Separation of Church and State Debate

Damn you Thomas Jefferson, if a certain founding father hadn't written a certain letter to a Virginia Baptist pastor, the entire matter of "separation of church and state" or at least the phraseology wouldn't exist, and I for one couldn't be happier. The concept, as far as western civilization is fairly new and unique to the United States, in so much as we incorporated the idea from the very beginning. The British did make it so that the monarch was not the head of the Church of England except ceremonially and that was significant. The concept of freedom of religion was an 18^th century progressive concept and wouldn't really be encapsulated into law or anything until Queen Victoria did not shut out, but accepted with skepticism, the Catholic Church in the 1840's.

America was colonized for religious freedom and that has been the theme of our country from 1776 to the present day. Our government was founded with a Christian, moral people in mind so much so that John Adams said, ". . .it is wholly inadequate for any other." The Christian character of the American people, their goodness and their giving nature has always been a hallmark of the nation and is a result of a Christian foundation. In this post-modern period there is a significant group of people who wish that the country weren't that way. In the same way there is a significant amount of people (namely the Christian Right) who wish the government were more Christian and enforced their own brand of morality a little more.

So we have two groups, those who want the Judeo-Christian moral-ethic out our government and country and those who want it to be enlarged. We have to remember the point of contention two clauses of the 1^st amendment to the Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....." It is amazing how both sides seem to forget the double-edge nature of this clause. This clause makes it so, Congress cannot establish a religion, nor give public money, nor give special favours to religious (of any kind or creed) organizations. It also says that Congress cannot restrict how people practice their religion. This is meaning that Congress cannot regulate, or change, or pass laws against any practice of a religious organization. This also means and is being interpreted as such, that Congress should not give any public money to religious organizations. While in the past this hasn't gone on, the President would like to use Federal dollars to fund religious initiatives to solve social problems. The current prevailing interpretation by the Supreme Court is that this is unconstitutional and I would tend go agree. However someone has to solve these glaring social issues and the government definitely has done and continues to do a poor job of solving them. Faith-based programs, or those run by church and other religious organizations, has proven over the course of history to be effective to solve those problems that afflict the least among us.

But what remains to be seen is if government dollars should be given to private organizations for the purpose of solving those social problems that afflict us, including unemployment, Fatherless children, husband-less mothers and the like.

However the separation of church and state wasn't just to make sure there was no religious take over of the government but also to make sure there was no government take over of the church. In 1776 the government and church were affiliates quiet closely and as America was colonized with religious freedom in mind and there were already many denominations and creeds a problem would have arisen as far as if the church was going to be intimately involved with the government would a change in government necessitate and change in church (if there be a state church) or if different denominations and creeds would war against each other for control of the government. The Constitutional Convention decided to solve the problem ahead of time and just keep the two apart.

This is significant to Western Civilization in that America is the first country in the west to fully keep the government out of the church and the church out of the government, that way religion could not be used to rule the people of all sorts of beliefs. This was the beginning of diversity in the West.

At some point here in the near future we are going to have to decide which is more important, the continued useless funding of ineffective federal programs or to allow this exception and start to dole out dollars to churches and others for social programs. In the past the Supreme Court has ruled favor of keeping the religious organizations out, for instance: "In 1940, members of the Jewish, Roman Catholic, and some Protestant faiths formed a voluntary association called the Champaign (Illinois) Council on Religious Education. Cooperating with the Champaign Board of Education, the Council offered voluntary classes in religious instruction to public school pupils. The courses were conducted in the regular classrooms of the school building. Students who did not attend the religious instruction were required to go to some other place in the building to pursue secular studies.The Court held that the use of tax-supported property for religious instruction and the close cooperation between the school authorities and the religious council violated the Establishment clause. Because pupils were required to attend school and were released in part from this legal duty if they attended the religious classes, the Court found that the Champaign system was "beyond question a utilization of the tax-established and tax-supported public school system to aid religious groups and to spread the faith." (http://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1949/1947/1947_90/, 2007) This theme as continued through taking prayer out of schools (engle v. vitale 1962) (oyez.org, 2007) and other significant decisions throughout the 1960's. However, a more conservative court may change things in regards to government money to faith based organizations. It is still the policy of the Department of Justice that, "Is there money set aside for Faith-Based Organizations? No. The Federal government does not set aside a separate funding stream specifically for faith-based groups. Rather, they are eligible to apply for government grants on an equal footing with other similar non-governmental organizations." This debate is bound to continue as long as Christian organizations demand money or put themselves forth as the solution to save the government money.