Dennis Heidner wrote:
> While at HPWorld in Philadelphia last year I took a walking tour the
> historic sites.  It was interesting and worth noting that the Constitution
> was written in Philadelphia, a city that at that time advocated diversity
> in religious beliefs.  George Washington and other founding fathers
> worshiped at Christ Church, less than a block from the Quaker Friends
> church.  Wasn't Franklin a Quaker?   If I remember correctly Philadelphia
> had more different religious organization in the city than any other city
> in the nation at the time.

My wife and I took one of the Philadelphia trolley tours after HPWorld.  The
tourguide mentioned that one of Philadelphia's founding fathers (maybe William
Penn) had been jailed in Europe due to his unorthodox religious beliefs, and as
a result of that experience, Philadelphia was founded with the belief that
religious diversity was a good thing.

> I'm not sure what would have happened if a couple of Warlocks and Witches
> had setup a church in Philadelphia at the same time,  they may have felt
> that it was pushing the sensibilities.   The witch hunts in Salem were
> still fresh in everybody's minds.  After all they had occurred in just the
> generation before...

There was a letter to the editor in today's (?) L.A. Times newpaper wondering
how the President's new office of faith-based charities will react if a group
of Wiccans should apply for government funds.  My guess is that some religions
will be considered more eligible than others with respect to this funding, that
the government will be designating some religions "good" and other religions
"bad" (I seem to recall hearing about "good" religions and "bad" religions in
Salem).

Do we really want government bureaucracy determining which religions are "good"
and which are "bad"?  A strong church/state firewall prevents this from
happening.
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