Separation of Church and State: Fact or Fiction?

Over the past three decades an increase in debate over the five words "Separation of Church and State" has been increasingly ramped up due to pressure from America's religious and political right, as their agenda is to see that Christian theology play a vital role in the governing and in the legislation of our country.

With the impending 2008 Presidential election looming, major news outlets such as Fox News have been running several programs and reports aimed at promoting the idea that religion and government should be mixed. One such special is hosted by possible 2008 Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who goes as far to lie about the faith of the Founding Fathers.

The goal of the conservatives and fundamentalists is to guide the state with the Holy Bible; the rationale for their argument compounded and spread out. The more fronts that they can make their argument on the more confusing it is for laymen and political novices, and thus the more easily accepted it is into uneducated and poorly informed groups of society.

The key basis's for the conservatives and fundamentalists are as follows; 1) the founding fathers based this nation and the US Constitution on Christian and Biblical values and principles; 2) the First Amendment does not really separate church from state; 3) the Supreme Court does not have the power to separate the church from state because the Constitution does not allow for it.

Each of these three separate arguments are indeed fallacies. Where each falsehood lies, there exists an opposite truth. The truths in the matter of these misstatements of facts shall be revealed in this reinterpretation, and the perpetrations of fraud undone.

"The founding fathers based this nation on Christian and Biblical values and principles."

Many politicians and influencers of opinion have been heard to utter this phrase before. This is perhaps the incongruous of the absurd claims made by the right in this matter, as such, it is the most easily defeated, and as such it is fitting for it to be addressed first. Though ridiculous on its face, this is one claim that has the most credibility with the uneducated masses of the American public.

This argument bears weight for two reasons; because as a mass, Americans possess little knowledge of their history, of their historical leaders, or of their present day government; and there is a common belief that society is becoming less religious over time.

The ladder of the two reasons is based on the principle of repetition. If one hears something over and over enough, one will simply accept it as fact over time. The vocal "moral majority," crying oppression, claims that the United States is becoming increasingly amoral and more and more distant from the Christian faith.

Nothing can be further from the truth. In November 2000, the United States elected the first president in modern times who openly reveals that faith is his leading factor in policy making. At no other time in America's history would a leader who allows church to influence him so heavily be elected to the seat in the Executive Palace. What is more is that church going has increased over the past four decades according to statistical data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The simple reason why the right claims to be losing ground is because they are losing ground morally. In 1776 slavery was legal. In 1861 conservative states succeeded from the Union in order to protect slavery, an effort proven to be futile when the 13th Amendment was ratified by the states was completed on December 6, 1865. The Christian conservative movement in Mississippi prevented ratification of the Amendment until 1995.

Until 1920 Christian leaders successfully prevent women from voting in America until the 19th Amendment passed 1920, because a woman's voice is one which should neither be heard nor listened to. Even after the passage of the 15th Amendment on February 3rd, 1870, it was not until January of 1964 with the passage of the 24th Amendment that Christian fundamentalist organizations were finally prevented from keeping blacks to vote.

In 2005 all women and all races are welcome to vote in the United States, slavery is so barbaric that it's unimaginable, women have the right to choose whether or not to bear children, contraceptives are now legal, homosexuality is no longer illegal, non-Christian children are no longer forced to participate in Christian prayer in America's public schools. With women and blacks voting, it is not difficult to see why the right protests and claims that morality is on the decline in this country.

The even more bizarre argument is that the founding fathers had no intention of separating the state and the religion, and that they themselves based U.S. law on Biblical Doctrine. The absurdity of such claims is easily demonstrated by merely referencing the words of America's greatest thinkers, leaders, and Constitutional Framers.

John Adams, the second President of the United States, was instrumental in the establishment of the Constitution. The following quotes are excerpts from his letters to his friend Thomas Jefferson:

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed."

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was the third President of the United States. Jefferson's political theories provided great inspiration in the outlining of the Constitution.

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites."

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own"

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."

James Madison, who was not only an American President, but his political philosophy was if such breadth that it has earned him the epithet, "Father of the Constitution."

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

"In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

"...the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State"

"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together."

In the face of the eloquent bluntness that our founding fathers express their will in regards to the mixing of government and religion, there can be no doubt of their original intent.

"The First Amendment does not really separate church from state."

This is the shout which can be heard from conservative talk radio hosts for decades, and now in news programs today. This statement comes from two types of people, those who are ignorant and do not understand the complexities of Constitutional law, and those who are familiar with the law, but their intent is to oppose it and gain support of the opposition of the law with misinformation as their principal tool.

The First Amendment to the United States' Constitution provides for the freedom of assembly, expression, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and of course, freedom of religion. In regards to freedom of religion, the exact text reads as follows; "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

I didn't see the words "separation of church of state" in there, did you? No, of course not.

The First Amendment prevents the government to choosing a state religion and enforcing religion. This is what the British Empire had done in the American Colonies, and it was a key reason for the rebellion and the American war for independence. In the colonies, American citizens were not free to practice a religion of their choosing. Even Christians had to practice as a Protestant, even if they were Catholic. It was imperative that the legal document which was to govern the nation from its infancy to maturity would have to provide explicit protections for the free exercise of any religion of one's choosing.

Right-wing pundits claim that the government is in violation of the Amendment because the removal of Christian artifacts and non-secular prayer from schools restricts the free exercise of the Christian religion. However, it does not. Removing religious artifacts from government property and removing forced-prayer from schools protects the citizens of this nation who are not of the Christian faith, while at the same time protecting Christianity, and leaving it to Christians and church leaders to decide how their faith should be taught, at home and in church.

An Indian immigrant should not feel that he is being judged in an American court room because of his religion. If the Biblical Ten Commandments hang on the wall it would be prejudicial to the Hindu man. A Jewish or a Muslim child in a grade school classroom should not have to suffer the pain of discrimination and be shunned as an outcast by their peers because they are the minority, and they must not be forced to sit out of a group activity as their friends participate. This is for the same reason that the military was desegregated, and the same reason why bathrooms no longer have signs that read "Whites Only." If all men and women and children are equal under the law, as a society we cannot make special exceptions for the majority class or we undo the work that out nation's founders fought and died for.

"The Supreme Court does not have the power to separate the church from state because the Constitution does not allow for it." This argument is an extension of the argument which attempts to prove that separation is not provided for in the First Amendment. However, the purpose of this particular stance is to minimize the power of the Judicial Branch.

And now for the full body of the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Nowhere in the text does it say the words "freedom of expression," however, based on the First Amendment a law which prevented women for wearing high-heels or men from wearing neck-ties would be un-Constitutional. Those particular freedoms are not explicitly provided in the text, nevertheless it remains that the responsibility of the Judicial Branch is to interpret the Constitution.

The framers of the Constitution had in their minds the goal of creating a nation which would persevere for as many years as the Roman Republic had in classical times. They knew that customs would change, that technology would advance, and that society would evolve. A document designed to govern a citizenry in the 18th century surely would be ineffective in the governing of a citizenry in the 21st century if that document was rigid and unchanging.

This is why the framers vested the power to interpret the Constitution on one body: the judiciary. A progressive Supreme Court must progress with society. If the court were to rule against the will of society, then society would not enforce the law and the body of the court would be rendered irrelevant.

The best example of the Supreme Court interoperating new law would be one out of today's headlines. In February 2005, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling which made it illegal for the execution of sixteen and seventeen year olds either federally or by the states. Just over a decade earlier the same court, the same nine men and women, ruled to uphold the execution of minor adults. What changed? Society. In just over ten years it became unthinkable for society to execute its own children and the Supreme Court found that such action would be "cruel and unusual punishment," which is prohibited under the 8th Amendment.

Separation of church and state is not a lie or a myth. Separation is the will of our founding fathers, without the guidance of whom this nation, this great American experiment in democracy, would have been lost many years ago. In order to go forward we must shed ourselves of the weights and chains which restrict us, and never we look back to gaze upon them. The ability of our society to have progressed this far has been based on a government that is its self free of govern of outside religious intuitions; we must not look back, not now, not ever.

The "news" programs, such as Fox News and other networks which state a contrary claim are willfully, purposefully, and knowingly perpetrating a fraud against the American people. That is how all such "news" reports should be interpreted by all who see them.