I’ve heard there are certain topics you just don’t bring up in polite conversation. What were they?

Oh, yeah. Politics and religion. Looks like we’re about to have an impolite conversation.

I’m not going to jump onto my political soapbox and yell about socialized healthcare, a woman’s right to choose, or the green revolution — not for now, anyway (although I’m getting all “Yes We Can”-excited just thinking about it). I’m also not going to take my place behind a pulpit and preach a religious doctrine to you. Of course that’s assuming that I’d make it to the pulpit — I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get past the slide-in-15-minutes-late-and-hope-no-one-notices back pew before someone realized I didn’t belong there.

Do you see what I just did? Here’s the cool thing about that. We live in the United States of America, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects a few important rights for U.S. citizens.

Free speech? That means I can publicly profess my political and religious opinions.

Free press? That means this newspaper can print them.

And how about that part about religion?

Specifically, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

What does that mean? There’s a lot of argument surrounding what the founding fathers meant in the wording of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Let’s ask one of those founding fathers. My personal favorite has always been Thomas Jefferson.

OPOIEN: Mr. Jefferson, what does the Establishment Clause of the Constitution really mean?

JEFFERSON: Well, Jessie, it’s like what I wrote in my letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802: “Believing … that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”

In addition, the Father of the Constitution himself, James Madison, wrote, “The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

But that’s enough talk about founding father evidence — and if it isn’t enough, there are multiple Supreme Court decisions backing it up.

It all comes down to something simple: A wall of separation between church and state. So let’s talk about that.

Why do we have this separation? Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s concurring opinion in Lynch v. Donnelly states that government endorsement of a religion “sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.”

Think that doesn’t happen? Think again.

Let’s take a look at the Elmbrook School District, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The school district faces a preliminary injunction to keep it from adhering to its decision to hold graduation ceremonies for Brookfield Central High School and Brookfield East High School at Elmbrook Church — a theologically conservative evangelical Christian church — even though secular venues are available. The church features a large cross in its sanctuary, which church officials have refused to cover for the ceremony. According to religious liberty watchdog group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, representing a graduating senior and several families in the district, “The plaintiffs … feel unwelcome at the church because it teaches that non-Christians like the plaintiffs, and even some denominations of Christians, will go to Hell.”

That sounds like exactly what O’Connor was talking about. AU Senior Litigation Counsel and lead counsel in the case, Alex J. Luchenitser said, “Graduating seniors should not be forced to choose between entering a religious environment of a faith to which they do not subscribe and missing their own graduation. Graduation should be a joyous occasion for students and their family members, and it should not be ruined by such religious coercion.” I think that has something to do with something from our Declaration of Independence — pursuit of happiness, perhaps.

That’s not to say religion has no role in society. Look at the Catholic Worker Movement, the Islam Pillar of almsgiving, and Jewish traditions of social activism.

The positive contributions of these and other religions demonstrate their positive effect on society.

But society and government aren’t one and the same. The separation of church and state doesn’t prevent positive religious contributions to society. But it does protect Americans from being forced to observe traditions of a religion to which they do not subscribe.

And that’s a protection we cannot afford to lose.