Really? I came away with the impression that O'Donnell was the only one in the room who had actually read and understood the Constitution and its position on the establishment of a state sponsored religion versus the separation issue. It's a damned shame (and scary) that she would have to explain it to a group of law students. The fact that they giggled at her completely valid comments makes it obvious to anyone who has studied the Federalist Papers that she was the only one in the room with a grasp of the meaning of the first Amendment. Maybe she should have handed out a few copies of the Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights so that those ignorant souls in the crowd could enlighten themselves?
If they wanted to display some academic awareness, they would point out the policy of the separation of Church and State originated several centuries prior to our founding fathers and was well known to Queen Elizabeth I. It also was a policy established by Christians for Christian governed States.
It recognized that a righteous man would seek to remain obedient to both the Law of the Church as well as the Law of the State. By recognizing some men were sanctified by God by various steps determined by God and not by Man, then some men differed in their degree of maturity and sanctification in God. Likewise, the degree or extent of Law by the Church might differ from some men to others, as well as between different denominations of believers.
The Law of the State, also applied to believers and unbelievers alike, but had been structured to maintain order amongst unbelievers who rejected or had not yet abided by the Law of God.
The object of the policy was not as much to form a policy of Law for unbelievers, but to insure the system of Church and of the State did not preclude the Liberty of a righteous man who sought to remain obedient to both.
The voting public of that era KNEW what they believed in their Church. Those who didn’t had probably been killed over the preceding century, because one Church would come in and inquisite the population individually, kill off thousands of heretics, only to be overcome by another Church who later also purged the population of its heretics. They very well knew what the Church believed because their Liberty and many times their lives had been threatened by any lack of knowledge or obedience to it.
Those formulating and establishing the law of the State, as displayed by Queen Elizabeth I, sought to harmonize the Church and the State, not by finding a common denominator supporting the liberty of those who sought to not obey either the Law of the State nor of the Church, nor by attempting to counterfeit the Law of the Church with the Law of the State, but instead by recognizing both were valid, but the Church denomination might vary from believer to believer, but both believers in Christ were still seeking to remain obedient to both the Church and to the State.
Hence, the policy of separation of the Church and the State, so that the State could not encroach upon the power of the Church and visa versa.
The entire policy was predicated upon recognition of the Liberty and Freedom of Christian believers in the Church and in the State, not upon pagan or false religion.
“didn’t understand what was going on”
I meant mostly that she didn’t understand what was going on in the room. The audience giggled. That’s a huge signal that she needed to clarify to her audience.