There has been much discussion about the next presidential election, notwithstanding the fact that it is still almost an entire year away. One thing that distresses the unwary is the religion of some of the worthies who have contended for the presidential office: Mr. Romney and Mr. Huntsman are Mormons; Mr. Perry and Ms. Bachmann are Evangelical Protestants; Mr. Cain is a Baptist; Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich are Catholics; Mr. Pawlenty is a lapsed Catholic; God knows what Mr. Paul is. It seems that this comes up every four years. To the left wing, George W. Bush's greatest sin was that he was a Christian. To the right wing, Mr. Obama is considered an Islamist; Mr. Kerry was a liberal Catholic and Mr. McCain was a maverick.

It is strange that this should come up at all as regards the federal election because the First Amendment, in its very first clause, states clearly: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It is plain that the Founding Fathers and Mothers regarded this as enough to keep our nascent republic out of the religious wars that had bedeviled Europe for the previous three centuries.

At the same time, the Federal Constitution left the states free to do as they pleased. Some did establish religions for a time. But in a short period of years, they followed the example of the Federal Government so that in the United States we have no established religion, such as the Episcopalian Church in England, the Orthodox Church in Russia and formerly, the Catholic Church in some countries in Western Europe. An established church is one whose expenses and upkeep are paid by the government and which becomes the official religion of that nation.

What about the famous "wall of separation" between church and state? It seems to me that that is a legal fiction that derives from a private letter of ex-President Thomas Jefferson as his view of what should be the relationship between church and state. We have to remember that Jefferson was a Deist and not a Christian in the true sense.

In a democratic society, which professes freedom of religion, it seems that any government that would favor one religion over another would work at injustice on those who were disfavored. Jefferson's private dictum has been transmogrified to suit the purposes of special interests. It is trotted out whenever any attempt is made to compensate private schools for their contribution to the public good or where a bona fide religious group must be deprived of just compensation for public works. It is also a convenient tool of bigots.

The latest misuse of this Jeffersonian private opinion has been the attempt by some religions (e.g., secular humanism and atheism, both of which seem to require beliefs on the part of their advocates; secular humanists believe that we exist in a state of pure nature; atheists believe in the nonexistence of God) to drive all expression of true religion from our public life.

The immense costs of our overweening judicial system combined with the rising litigiousness of our society terrifies public officials and institutions and dissuades them from acknowledging even the suggestion of religiosity in our public life, less they be caught up in endless and costly legal battles.

All of this is by way of pointing out that believing people, that is people who have a belief in God, in divine providence and in awareness of human sinfulness and the need for redemption and forgiveness, are bullied. If they want this nonsense to stop, they have to push back and speak up, in a kindly way, against the bullies.