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“Do you believe in vampires? Aliens? Ghosts?”
“No, not really.”
Not believing in such “beings” usually wouldn’t cause an uproar, mainly because vampires, aliens, and ghost don’t govern the way the majority of people live.
Yet religion is a different story. Whether it means believing in a deity or not believing in one at all, beliefs are very personal to many, and are even considered to be guidelines on how to live their lives.
The First Amendment grants freedom of religion, yet the Lemon v. Kurtzman court case established guidelines to ensure that the government does not show favor or prejudice towards any religion.
Aseel Arafat, a Muslim student at Bob Jones High School, believes that to some extent, people have freedom of religion in the United States
“It’s just that there aren’t many opportunities for religions other than Christianity, just like there wouldn’t be many opportunities for Christians in a Muslim country.”
Jake Perkins, a Christian student at Bob Jones High School, believes that the government has taken equal treatments of religions to quite an extreme.
To him, the government fails to acknowledge that “religion is a factor of life, if not the driving force in a person’s life.”
Nevertheless, religious debates still tend to surface and bubble and burst periodically in the United States. One of which happened to surface earlier in January 2014.
According to a WHNT news report, Satanists in Oklahoma City petitioned to have a statue of Satan built in the capitol to balance the Ten Commandments monument that was placed in the capitol in 2012.
The article also states that the Ten Commandments monument is under lawsuit with the charge of unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.
Much of the decision concerning the Satanists’ statue may be based on the verdict of the Ten Commandments lawsuit, for chair of Oklahoma’s Capitol Preservation Committee, Trait Thompson, said that the Satanist’s petition would not be viewed until after the lawsuit is settled.
Many wonder if the government will allow the monument to be built and if the government really should.
After word got about about this request, other religious groups such as Hindus and Pastafarians also requested their own monuments.
“Religiously biased proposals and legislation upset me even if it were to give advantages to people holding my set of beliefs,” explains Jesse Tollison, an atheist student at Bob Jones.
“I respect [the Satanists] for believing what they believe, but it’s shoving their religion down your throat,” Arafat comments. “You don’t see statues of Jesus or God anywhere.”
According to CNN, an Oklahoma lawmaker doubted that the statue would be supported in the Bible-belt state, where over half of the population is Christian.
“Though it’s clear that one religion is being supported above others, I think it is equally unfair to tear down an established representation of faith,” Perkins argues. “They are not wrong in the request they are making.”
Though the government strives to give religions equal opportunity yet show no partiality, is that enough for some believers?
Tollison claims that the government tries to treat all religious groups fairly, but “the problem arises when the religious people vote radically religious people into public office.”
Could there possibly be a better solution to these debates?
Perhaps issues like these are simply inevitable due to the fact that the United States is intensely diverse.
Citizens have a right to believe or to not believe. But where does the government draw the line? And is that line in the right place?
