Posted on 07/16/2009 8:57:56 AM PDT by truthnomatterwhat
Thomas Jefferson, The First Amendment and the separation of church and state - most are surprised to discover that neither the Constitution nor the First Amendment contain these words. The First Amendment simply states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The fact that the phrase “separation of church and state” appears in no founding document does not prevent many judicial and social activists from invoking that phrase as the basis for many public policy decisions. Today, Thomas Jefferson (author of that phrase) is portrayed as the authority on the First Amendment:
The Facts about Separation of Church and State “This Court has previously recognized that the provisions of the First Amendment, in the drafting and adoption of which . . . Jefferson played such [a] leading role . . . ” (Everson v. Board of Education). “Thomas Jefferson . . . a moving force behind the creation of the Bill of Rights . . . ” (Legal brief submitted by “Americans United for the Separation of Church and State”).
(Excerpt) Read more at thevoicemagazine.com ...
Actually, it is no accident that both Free Speech *and* Freedom of Religion are in the SAME Amendment! Hello?!
Free speech from the pulpit was always was the of the First Amendment.
Letting the boys separate the two into a ‘media’ right and a ‘religious’ right is a mistake.
More info:
http://64.203.107.114/histdocs/jefferson_letter_to_the_danbury_baptists.asp
http://64.203.107.114/histdocs/jefferson_letter_to_the_danbury_baptists_unedited.asp
http://64.203.107.114/histdocs/jefferson_letter_to_the_danbury_baptists_history.asp
There were many state laws associated with Religion...No travel on Sunday in Vermont as late as 1791.....The old Blue Laws...All state!!!
A sad fact that is over the heads and hearts of so many Americans. Too many people want “separation” to mean the Soviet style freedom FROM religion. We need to stand up for the truth but in a loving and not lording-over way.
One of the greatest lies of this century is this “Separation of Church and State” issue. If you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the “truth.” It’s very sad that so many people have bought into this lie.
“Separation of Church and State” appears nowhere in the Constitution. It was invented in 1949 by a SCOTUS Judge who was a Catholic hating member of the KKK.
IMHO, Jefferson debates himself....and a lot of his writings are just ramblings....
The Establishment Clause clearly separates church from state; however, most government employees don’t understand what that means, so they’ve winged it. Badly. If they would just read it in context with the Free Exercise Clause all of this foolishness would end. Let me spell it out for any government employees who might read this: No religious organization is to have a greater voice in government than that afforded by the votes of its adherents, and in no case shall an official religion (such as the Church of England) be established. Simple. Government employees can individually practice and endorse whatever faith they want—even at work—to the extent it does not interfere with their duties, but they can’t stifle the beliefs and practices of other citizens either directly or by advantaging the exercise of their own faith. Now, would some Supreme Court clerk please plagiarize the above and drop a footnote in an opinion somewhere?
And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, “You know the REST of the story!”
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUITThis got lost due to the date this ruling was reached -- 12-20-05, right before Christmas.
ACLU v Mercer County, Kentucky
Decided and Filed: December 20, 2005~~~ snip~~~ Page 13 of 14
Were we to focus on the perceptions of individuals, every religious display would be “necessarily precluded so long as some passersby would perceive a governmental endorsement thereof.”... Thus, we find unavailing the ACLU’s own assertions that it finds the display offensive and that the display “diminishes [its] enjoyment of the courthouse.” Religion does not become relevant to standing in the political community simply because a particular viewer of a governmental display feels uncomfortable.
[see Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 597-98 (1992)]
(“People may take offense to all manner of religious as well as nonreligious messages, but offense alone does not in every case show a violation. We know too that sometimes to endure social isolation or even anger may be the price of conscience or noncomformity.”).Our concern is that of the reasonable person. And the ACLU, an organization whose mission is “to ensure that the government [is kept] out of the religion business,” does not embody the reasonable person.
The ACLU’s argument contains three fundamental flaws. First, the ACLU makes repeated reference to “the separation of church and state.” This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.
Great post!
And how many times have you heard someone say that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is in the constitution? I hear it all the time. Confusing the Declaration and the Constitution is done all the time.
I agree. IMHO, Jefferson, so lauded today as the premium founding father, is over-rated. He was brilliant to the point of genius yes, but, so were Franklin, Madison, Hamilton and others.
He was premierely a hypocrite—writing so lavishly about freedom, even while keeping many slaves (and never setting them free, as Washington did in his will).
He repeatedly condemned “miscegenation” (racial mixing) even while keeping a black mistress at the same time.
He was supposed to be a man of high morality—even while rejecting Christianity—and embracing a cold self-made unitarian/deism—along with that slave-mistress.
But for his Danbury Baptists’ letter...and the “separation” phrase, America would be a lot better off.
No...
It was landmark U.S. Supreme Court precedent Reynolds v. United States in 1878 that made “separation of church and state” a dubiously legitimate point of case law, but more importantly; it confirmed the Constitutionality in statutory regulation of marriage practices.
"Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices…So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? [98 U.S. 145, 167] To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself..."
(see also: United States v. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.)
How ironic for the homsexual cultists like Roseanne Barr, who want “separation of church and state,” that the court case they want to base their argument upon was used against the LDS church to justify the statutory regulation of marriage in the United States!
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