The Origin of "Separation of Church and State" (good article)

Why do you WANT to claim a mans freedom of speech or RKBA's can be prohibited by a states legislators?
19 -tpaine-

RobbyS wrote:
Freedom of speech, no. Gun control, yes.

You might try to explain why you think it is OK for the state to prohibit one of our inalienable rights, and not the other.. Can you?

The concept is actually anti-Catholic in origin.

Hugo Black was an anti-Catholic KKK member and a big proponent of separationism, for example.

But that is only the tip of the iceberg.

If you read writings of early separationists, the feeling of the need for separation was directed against Catholics, not Protestants or anybody else.

This intent was well understood, as evidenced by court rulings after the First Amendment. For example, a 1799 court declared:

"By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on the same equal footing."

I wish we had a case number for this ruling. It parallels the 1892 NYSSC ruling that islam (among other foreign religions) are illegal in America.

I know this is a very old post, however, it has a timeless message that I, for one, am thankful to hear. I knew the origin of the phrase was a letter of President Jefferson, however, I did not know the content of the letter or the situation causing it’s writing.

Thank you for the information.

Your entire argument completely falls apart if you intend to rely on the quotes from the Jefferson letter and the congressional record of debate surrounding the 1st Amendment . Reading the text it is clear that the founders intended there to be no establishment of a state religion of any one denomination over another. Further they state that people should be free to worship any “orthodox religion” of their choosing and that the state could not adopt or favor one over the other due to the establishment clause in the constitution. This clearly refutes the notion that we can consider America a Christian nation any more than we can consider it a Jewish nation or a Hindu nation or a Muslim nation. America is all of these or none of these because the constitution grants each person the right to practice their own religion or none at all. Nowhere in the Constitution is Christianity, or even God mentioned. The framers stated many times in their debates that they were relying on the laws of man and nature to form the principles upon which our government would be based.

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