--- In [email protected], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > In a message dated 7/13/07 12:56:24 P.M. Central Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > Moore lost his case based on a false assumption of a separation of > church > > and state which was perpetuated since the late 1940's by the then > Supreme Court. > > Wrong. In effect, the US Constitution essentially upheld the idea of > the separation of church and state from the outset. > > Nowhere in the Constitution does it contradict the following > statements by Jefferson and Madison. In fact, later Supreme Court > decisions, except for the Pledge of Allegience case, also upheld those > ideas. > > "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely > between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his > faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach > actions only, and not opinions, 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 and State." > > ~~ Thomas Jefferson > > > > > The Constitution does contradict the separation of Church and state as it is > currently applied. Try reading the first amendment. The congress shall make > no law establishing nor prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Clearly > this means the Government can not establish by law an official state Church or > religion as was the custom in Europe. However the government can not pass a > law prohibiting the elected from expressing the religious values of the people > they represent through legislation. Laws regarding the Sabbath, Sodomy, > Adultery as well as laws regarding financial restitution are or were very common > in state governments since their inception.
Those kinds of laws are not exclusive to Christianity. <The quote of Jefferson's you refer > to is not in any government document. It is a personal letter to the Baptists > of Danbury Connecticut who feared the Government might establish a State > Church such as Anglican or Presbyterian and the Federal government would be > controlled by that denomination. Jefferson's letter was meant to reassure him > that was not the intent. Here's what you snipped: "If "all men by nature are equally free and independent," they are to be considered as retaining an "equal right to free exercise of religion, according to dictates of conscience." While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe, the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us... Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have 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... What influences, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been seen the guardians of liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not. ~~ James Madison
