While I usually make it a point to stay out of these type of threads, since this post is touting "the law," I find it important to clarify a few things.
The words "separation of church and state" are not in the constitution. The constitution uses the following phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
What this means is that Congress cannot legislate a religion (i.e. everyone has to practice Chrisitianity) and they cannot legislate agains the practice of a religion (i.e. it is against the law to practice budhism). This means that everyone is free to practice whatever religion they choose, regardless of what it is. That means as a nation we must tolerate all religions whether we agree with them or not. The problem with this is that many of those who don't want to practice what the majority practices, also don't want to tolerate it and they claim that by permitting someone to practice their relgion (i.e. allowing a class to pray in public school) they are being infringed upon when the fact is those praying have as much constitutional right to do so as do those who chose not to. So what is the answer? I don't know, but tolerance is definately the key -- not separation of church and state, which leads to religious censure, and is not what our forefathers wanted nor what they intended by the phrase they put in the constitution. Our forefathers were fleeing from government legislated religious persecution because of thier practice of Christianity and they founded this nation solely because they wanted to be able to practice their chosen Christianity without fear of persecution. I do not think they would be pleased with the idea of separation of church and state since it often means CHristianity can no longer be practiced in public places because it may "offend someone" -- that would not have been their idea of religious freedom.
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Tara |