Orrin, I have run into a twisted version of this, except it is in the schools. I am a teacher at a public high school. I have a group of the brightest students in the school for advanced math. It has amazed me that almost all of these students have been programmed in their ADVANCED GOVERNMENT course that Separation of Church and State is exactly what the media today says it is. It saddens my heart to know that the brightest students in our school are being programmed with this. Anytime a religious topic comes up, the argument has been "but you have separation of church and state" My reply has always been, "where do you find that phrase?" "It's in the Constitution, we learned that in Government class." Maybe your thoughts while reading this were the same as mine while hearing this. I have tried my best to explain where the phrase originated, but sometimes it is hard because the students are so programmed to think that the government teacher has more knowledge on the subject than I do. As for the end of your post where you mentioned people need to be educated on the issues when voting. A very similar situation came up dealing with the same government teacher and a student of mine. We were talking about the current president. My student's comment paraphrased was "Our president is an idiot" "Why?" "Well because Mr. ____ told me he was," I think that about sums it up. I personally would like to hear your thoughts on how you think I might be able challenge these issues we are having at our schools while still teaching the material I am suppose to be teaching (math is about a far away from these issues that we can get). Thanks