--- In [email protected], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: <snip> > I'll try to locate the court case that started > evoking this separation clause that isn't there.
The "separation clause" you refer to comes from a letter to the Danbury Baptists from Thomas Jefferson, in which he explicitly *describes* the First Amendment's establishment/free exercise clauses as establishing "a wall of separation between church and state": "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building A WALL OF SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH & STATE...." (emphasis added) Conservatives, in my observation, try to pretend (perhaps in some cases out of ignorance) that the "separation clause" is something somebody made up long after the fact in the interests of suppressing religious speech. It's disingenuous and misleading to say that it "isn't in the Constitution," when it is the phrase used by one of the Framers to describe what most certainly *is* in the Constitution (or the Bill of Rights, if you want to get technical about it). I'm pretty sure I've explained this to you before, MDixon. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
