Incurable Religion: Searching for Tolerance

      In March of 1890, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruled, in conclusion to the Weiss v. the District Board case, that bible readings and devotionals in public schools were unconstitutional. Justice H.S. Orton of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin noted the following after the ruling:

“There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter our civil affairs, our government would soon be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed….Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.”

      While Orton is “civically” correct, according to the civic philosophies of John Locke (made constitutional through Thomas Jefferson), I argue that he couldn’t be more wrong about religion within our education (or our “common schools,” as he puts it).  

      Naturally, modern Americans agree with part of Orton’s claim. A brief glance at historic political tensions validates religion as a foremost cause of “strife, […] and war.” Many gruesome conquests stain the pages of our history books (e.g. the Spanish Inquisition, the First Crusade, and the Muslim conquests). But, the time has come for America to change its frame of reference. It is because of these religious tensions that America should teach religion in its schools, not in spite of them. World-wide religions, as well as world-wide theologically-based cultures, must be embraced in a new academic emphasis of true progressive tolerance.

      Every religion, without exception, has caused or received some form of injustice (physical or emotional) because of "perceived differences" in ethnicity, language, or theology. These ignorance-based “perceptions” are precisely why religions, and their international tolerance, must become a critical part of our nation’s future public education. America’s Liberals, its progressives, have missed the mark with education and religion. The dogma that a “separation of church and state” equates incontrovertibly to an academic separation from religion has done nothing but propagate a religious ignorance and intolerance within the United States.  Unity never grew without tolerance. Tolerance never grew without knowledge. Knowledge never grew in isolation.