Perhaps the people who keep writing about separation of church and state related to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes club need to go back to school to study American history. If they look at our founding fathers, the concern was freedom of religion. In other words, the founders did not want the Anglican Church dictating how the colonists ran the government, as it did in England.
An article in a recent Colonial Williamsburg magazine noted: "… the church of England was the state-supported house of God in eighteenth-century Williamsburg. Law required Virginians to attend services of the official faith … people who worshipped anywhere other than the Anglican church had to get permission from the (civil) authorities."
Thanks to these "dissenters," often preachers, we have freedom of religion today. Government does not tell us where, when and how to worship.
Those complaining about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes club at Monroe Township High School seem to want freedom from religion, not freedom of religion. Surely, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu students would also be allowed to use the facility for after-school activities. After all, their parents also pay property taxes to support the schools.
What is the Monroe protesters’ definition of exclusionary? Does a student have to know how to play chess or speak French to be in a club with those names, or can anyone join? Would those clubs be considered exclusionary?
Maybe our free public library can aid in the education of those who complain about the "separation of church and state" at Monroe Township High School by offering a reading list of books that relate to the founding of this country and religious freedom.
Sidna B. Mitchell
Monroe