Right out of John Locke, but instead of happiness, he said property. His book was mentioned often in wills, to be given to the oldest son.
This country was founded by not the eldest son, but by the younger sons who had no prospects in their homeland except the military, the sea, as a merchant, or the clergy. All inheritance went to the oldest son and he was expected to support his mother, and spinster sisters. Most of the original 13 states set up inheritance as equal between heirs unless otherwise written.
As for church and state, the constitution says the state shall establish no religion, not that we are free from religion. In England, the King was head of the Church of England, and in France, the king was head of the Catholic Church after the Pope, etc. The founders did not want a state religion, but freedom for the citizens to choose a religion for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Excellent distinction. The plethora of religious phrases and appeals to God in the founding documents as well as the myriad embellishments on and around government buildings is proof that we are not officially free from religion.
A tougher reading of the establishment clause speaks specifically to prohibiting the creation by the government of a corporate institution of religion.
The Iraqi proposed constitution differs from this only narrowly. While it makes appeals to the cultural heritage of Iraq as Muslim it does not establish an official Muslim institution in the government. The Iranian government, on the other hand, does just this. One is a democracy. The other is an oligarchy.
The interpretation of the establishment clause by recent jurisprudence ignores the founding documents and replaces them with a government scrubbed antisceptically clean of religion. It is nearly imnpossible to avoid the conclusion expressed by betty boop that contemporary government is actively pursuing a campaign to rid the culture of any vestige of public religious expression. This leads inexorably to betty's discussion of utopian government, especially as it distinguishes between government and society.
I was struck in the 90's by the continued interchangable use of the words government and society by the Clintons. They, and especially the Jr. Senator from NY, continue to this day to merge the two. She uses the words government and society interchangably. They are, in her lexicon, one entity. Clearly, then, for Hillary and her ideological cohorts, the establishment clause must, finally, rid society of the infection of religion.
These are not distinctions with no important differences. If government is society then all personal behavior is governable by law.
We are at a crossroads. Many would agree that we have gone far down the road of government intrusion into all aspects of life. When the only concern on the political left is the right of privacy as it pertains to the taking of neonatal life, we do not have far to go toward ending all vestiges of morality.
Jerry Springer, arguably the most vivid torch carrier of the political left, argues consistently that civil matters must be discussed apart from religious influence. He strikes at the heart of the matter.