Word: worship
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...country born of a pilgrim's dream, a country that exalts freedom of worship as a sacred right, perhaps none of that is surprising. What is surprising is that for most of the ensuing 200 years, Americans have not stopped arguing about God. In the past decade alone, the Supreme Court has decided more religion cases than ever before, and each day brings a fresh crusade...
Other separationists are most concerned with protecting atheists or members of minority faiths from pressure to conform. This is a far more diverse country than it was in 1892, when the Supreme Court declared, "This is a Christian nation." Millions of Americans attend worship services each week, but the locales range from Hindu temples in California to churches of snake- handling Pentecostalists in Appalachia. Baptist parents might like their child's school day to start with a Bible reading, but could a Muslim teacher choose a passage from the Koran instead? Do Satanists have the right to distribute materials...
...heart of the legal debate is the clashing of two constitutional principles enshrined in the First Amendment. The idea of guaranteeing "free exercise" of religion while shunning any "establishment" of religion was designed to protect liberty and keep the peace. Anyone could worship however he or she pleased, the framers said, but the government was forbidden to install a monopoly state church along the lines of the Church of England...
...other hand, when fifth-grader Monette Rethford, in Norman, Okla., is told that she cannot get together with other students on school property to pray or read the Bible, it looks very much like a restriction of her freedom to worship. To publicize their own fervor, tens of thousands of students gathered around their school flagpoles to pray last Sept. 11. "I don't want a government church or a teacher opening class with prayer," says Jay Sekulow of Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, a conservative organization specializing in church-state litigation. "But the First Amendment protects individual speech, even religious...
...Washington. But there was an even sharper sense of imminent disaster in the words someone shouted over the public address system on another docked battleship, the Oklahoma: "Man your battle stations! This is no shit!" Across the lapping waters of the harbor, church bells tolled, summoning the faithful to worship...