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To: BushFaninATL
Does Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation Debunk Myth of Separation of Church and State?

Of course it does. The First Amendment prohibit the creation of a national religion, it does not prohibit the endorsement of religion. Endorsement is not establishment.

The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects [denominations] and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government. - Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833.

28 posted on 11/23/2004 6:09:06 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
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To: wideminded
The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects ..."

One of our founding fathers and a principal author of the constitution evidentally would have disagreed with this opinion.

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"
-- James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assemby, 1785

43 posted on 11/24/2004 3:51:04 PM PST by wideminded
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