The ranger explained this to us, and then stopped. Federal regulations prevented him from doing so. It would be a violation of the separation of church and state. Ever since, I've known our ideas of church and state in America are just a little, well, screwy, to use the technical term. That famous, and often reviled, wall of separation between church and state isn't such a bad idea.
Similar situations occur in other nations every day.
That wall protects our churches, providing the freedom of religion we cherish. The problem in America is not that the wall exists, but that the wall is too high. Two weeks ago, that wall became a little lower. One of President Bush's first official actions was to sign an executive order creating an Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The office serves as the centerpiece of Bush's plan to allow private organizations, religiously based or not, to compete for government funding in order to provide social services.