Religion's great, if you go for that sort of thing. As Mr. Jefferson said, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Popular pastime, I understand.
But, unless you're a paid member of the cloth, that's what it has to be considered, while you're at work.
Jen Hayden's diary about the state trooper proselytizing at a traffic stop certainly raises a number of important points about the founders' intent in writing the establishment clause of the First Amendment, as does the Ohio Supreme Court's decision not to hear the appeal of an Ohio teacher fired for tossing out his textbook and tacking Bible verses around his science classroom (though using a Tesla coil to burn a cross into a student's flesh might have been a bit more First Amendment expression than most of us are comfortable with).
But there's another issue underlying these cases that needs no constitutional scholars to referee: you're on the clock, dips.
The Ohio teacher argued that to fire him for teaching creationism instead of evolution was a "violation of my First Amendment rights." I have no doubt the trooper in Indiana will make the same argument when she's disciplined for asking a motorist for license, registration and state of grace.
But no one hired these people to be preachers or pundits or poets. They are getting paid (probably not enough, but they likely were informed of compensation schedules before signing their contracts).
And they did sign contracts. If you give me so much money and medical and dental, I will teach the county school board mandated curriculum for science education for such and such a grade level. Pay this amount and let me drive the car with the woopy siren and I'll enforce the laws of the state and follow the regulations of this department.
In my free time, I understand I may yowl on the street corner about my Supreme Pal or write a gajillion blog posts about Darwinism being a plot to sap our precious bodily fluids. In my free time. When I'm not clocking my employer's dime.
The fact that, in the cases above, the employers are us, as important as it is, isn't even the real point of this argument.
Way back in the mists of time, I was the manager of a small store. The employees, like myself, were young and had varied interests. One was, also like myself, an enthusiastic fan of punk.
In those days, punk wasn't very popular and there wasn't an internet you could steer someone around to explain your excitement over the form. You had to sit someone down and pull out your cassettes and play them the Damned and the Saints and Boomtown Rats (and the Modern Lovers, before Jonathan finally made his mind and went to the not-Dark Side).
Problem was, this guy was doing is punk proselytization on company time. And we weren't running a record store. It was a grocery.
I finally had to let him go. Even though his pastime was one I passionately embraced myself. Because spreading the Gospel of Patti and the Revelation of St. Lou the Mumbler wasn't what he was hired to do.
Same with Pastor Science Teacher and Rev. State Trooper. You signed a contract and agreed to perform a job for a fee. So do it or quit.
For the rest, heck, you're public employees. You've probably got a decent union behind you. I know you get some days off.