violent during the French Revolution because revolutionaries believed the church had played a pivotal role in the systems of oppression which led to it. Many clerics were killed, and French revolutionary governments tried to control priests by making them state employees.

Anti-clericalism appeared in Catholic Europe throughout the 19th Century, in various forms, and later in Canada, Cuba, and Latin America. Various rumblings can also be seen erupting from time to time in the Islamic world. Instances of this can be found most notably in the countries of Iran and Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, and Afghanistan.

In 1925, Rezā Khan founded the Imperial State of Iran and proclaimed himself Shah of the country. As part of his Westernization program, the traditional role of the ruling clergy was minimized; Islamic schools were secularized, women were forbidden to wear the hijab, Sharia Law was abolished, and men and women were desegregated in educational and religious environments. All this infuriated the ultraconservative clergy as a class. Rezā Khan’s son and heir Mohammad Reza Pahlavi continued such practices. They ultimately contributed to the Islamic Revolution of 1978–79, and the Shah’s flight from his country.

When Ayatollah Khomeini took power a month after the revolution, the Shah’s anticlerical measures were largely overturned, replaced by an Islamic Republic based on the principle of rule by Islamic jurists, velayat-e faqih, where clerics serve as head of state and in many powerful governmental roles. However, by the late 1990s and 2000s anti-clericalism was reported to be significant in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

• “Iran, although an Islamic state, imbued with religion and religious symbolism, is an increasingly anti-clerical country. In a sense it resembles some Roman Catholic countries where religion is taken for granted, without public display, and with ambiguous feelings towards the clergy. Iranians tend to mock their mullahs, making mild jokes about them …”

More recently, one can make a strong argument for anti-clericalism in Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Hussein ruled with such an iron fist that both Sunni and Shi’a forms of Islam were afraid to practice their faith under their own terms. Hussein and most other government officials were Sunnis, which were in the minority at the time, but all powerful due to those ties with the county’s leadership. Hussein controlled the country and that included extension into religious conviction.

Another prime example involves Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria. According to the 2008 report on human rights by the U.S. State Department, the Syrian government’s “respect for human rights worsened”. Members of the security forces arrested and detained individuals without providing just cause, often held prisoners in “lengthy pretrial and incommunicado detention”, and “tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees”. The government imposed significant restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association with various civic and religious groups, amid an atmosphere of government corruption.

Still another controversy at the forefront of the United States is the promulgation of Sharia law by fanatical religious forces. Sharia, Sharia law, or Islamic law is the religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Qur'an and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God’s immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim traditionalists and reformists.

Traditional theory of Islamic jurisprudence recognizes four sources of Sharia:

• the Qur'an,

• sunnah (authentic hadith),

• qiyas (analogical reasoning), and

• ijma (juridical consensus).

Different legal schools—of which the most prominent are:

• Hanafi,

• Maliki,

• Shafi’i,

• Hanbali and

• Jafari

developed methodologies for deriving Sharia rulings from scriptural sources using a process known as ijtihad. Today, there are five schools of Islamic thought accepted by all Muslims: they are the Ja’fari, comprising 23% of the Muslims; the Hanafi, comprising 31% of the Muslims; the Maliki, comprising 25% of the Muslims; the Shafi΄i, comprising 16% of the Muslims; and the Hanbali, comprising 4% of the Muslims. The remaining small percentage follow other minority schools, such as the Zaydi and the Isma΄ili.

David Yerushalmi has been called the founder of the Anti-Sharia Law movement in America, and is described by The New York Times as “working with a cadre of conservative public-policy institutes and former military and intelligence officials”; and to pass legislation, “a network of Tea Party and Christian groups” as well as ACT! for America. According to him, the purpose of the anti-Sharia movement is not to pass legislation banning Sharia law in the courts, but “to get people asking this question, ‘What is Shariah?’”.

A ban on Sharia law is legislation that would prohibit the application or implementation of Islamic law (Sharia) in courts in any civil (non-religious) jurisdiction. In the United States, various states have “banned Sharia law”, or passed some kind of ballot measure that “prohibits the states courts from considering foreign, international or religious law.” As of 2014 these include Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee.

In Canada, Sharia law is explicitly banned in Quebec, upheld by a unanimous vote against it in 2005 by the National Assembly, while the province of Ontario allows family law disputes to be arbitrated only under Ontario law.

In 2011 Republican leaders Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann publicly warned about the threat of Shariah law. During the lead-up to Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign 2012, he described Sharia law as a “mortal threat” and called for its ban throughout America. Sarah Palin has been quoted as saying that if Shariah law “were to be adopted, allowed to govern in our country, it will be the downfall of America.”

Some Republican members of the United States Congress endorsed a new memorandum, based on a Center for Security Policy (CSP) report, Shariah: The Threat to America, at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol.

Daniel Driesbach in his book, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State, iterated how the Establishment Clause came to become an integral part of the First Amendment, in 1791. In it, he spoke of Jefferson’s notion that, even though not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, the founding fathers intended for there to be a wall of separation between church and state. He went on to tell how in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the U.S. Supreme Court explained:

• The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion to another … in the words of Jefferson, the [First Amendment] clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and State’ … That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.

This ideology has been contended from time to time in our history, but now comes an even hotter and more contentious challenge pitting societal immorality, hatred, intolerance, communism, socialism, activism, and liberalism against traditional Judeo-Christian values.

One such challenge came in June 2009, when a family court judge in Hudson County, New Jersey denied a restraining order to a woman who testified that her husband, a Muslim, had forced her to have non-consensual sex. Judge Joseph Charles Jr. said he did not believe the man “had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault” his wife because he was acting in a way that was “consistent with his practices.” A state appeals court reversed his decision. Advocates of the ban in the U.S. have cited this case as an example of the need for the ban. One can certainly make the case for the husband in question (and, the judge) being allowed to usurp the law because of his religion and/or faith.

As of 2014 more than two dozen U.S. states have considered measures intended to restrict judges from consulting Sharia law. Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas have “banned Sharia” i.e. passed foreign law bans. In 2010 and 2011 more than two dozen states “considered measures to restrict judges from consulting Shariah, or foreign and religious laws more generally”. As of 2013 all but 16 states have considered such a law.

In November 2010, voters in Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly to approve a ballot measure to amend the state constitution to ban Sharia from state courts. The law was then updated to include all foreign or religious laws. The law was challenged by an official of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In November 2010 a federal judge ruled the law to be unconstitutional and blocked the state from putting it into effect. The court found the ban had the potential to do harm to Muslims. The invalidation of a Will and Testament using Sharia instructions was an example. That ruling and injunction were upheld by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on January 10, 2012. Missouri also passed a measure banning foreign law in 2013, but Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed the bill “because of its potential impact on international adoptions.”

The last two states to “ban Sharia” were North Carolina, which prohibited state judges from considering Islamic law in family cases in 2013, and Alabama, where voters passed an Amendment to the State Constitution (72% to 28%) to “ban Sharia” in 2014.

A 2013 report by the Brennan Center for Justice has warned that the bans may have the unintended effects of invalidating prenuptial agreements and court decisions made in other states where arbitrators may have taken into account Islamic, Jewish or Catholic legal norms. Randy Brinson, the president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama has criticized the ban in Alabama, calling it “redundant and a waste of time”.

Historian Justin Tyler Clark has argued that the rise of an anti-Sharia movement in the US, more than a decade after the September 11 attacks, is in part a reaction to increasing political correctness in the American society. Clark compares the phenomenon to the 19th century anti-Catholic movement in the US, which, he writes, rose largely in reaction to changes in middle-class American etiquette, interpreted by the nativists as encroachment of an alien ideology on their own social norms.

According to Sadakat Kadri, the "Ban on Sharia laws" notwithstanding, “the precepts of Islamic law … have judicial force in the United States already”, among Muslims who have had a dispute settled by Muslim conciliators. The 1925 Federal Arbitration Act allows Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc. to use religious tribunals to arbitrate disagreements and “the judgements that result are given force of law by state and federal courts”. The statute “preempts inconsistent state legislation”, such as laws to ban Sharia.

For Jews, a Beth Din (Rabbinical court) in America

• “may not merely decide the legal rights of devout Jews; in some cases it may formally forbid believers from pursuing complaints through the secular judicial system without prior authority from a rabbi. And Muslims can also have their inheritance, business, and matrimonial disputes sorted out by Islamic scholars, who attempt to decide them according to the Sharia.”

While the US Congress could in theory repeal the act, it could not ban arbitration by Muslims while leaving other religious conciliators free to continue their work.

• “Any reform would have to impact equally on all faith communities, and it is not only Muslims who would object if federal legislators presumed to do that.”

Again, one has to refer to Everson v. Board of Education (1947), and the U.S. Supreme Court explanation:

• The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion to another … in the words of Jefferson, the [First Amendment] clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and State’ … That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.

Upon reading the Supreme Court’s decision, one might well think there is little wiggle room for any religion. No state and most certainly, not the federal government can set up a church. Further, they cannot pass laws to aid one, any, or all religions. They cannot align with any one religion over another.

And, lastly, the wall between church and state must be kept "high and impenetrable". Yet, it is amazing how lawyers and lawmakers are able to twist verbiage to accommodate groups and individuals whose values most align with their own. Indeed, much corruption in the United States (as well as any country in the world, really) can be traced to differences in ideology backed by money used for political gains.

Other countries where Sharia law has been seemingly incorporated, tolerated and sensationalized are the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Greece and Italy. In 2015 some thought there were “no-go zones” in France “where non-Muslims aren’t allowed and only Sharia law is enforced”; however, according to a popular website known for disproving or confirming myths and rumors, this was claim was false. But, according to anti-Islamist conservative activist Daniel Pipes, such zones are known by:

• “ … the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, with the even more antiseptic acronym ZUS, and there are 751 of them as of last count. They are conveniently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations.”

This claim by Pipes has also been confirmed on television and the internet, bringing into question the fact-checking claims of the aforementioned website, which has become known recently for its liberal views and has proven to be unstable and untrustworthy, as have so many of today’s publications. The owners of these publications make money from advertising and those in positions of financial and political power have enormous influence in advancing ideologies.

Republican governor of Louisiana in the United States, Bobby Jindal, after being briefed on the topic, warned of the danger of the alleged Sharia “no-go zones”:

• “In the West, non-assimilationist Muslims establish enclaves and carry out as much of Sharia law as they can without regard for the laws of the democratic countries which provided them a new home … It is startling to think that any country would allow, even unofficially, for a so called “no-go zone.” The idea that a free country would allow for specific areas of its country to operate in an autonomous way that is not free and is in direct opposition to its laws is hard to fathom.”

In Germany, Sharia law is part of Germany’s private law through the regulations of the German international private law. Its application is limited by the order public. In September 2014, a small group of Muslims wearing mock police uniforms patrolled the streets of the western German city of Wuppertal. They “reportedly hovered around sites like discotheques and gambling houses, telling passers-by to refrain from gambling and alcohol”. Following the incident the Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière told the daily newspaper Bild, “Sharia law is not tolerated on German soil.” The leader of the “police”, Salafist Sven Lau, responded by saying the “Sharia police” “never existed” and he only wanted to “raise attention” to Sharia. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) condemned the activities.

The issue surrounding the implementation of Sharia law arose in 2008, when the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams ‘suggested it was “inevitable” that elements of Sharia would be incorporated in British law.’ This sparked outrage among citizenry and ever since then, “Sharia courts” have “never been far from tabloid headlines”, according to Myriam Francois-Cerrah.

As of 2014, there were reported to be around 85 “Shariah courts” in the UK, operated by two rival services – Islamic Sharia Council and the newer, smaller, less strict Muslim Arbitration Tribunal. The councils/tribunals provide arbitration that is voluntary but legally binding, are “officially mandated” and set up outside the court system like another non-secular arbitration institution, the longstanding rabbinical tribunals.

In 2008, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, suggested that Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts should be integrated into the British legal system alongside ecclesiastical courts to handle marriage and divorce, subject to agreement of all parties and strict requirements for protection of equal rights for women. His reference to Sharia law sparked a controversy. Later that year, Nicholas Phillips, then Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, stated that there was “no reason why Sharia principles [ … ] should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution.” A 2008 YouGov poll in the United Kingdom found 40% of Muslim students interviewed supported the introduction of Sharia into British law for Muslims.

Michael Broyde, professor of law at Emory University specializing in alternative dispute resolution and Jewish law, has argued that Sharia courts can be integrated into the American religious arbitration system, provided that they adopt appropriate institutional requirements as American rabbinical courts have done.

In the Western world, Sharia has been called a source of “hysteria“ more controversial than ever”, the one aspect of Islam that inspires “particular dread”. On the Internet, “dozens of self-styled counter-jihadis” emerged to campaign against Sharia law, describing it in strict interpretations resembling those of Salafi Muslims. Also, fear of Sharia law and of “the ideology of extremism” among Muslims reportedly spread to mainstream conservative Republicans in the United States. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich won ovations calling for a federal ban on Sharia law.

One also must take into consideration that in and around 9/11, there was wide dissemination of the harsh kind of punishment possible at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. Extremists were capturing hostages, beheading them and broadcasting the acts of aggression as they happened, or the catastrophic results of their handiwork. American soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan reported the corpses of victims being dismembered with limbs and heads constructed in stacks as messages to their pursuers.

Ali Khan states that “constitutional orders founded on the principles of Sharia are fully compatible with democracy, provided that religious minorities are protected and the incumbent Islamic leadership remains committed to the right to recall”.

Other scholars say Sharia is not compatible with democracy, particularly where the country’s constitution demands separation of religion and the democratic state. This is precisely why many conservatives have complained loudly about their liberal counterparts’ two-faces concerning the acceptance of Sharia law. On its face, acceptance means new Democratic voters added to the rolls of liberal cities; however, if one adheres to the Constitution, one has to come to terms with the separation factor upheld approved by generations of the Supreme Court.

Courts in non-Muslim majority nations have generally ruled against the implementation of Sharia, both in jurisprudence and within a community context, based on Sharia’s religious background. In Muslim nations, Sharia has wide support with some exceptions. For example, in 1998 the Constitutional Court of Turkey banned and dissolved Turkey’s Refah Party on the grounds that “Democracy is the antithesis of Sharia”, the latter of which Refah sought to introduce.

In order to understand these concepts more fully, one has to examine Sharia compatibility with basic human rights. According to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every human has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change their religion or belief. Sharia has been criticized for not recognizing this human right.

According to scholars of Islamic law, the applicable rules for religious conversion under Sharia are as follows:

• · If a person converts to Islam, or is born and raised as a Muslim, then he or she will have full rights of citizenship in an Islamic state.

• · Leaving Islam is a sin and a religious crime. Once any man or woman is officially classified as Muslim, because of birth or religious conversion, he or she will be subject to the death penalty if he or she becomes an apostate, that is, abandons his or her faith in Islam in order to become an atheist, agnostic or to convert to another religion. Before executing the death penalty, Sharia demands that the individual be offered one chance to return to Islam.

• · If a person has never been a Muslim, and is not a kafir (infidel, unbeliever), he or she can live in an Islamic state by accepting to be a dhimmi, or under a special permission called "aman". As a dhimmi or under a man, he or she will suffer certain limitations of rights as a subject of an Islamic state, and will not enjoy complete legal equality with Muslims.

• · If a person has never been a Muslim, and is a kafir (infidel, unbeliever), sharia demands that he or she should be offered the choice to convert to Islam and become a Muslim; if he or she rejects the offer, he or she may become a dhimmi. Failure to pay the tax may lead the non-Muslim to either be enslaved, killed or ransomed if captured.

According to Sharia theory, conversion of disbelievers and non-Muslims to Islam is encouraged as a religious duty for all Muslims, and leaving Islam (apostasy), expressing contempt for Islam (blasphemy), and religious conversion of Muslims is prohibited. Not all Islamic scholars agree with this interpretation of Sharia theory. In practice, as of 2011, 20 Islamic nations had laws declaring apostasy from Islam as illegal and a criminal offense. Such laws are incompatible with the UDHR’s requirement of freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In another 2013 report based on international survey of religious attitudes, more than 50% of Muslim population in 6 out of 49 Islamic countries supported death penalty for any Muslim who leaves Islam (apostasy).

Still, there are claims from those sympathetic to Muslims and the teaching of Islam that Sharia is compatible with democracy. They point to surveys conducted in many countries that show little to no support for the penalties for apostasy. What they fail to provide however, are the parameters by which these surveys were conducted, including who or what organization funded them. Bias runs rampant in modern surveying, much more so than in the past. Overcrowding of academics needing funding to support there hypotheses has lead to maligned and tainted results in many surveys. These tainted statistics leave many questions unanswered, or answered wrongly.

Sharia recognizes three categories of crime:

1. offenses mentioned in the Qur'an (hudud) that are viewed as violating “claims of God” and have fixed punishments.

2. offenses against persons (murder and wounding) which call for a punishment similar to the crime (qisas) or payment of compensation (diya)

3. other forbidden behavior where a Muslim judge uses his discretion in sentencing (ta’zir and siyasa)

Although there is some disagreement about which crimes are hudud crimes, they usually include theft, highway robbery, zina (sex with forbidden partners), falsely accusing someone of zina, and drinking alcohol. The prescribed punishments for these crimes range from 80 lashes to death. However, classical jurists developed very strict rules which restrict when these punishments could be applied, so that in many cases it became almost impossible to convict anyone under these rules. For example, there must be four adult male Muslim witnesses to a hudud crime or a confession repeated four times, before someone can be punished. If a criminal could not be convicted of a hudud crime, they could still receive some form of tazir punishment. This begs the question(s) of just what form of punishment might be applied, and to what degree in severity? Eighty lashes could kill any one of a number of people, even perfectly healthy people.

Regardless of one’s belief in the compatibility of Sharia law with our own Constitution, or not, there will still be debate until the Supreme Court is forced to make a final ruling on the topic. If one reads the Constitution on its face and introduces the paradigm of sharia law as a parallel, then one would quickly surmise it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, in that if allowed in practice, it would open debate on other practices of religions being allowed to usurp standard laws. If Sharia is allowed to exist alongside the Constitution, then one could easily make the case for the Ten Commandments to also be honored as the law of the land, as well; or, for that matter, any penalty or punishment for any crime or sin, including death and human sacrifice.

Sharia law has major components that just do not comport with western civilization or laws. Stoning, though mentioned in both the Christian Bible and Torah, is not compatible with civilized law, yet it is still practiced in many Muslim countries as an acceptable punishment for crimes against the Qur’an, including apostasy. Apostasy is merely leaving the Islamic faith, yet it is punishable by death. Just think if that were a punishment in Judeo-Christian society; would modern culture allow such a practice?

There are other factors that make the imposition of Sharia law incompatible with western culture and Constitutional law. In the United States, our Constitution is the main document from which all laws are derived. In nations that are proponents of Sharia law, the source of all legal rulings for all acts of those who are morally responsible is Allah (God). All of its penalties are derived from the Qur’an.

Our Constitution states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof “. But Qur’an 4:89 says:

• “Those who reject Islam must be killed. If they turn back (from Islam), take hold of them and kill them wherever you find them.”

The First Amendment commands that “Congress shall not abridge “the freedom of speech.” But, Sharia allows that:

• " speech defaming Islam or Muhammad is considered “blasphemy” and is punishable by death or imprisonment."

The Constitution also states that, “Congress cannot take away the right of the people “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Sharia law states that:

• “Non-Muslims are not to harbor any hostility toward the Islamic state or give comfort to those who disagree with Islamic government.”

In other words, it gives the Islamic state and/or government the right to be as oppressive as they wish to be, without any kind of accountability.

The Constitution guarantees us rights afforded by the Fifth Amendment: “no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime … without due process of law”; the Sixth Amendment: guarantees a “public trial by an impartial jury.”; and the Seventh Amendment: “the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.”

According to Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari: "Muhammad said, “No Muslim should be killed for killing a kafir (infidel).”" Non-Muslims are also prohibited from testifying against Muslims. A woman’s testimony is equal to half of a man’s.

The Eighth Amendment guarantees against “cruel and unusual punishment”.

Under Sharia punishments are barbaric: “Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are male or female, as punishment for what they have done – a deterrent from Allah.”

Quran 5:38; A raped woman is punished: “The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication – flog each of them with one hundred stripes” (Sura 24:2).

And, finally our Fourteenth Amendment states plainly: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. “

However, under dhimmi laws enforced in modern Sharia states, Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims before the law. Women, girls, apostates, homosexuals and “blasphemers” are all denied equality under Sharia law.

Anyone who does a side-by-side comparison of Sharia law and the Constitution will most assuredly come to a conclusion that the two doctrines are very different. Like apples and oranges, they both grow on trees, but that is where the similarities end. They are both very different types of fruit. In fact, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, who is regarded as the father of taxonomy, would have a hard time classifying two upon comparison. Clearly one document was constructed strictly as a tool for government, whereas the other doctrine is used to govern, but according to religious ideology, although some would say they serve the same purpose, which is why there is such controverted opinion and hostility today.

Controversy is defined as a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The wall of separation between church and state definitely falls into this category and probably always will. For a topic that seems to be so cut-and-dried, there are way too many facts disguised as opinion and opinions unsupported by facts to say definitively that we, as a nation, know precisely what qualifies as one or the other. The lines have been blurred over time and seemingly will continue to be so, unless some entity is able clearly define that which can be categorized as strictly ‘church’ and ‘state’.