Have you heard about the Christian couple in San Diego, CA who have been ordered to stop having a small Bible study in their home or risk paying thousands of dollars in permit fees? Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary were informed by a government official of San Diego County that they can no longer hold a small gathering with friends because their "religious assembly" was in violation of the county code.
The question, as the Jones's pointed out, is not about the money as much as it is the guaranteed right of all American citizens to practice the free exercise of religion, as protected in the First Amendment to our Constitution. The freedom of worship was articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his famous, "Four Freedoms" speech delivered on January 6, 1941 (and subsequently conveyed by Norman Rockwell in his artistic renderings of those freedoms for The Saturday Evening Post).
It is within such circumstances that we see the ongoing clash of church/state issues increasingly envelop our daily lives. Are we vigililant in recognizing that this deterioration of basic American rights is happening in other areas as well? In an ironic testament to the tyranny of political correctness, for example, there is a movement to ensure that anything said against homosexuality should be considered "hate speech". Certainly, there are countless examples of people who have directed crass, disrespectful, even hateful, speech toward homosexuals (the most blatant example being Fred Phelps and his anti-biblical, militant, hate-mongering band of twisted "Christians"). And they should be dealt with accordingly. Included in this assumption of hate speech, however, are also certain reasonable and legitimate pastors who find themselves in hot water for simply articulating biblical passages which do speak out against homosexual practices (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, Romans 1:24-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, etc.). Not only are they branded with their own conservative form of the scarlet letter ("C"), but worse, some are in danger of being packed off to jail for such "offenses".
There was a time in our nation's history when our founding fathers recognized and protected those basic human rights which were "endowed by [our] Creator". I fear that time is passing.
It is these rights of the free expression of religion, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom to peaceably assemble, and to petition one's government for a redress of grievances which make us distinctively American. And they provide the basis by which Americans down through our history have fought so courageously on our behalf. Moreover, so many Americans have sought to ensure that other people around the world have the opportunity to embrace them as well. It is tragically ironic to consider then that that this great nation of ours which embodies such freedoms may itself be working to deprive them from its own citizens. 
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