The word church can mean a building, an organization, or it can mean anything non-christians choose. It may mean any person who ascribes to a Christian way of thinking. In that case, separation of church and state would be definitive persecution. That is because you would be driving the Christian from gainful employment for acting out their faith. If a person cannot be refused a job because of religious beliefs, then how shall one be fired for expressing those beliefs on a personal computer in cyberspace?
What state? by State do you mean a governmental bureaucracy? Or, do you mean a person who draws a government paycheck even when they are off duty? Do you include separation to mean to separate the person from their freedom of speech? Do you expect to separate the person from what they believe?
In a recent incident where a teacher spoke his mind on an internet social network, he was dismissed by his school administrator. He had been restricted at school from saying explicitly spiritual statements which were his deeply felt religious beliefs. So, he went on the internet and expressed his faith in specific terms. Because he was a public school teacher, he was dismissed.
One can be accepted on the job no matter what their belief as long as they do not act it out on the job. We even prevent those who believe in making animal sacrifices from doing it in society. However, everyone who goes to work must relate to others at the job site on the basis of what they believe about relationships and about being a productive person. It is actually impossible to separate faith from state on that basis.
However, expression is a gray area. If a person is in the military where life and death are at stake in conflict, if a soldier does not trust his officers, he had best be silent and carry out orders. The military does not work on a democratic basis especially in combat.
However, education is not the military. Education is all about what people believe children should or should not be taught. Therefore, education by its very nature is political and has many controversial aspects. There will be educators and administrators of various faiths. While the expression of these faiths may be constrained in the presence of children, professionals are free to discuss their faiths with other adults on school campuses. To deny adults the right to express their Christian faith is to deny the free expression of religion guaranteed by the first amendment to the US Constitution.
Then, why is it permissible to deny the free expression of religous freedom on the public internet? Is that not un-constitutional? Is that not religious persecution? Have we come to the point that a person can be criminally convicted of being a Christian in the United States of America?
