With separation-of-church-and-state prohibitions continuing to
metastasize, what lies in the future for Americans of faith?

By Selwyn Duke

“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody
is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is
allowed to mention it.” So said G.K. Chesterton in his autobiography,
published in 1937. A lot has changed since then, however — especially
the number of places we’re not allowed to mention religion.

Just this week we heard the story of the Ed Young Senior Citizens
Center in Georgia, where elderly residents were told that they should
not pray audibly before meals. Why? Joshua Rhett Miller at Fox News
explains, writing:

Officials from Senior Citizens Inc., which
operates the senior center, have said the meals they provide to
visitors are mostly covered with federal money — so saying a communal
prayer before chowing down is a violation of federal regulations.

"We can't scoff at their rules," Tim
Rutherford, Senior Citizens Inc.'s vice president, told the Associated
Press. "It's part of the operational guidelines."

While I certainly can scoff, I can’t say I’m surprised. This is just
another in a long line of Establishment Clause misapplications that have
yielded truly bizarre prohibitions. And let’s explore how we got to our
present point.

Read the rest here.