Americans like to debate the “wall of separation” between church and state. Conservatives denounce it as an invention of that sinister Francophile Thomas Jefferson. Liberals point out its roots in American religion going back to 1644.
But there is no wall. There may never have been one, and in any case there hasn’t been one for some time. There is merely an ill-defined grassy verge between the domain of majority religion on the one hand and that of dissent on the other. The new growth on the government-sponsored-religion side is distinctly invasive—the habitat of the majority moves relentlessly forward, while the sphere of solitary conscience retreats.
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