Awesome perspective of politics + the church

You're welcome. I wouldn't call it sanitizing. More like coddling. Seperation of church and state is a progressive philosophy, which invests the reponsiblity of theological and spiritual teachings in the family. The problem, in my opinion, is U.S. culture has bread a sensitivity to the nouns and buzz-words spoken in our society (specifically our schools, in regards to this conversation), causing many to scoff at the mention of religious factors in regards to history, without examining the influence they've had on the world in which we live. Example, public school teachers aren't allowed to even mention The Ten Commandments in class. So to explain the historical origins of human rights laws, a teacher can not reference The Ten Commandments as a document that shaped law-and-order in our global society. In theory, a kid goes home, tells mom and dad they learned about human rights in school today, and the parents can then choose to put such knowledge into a theological context. The problem is, there are too many parents who are apathetic to the process. I don't blame politicians for the epidemic of stupidity in the U.S. I blame lackluster parenting. Afterall, the U.S. in theory is a democracy. In my opinion, the public school system needs to reexamine the diffence between education and advocacy. There needs to be a way to say: "Hey kids, there was this pope named John Paul II, and here is what he did to shape the world we live in."