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PART
III.
HOW CLOSE A SEPARATION?
29. A State Religion? -- Never
The things we know that aren't true. Example? The
so-called
''Constitutional separation of church and
state."
But, stop the presses. The First Amendment
of our United States Constitution does not use those
words,
"separation, church, state."
Honest.
That First Amendment reads:
"Congress shallmake
no law respecting an establishment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... "
That's all.
It
appears that the First Amendment was not intended to
remove religion from the schools, but rather to keep
government out of religion. Big difference.
Over two centuries, fact and folklore have merged
to give the
''church andstate"
issue more play than it
probably deserves. In 1801, a political opponent of
President Thomas Jefferson attacked Jefferson as
being an
''atheist"
In response, Thomas Jefferson, through private
correspondence, communicated to the Danbury Baptist
Association the following,
"/contemplate with solemn
reverence that actofthe wholeAmerican people which
declared that their legislature should 'make no law
respecting andestablishment ofreligion, orprohibiting
the free exercise thereof,
'
thus building a wall of
separation between church andstate."
It
seems fairly
clear that the
"wall"
was meant to protect churches
from discrimination by the government by means of,
God forbid, a state church.
. So, where do we find the answers to our riddle,
"
Was there, or is there, too much religion in our
government?"
As a colleague of mine likes to put it:
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