Sherman, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, contends that some “strict church-state separationists act as though religion is somehow more toxic to poor, vulnerable people than drugs or bullets.”8 The debate over the proper role of religion in American public life has made the public square very noisy. The origins of the debate among Americans regarding the faith-based initiative and other controversies, such as abortion, physician-assisted suicide, same-sex marriages and embryonic stem-cell research,