When the first English colonists disembarked upon the mass of land that would eventually become the United States of America, they had no intentions of allowing freedom of religion in their new homeland. They left England to avoid religious persecution, but they sought the freedom to practice their religion in America, not just any religion.

By the time the signing of the Declaration of Independence rolled around a couple hundred years later, American leaders had become a little more liberal about religion. Freedom of religion is specified in the First Amendment to the Constitution. In fact, Thomas Jefferson was the one who coined the phrase “separation of church and state.” Although America is hardly the most religiously liberated nation in the world today, Americans do have a lot of leeway regarding what they choose to believe.

But what constitutes belief? In 2006, the government seized over thirty gallons of tea containing an illegal substance from a New Mexico church. The drug, dimethyltryptamine, is a Schedule I substance- the same level as heroin or LSD. The Supreme Court ruled against the government and permitted the church to use the tea in their rituals.

There’s a difference between the freedom to believe in a religion and the freedom to practice that religion. There should be no restrictions on the freedom to believe; you can believe that God can be reached through human sacrifice, and the government can’t do a thing about it. However, once you grab your neighbor and the meat cleaver, someone has to step in. Obviously, there’s a difference between illegal drugs and murder, but the definition of religion is so murky that it’s difficult to know where to draw the line.

Even more crucial to the issue of religious freedom in America today than legality is the taboo surrounding religion during social interaction. It’s ridiculously easy to offend each other over religion, and to offset this, people are ridiculously careful about what they say about it. This needs to change.

Freedom of religion is a good thing. No one is contesting that. Everyone should have the right to worship God, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, Lakshmi, Osiris, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But nothing makes freedom of religion better than any other type of freedom, so why do we hold it up on an untouchable pedestal?

Religion is an important part of our society whether we like it or not, so we need to foster discussion instead of tiptoeing around the subject. It is imperative to be able to talk, question, and even argue for the sake of communication and understanding.

Tell us what you think. Write Spectrum at editor@mcckc.edu.