Separation of Church, State

Your editorial: The Vicar of Education--is excellent.

Along the same lines--let me add my editorial about Prayer in Public School.

First of all, let me say that I am a “born-again” christian, saved by grace and that I accept the Bible as the word of God, Christianity as the true religion and Jesus as the one and only true savior of the world.

However, the United States of America never has been, is not today, and never should be made a Christian nation by legislation.

As well as freedom of speech and press, we are granted by our Constitution freedom of religion, which entails total separation of church and state. Recent announcements of the intentions of President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Education William J. Bennett to pass laws to instill prayers in the policies and programs of public schools, and to pass laws to give financial support from public funds to private schools, should shock and arouse every red-blooded American of whatever political or religious persuasion.

There proposed laws are a direct violation of the Constitution and the principle of separation of church and state. The closer we come to a union of church and state, the further we will be from a free America where persons are allowed to follow the dictates of their conscience in the worship of their God.

WILLIAM C. CARTY San Bernardino