This is something that needs a full scale article/rant but, for now, I will drop this rantette.
Living Reflections From a Dream pointed me to a Soapbox article at What The Hell Happened Last Night where btzera talks about the latest Roe vs Wade chapter -- it seems that the origional "Roe" is now an evanglical Christian and has asked the court to reconsider it's ruling since she now believes that abortion is murder.
An interesting belief for her, but it brings me to the subject: separation of church and state. Most of the current arguments about the separation of church and state seem to be about the wrong end of the argument -- there's a lot of talk about whether the government should give any money to churches or whether the ten commandments should be displayed in schools. But, for me, separation means more about where laws come from.
The radical idea that our forefathers promoted was that the government enforces the laws of man and not the laws of God (or the laws of God as interpreted by some believer). A secular goverment does not base it's actions on holy laws -- murder is not illegal because it is sinful, but because a civil society cannot be held together if people are murdering each other.
There are immoral and sinful things. But you don't refrain from doing then because they are illegal. You stay away from sin because of what you learned in church and what you believe in your heart. The church's job is educating and enforcing God's laws. That is not the job of the State.
It seems to me that church people trying to use the government to enforce God's laws shows mostly the failure of the church to rule the hearts of men and women. You do not make moral people by setting the police upon them.