We've been aware for a long time that ours is not a secular society, and in fact that ours is not a secular government, in spite of the purpose of its founders and the Constitution's intended guarantees of freedom of and from religion, but the current, legitimacy-challenged administration, along with some of its religious allies, goes too far in this as so many other of its impulses for mischief.

The NYTimes has it pretty much together on this subject in a lead editorial this morning. It begins:

President Bush punched a dangerous hole in the wall between church and state earlier this month by signing an executive order that eases the way for religious groups to receive federal funds to run social services programs. The president's unilateral order, which wrongly cut Congress out of the loop, lets faith-based organizations use tax dollars to win converts and gives them a green light to discriminate in employment. It should be struck down by the courts

The editorial includes a timely warning about the danger of governments with confessional associations, even if it describes a somewhat imaginary American history of independent church and state relations.

It is ironic that President Bush is working to tear down the separation of church and state at home, given the battles he is waging abroad. It is clearer today than ever that one of America's greatest strengths is that we are a nation in which people are free to practice any faith or no faith, and the government keeps out of the religious realm.