Last month, students forgot their three-cornered hats, wigs and quills.

But that's not a big deal.

The Penn State celebration of Constitution Day still happened in grand fashion.

English students read banned books inside the library, students scrawled their opinions on large black cubes in front of the Palmer Art Museum and orange panels on the grass outside the Thomas Building argued the death penalty.

The day served as an important reminder to utilize the most sacred of Constitutional freedoms granted to Penn State students and Americans everywhere.

We know, we know.

Constitution's Day a little trite, and we rolled our eyes when the state legislature first made it a legal holiday.

But perhaps, this holiday is more necessary than we first thought.

A study published earlier last week painted a disturbing picture of the American public's understanding of the First Amendment.

According to the study, published by the First Amendment Center, 55 percent of Americans believe that the United States Constitution establishes a Christian nation.

Sixty-five percent of respondents said the nation's founders intended the country to be Christian.

Even Sen. John McCain is making the nation's middle school civic teachers frown.

"I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation," the Arizonia resident told the Web site Beliefnet in an interview published Saturday.

Scary, to be sure -- the concept of a majority of Americans and a presidential candidate not knowing the very values upon which the country was founded is cause for grave concern.

However, a more pressing issue may be a statistic that ran relatively unnoticed. Asked whether they felt the freedom to worship as one chooses applies to all religious groups, regardless of how "extreme" their beliefs are, only 56 percent agreed, down from 72 percent in 2000.

But luckily, when it comes to the freedom of religion, Penn State appears out of step with the majority of Americans.

The on-campus Pasquerilla Spiritual Center provides a state-of-the-art worship and meeting space for individuals of all religious backgrounds.

Remember the Muslim footbaths that sparked outrage at University of Michigan at Dearborn this summer?

We already got 'em.

Surrounded by a campus that appears to be on the right track with regard to religious freedom, even by collegial standards, the First Amendment Center's study is a rude awakening to the reality of the average American's constitutional comprehension.

While editorial boards across the country formulated opinions last week about a Colorado student newspaper's crude, four-letter attempt at First Amendment edginess, maybe the debate over free speech should be redirected to discourse about freedom of religion.

After all, how can you challenge what you don't understand?