Church and State

I needed to sign a document, get the signature notarized, get the notarization certified, and get an apostille. I still don't know what an apostille is, but I now have one. This endeavor took me to the Red State Capital City Suburb County Courthouse, the Red State Department of State, a bank, the Red State Capital City County Courthouse, and back to the Red State Department of State.

Partly this is because I screwed up: I didn't realize that after I got the signature notarized at the Suburb County Courthouse, I had to get it certified. So I showed up at the Department of State, and started to get angry that they wouldn't give me the apostille, but then I quickly realized that it was my fault (I had skipped a line of my extremely detailed instructions), so I was nice, especially because the woman at the Department of State so nicely explained to me how to get notarized again (bank), certified (City County Courthouse), and apostilled (back to the Department of State). I was even nice to the meter maid who was printing out my parking ticket as I sprinted back to my car at the City County Courthouse. It wasn't her fault that once you hit print, the ticket cannot be rescinded.

I was not nice to the collection of people who were PRAYING right inside the City County Courthouse. Yes, PRAYING. Inside the courthouse. Apparently it was some National Day of Prayer. Apparently right inside the City County Courthouse, between the door and the metal detector, is public property. Apparently you are thus allowed to stand there with a big sign that says National Day of Prayer and PRAY very loudly, as if you are in CHURCH, at all the people who are coming and going on their courthouse business, which would be STATE business, as it were, metaphorically speaking, though not quite such state business as one might conduct, say, at the Department of State.

Uh, separation? Of church and state? Last time I checked, it was still nominally the law. Wasn't it?