I’m all for the separation of church and state.

As comedian George Carlin once put it, “these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.”

However, I think teaching the fundamentals of different religions is important in helping expand one’s worldview. In school, I was taught the basics of each of the five major religions, which showed me how similar and how different they are.

Last Monday evening, I was watching the news, and my old elementary school made the headlines. At Minneha Elementary School, a bulletin board was displayed that listed the five pillars of Islam. Seemed like an OK thing to me. But alas, parents reacted negatively, and the board was taken down.

Being the curious person I am, I logged onto Facebook to see what comments the story was getting. Among them I saw one that said something like “Islam is a hateful religion, do you remember what happened on 9/11?”

Maybe I should not have been surprised that the argument about the terrorist attacks of 9/11 being carried out by Islamic extremists came up, but let’s face it: our country, collectively at least, thinks all members of the Islamic faith think the same way those extremists do.

Yes, the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001, were of the Islamic faith, but they were extremists who did not truly believe in the message of their religion.

I am not a religious person— that’s really no secret— but I respect all religions. Everyone has the right to practice whatever religion they want, as it’s part of the First Amendment, and I think we should all respect the different religious beliefs.

As for what happened at Minneha, there’s truly nothing wrong with educating children about other religions. Children can learn with open minds and learn about other cultures while expanding their worldview. Educating about religion is fine; trying to force beliefs down someone’s throat is not, which is not at all what the school was trying to do. It was just doing its job: educating students.