Liberal Lies and The Constitution : "The Seperation Of Church and State"
This is the first in a series of articles dealing with the twisting of the Constitution by the left to promote their agenda and to attempt to change the intent of the Founding Fathers and thus the very principles in which our nation was born. The first is the myth that the Constitution establishes, "the seperation of church and state." This is a falsehood that has existed for 204 years and has continually been admonished so that most of the people believe it to be fact and actually in the Constitution including unfortunatly many of our elected officials. Let's look first to the Constitution itself and find what is actually written. The first seven articles of the Constitution deal with the makeup of the Government and how it shall operate, then comes the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments which establish the rights of the people of The United States. Amendment 1 establishes freedoms of speech, press, peacful assemply and the right to petition the government. Yet with all of these freedoms the Founding Fathers chose the establishement of the freedom of religion as the first of our essential freedoms. The amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" Notice at no time in this, "establishment clause," is there any mention of the seperation of church and state. To understand the intent of this clause by the Fathers, we must first look to the first colonist and the European idea of religion. The Pilgrims were Puritans who came to America to escape religious pursecution in Europe. Europe then and even today establishes a state church that you must belong to in order to marry, bury and in some case to even own property. For instance in Germany you may attend the church of your choice but for any legal purposes such as marriage, you must belong to the Lutheran Church. Essentially this was the case with the Pilgrims except that they could not worship as they wished so they left Europe for America. They then did establish Puritanism as the one religion in America, which brought about the Salem witch trials and such. The Founding Fathers in order to end religious persecution and establish freedom to worship one's God as one would wish stated that Congress shall pass no law establishing religion thus preventing a state sponsored church and religion leaving it up to the individual as how to worship his God. The idea of,"seperation of church and state," began in 1802 from a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury, Conneticut Baptist Association in answer to their question as to why he did not proclaim a day of Thanksgiving as Washington and Adams before him did.(read the letter at usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html)The Jefferson letter states in response that the government and its officials shall make, "no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof,thus building a wall of seperation of church and state." Yet even with this thought in the letter Jefferson closes by asking for, "your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the Common Father and Creator of man!" For 204 years this thought by Jefferson has been the basis for attempting to eliminate all references of God, prayer, worship and religion from the very core of our nation and all state and government writings and institutions. Yet many of the founders including Jefferson included God and prayer in everyday aspects of governing and government. Even today, Congress opens each session with prayer. God bless America is a standard close for most political speeches and the song by the same name is sung a many state celebrations. Yet the left would have us believe that the Constitution establishes the elimination of any referance to God, any form of prayer or worship to Him at any and all state and government levels and buildings, signs, lawns, meetings, schools, sporting activities etc. In the founding document of freedom,The Declaration of Independance the Fathers stated, "We hold these truths...that all men are CREATED equal and are endowed by their CREATOR!" The seventh article of the Constitution states that the ratification was completed on the, "17th day of September in the YEAR OF OUR LORD" 1787! None of this even remotely gives the idea that the Fathers intended that God be excluded from our government but instead embraced by it! Most President's have stated that they could not lead without His Divine guidance. Our nation was founded on Godly principles and ideas. It was never intended that those principles be removed from the country but rather that they become a foundation to be built upon. We are a nation that trusts in God as is stated on our currancy and a nation under God as stated in our pledge. This is the legacy of the Fouding Fathers and this is the truth that the left would have us forget! This is the truth as found in our Constitution!
Ken Taylor
Ken Taylor