In honor of Presidents Day, I would like to take a moment to focus on the separation of church and state in our country.

In this great country, we are afforded many freedoms and many protections. One of these is the idea that church and state should not intermingle. Lately, we have seen much religious hatred intermingled in our political processes -- candidates being attacked for their supposed religious standings, a senator attacked for his personal religious beliefs, politics being decided on the basis of one sect of one religion in a country where many people worship in many different ways.

On both sides of the debate, people turn to the Founding Fathers to figure out what they meant when they put the separation of church and state into place. As such, I would like to remind you of these words from President James Madison: “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

Also, from the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli (developed by President George Washington’s administration): “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

When we attempt to define our great America by one religion, we neglect so much of our rich and unique heritage and disrespect what our Founding Fathers put into play so many years ago. Instead of focusing on hatred and divisiveness, they focused on a great future. Let us do likewise.

Jennifer Gates

Anderson