Separation of State and Church
by David M.
Fitzpatrick
Last updated
Sunday, 26 February 2006
Xians often
trumpet, "Nowhere does the Constitution
EVER say the words 'separation of church and state!'" And they're right—those words
were actually first used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter he wrote. But
Jefferson was referring to the basic ideal of the Constitution when it
declared that Congress shall make no law establishing any religion in the
nation.
However, it is worth noting that whenever
there has been any Constitutional ambiguity, or argument over any
interpretation of the Constitution that may lean in favor of
non-religionists, the religionists trumpet "But the Founding Fathers
meant such and such!" If I'm not mistaken, Thomas Jefferson was, indeed,
a Founding Father. Why, then, is his statement about separation of church
and state categorically thrown out by religionists? Doesn't his statement
clearly show what that Founding Father thought of the Establishment Clause
and its intent to keep that wall of separation between the government and
religion? That Founding Father is ignored because his views don't fit the
fiction the religionists have dreamed up: that the country was founded
exclusively of the Xians, by the Xians, and for the Xians... and nobody
else!
Founding Fathers' thoughts aside, the very idea that the founding fathers saw
fit to write into the document that serves as the legal basis for our entire
society a clause indicating the government should have no power to establish
a religion of any sort shows that they clearly didn't want the state and the
church to run each other... and that Jefferson was very right when he
explained it in his terms.
The Courts Rule
The Supreme Court has ruled on
religious matters in the past, but the fact that many extremely obvious,
common sense decisions were not unanimous is nothing short of depressing:
- 25 June 1962: Supreme Court ruled
7-1 (Engel v. Vitale) that public school officials could not require
students to recite a state-composed, nondenominational prayer at the
beginning of the school day, even if students who wished to be excused
could be. While this seems painfully obvious, there was one justice who
thought it was a perfectly good idea. In his dissenting opinion, he noted
that it seemed wrong to prohibit schools from holding prayers while places
like the Supreme Court recognized God before their own sessions and other
government agencies did the same. It is sad that it didn't occur to this
justice that perhaps the prayer in such venues ought to be stopped just as
the Supreme Court stopped it in schools.
- 17 June 1964: Prayer in schools,
Round #2! Supreme Court ruled 8-1 (Abington Township School District v. Schempp &
Murray v. Curlett) that laws requiring recitation of the Lord's
Prayer or Bible verses in public schools were unconstitutional. Once
again, despite the blatant obviousness of the case, one justice didn't see
that a public school REQUIRING recitation of the Lord's Prayer or Bible
verses was unconstitutional. This person thought it was perfectly all
right to require Atheists and non-Xians to recite such things. Yikes!
Worse yet, doesn't it seem evident that Engel v. Vitale in 1962 already
addressed this issue adequately?
We have a long way to go.
See also:
"Freedom OF and FROM Religion." |
