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Thanks for your very informative post. Just wanted to mention that the concept of 'separation of church and state' is not an invention of goverment and/or Hugo Black as too many people wrongly say but from a letter that Jefferson wrote tot eh Danbury Baptists...and he was paraphrasing Roger Williams...who's having been expelled from the MA Bay Colony for religious dissent certainly had something to do with his ideas. :-)

Just wanted to mention that the concept of 'separation of church and state' is not an invention of goverment and/or Hugo Black as too many people wrongly say but from a letter that Jefferson wrote tot eh Danbury Baptists..

Good point, and very true. The original concept was stated in the letter.

Perhaps I should have said separation of church and state was 'discovered' in the Constitution by the government, via the legal system.

There are actually a frightening amount of articles posted where some Americans actually believe the Constitution says 'freedom FROM religion', not 'freedom OF religion.

I decided to go back and reread Jefferson's Danbury Baptist letter.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship,
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Man owes obedience to his Creator, not his creation
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that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions,
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Natural law is superior to Positive law
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I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
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There can never be a Church of the United States
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or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
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Doesn't say religion can't interfere with government except for the above limitation

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thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

People bent on creating a godless America have used this 'wall' to push the Founders original meaning completely out of the publics view.

There was a recent article about a school district that found teaching the Declaration of Independence 'questionable' because of it's repeated references to God.

Nature abhors a vacuum. The morality gap in our country has been filled with governmental regulations, any many Americans have no concept of the true meaning of Freedom.