The New Year is upon us and I know many of you are glad the old one is gone. I get the feeling that many Americans are praying for a better year in 2010. People have a tendency to look to God when things get rough. That is unless they happen to be standing in a federal building or a public school. God is not welcome in America's government run institutions today. His presence would violate the constitution's mandate concerning the "Separation of church and State." At least that's what the ACLU and quite a few alleged "blue blooded Americans" would have us believe.
NEWS FLASH!
They are wrong! Wrong enough to have our founding father's turning in their collective graves at the thought of God being shut out of the hallowed halls of government or any other place in our great country. It is most definitely not what they intended when they framed the constitution. In fact, the term, "separation of church and state" is not even in the constitution. Check it out. You will not find the term in the body of the constitution because the founding fathers did not intend to keep God out of government. The term, "wall of separation between the church and the state" was originally coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802. His purpose in this letter was to calm the fears of the Danbury, Connecticut Baptists, and so he told them that this wall had been erected to protect them. The metaphor was used exclusively to keep the state out of the church's business, not to keep the church out of the state's business.
Furthermore, the "establishment" clause of the constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . Both the free exercise clause and the establishment clause of the constitution place restrictions on the government concerning laws they pass or interfering with religion. No restrictions are placed on religions except perhaps that a religious denomination cannot become the state religion... Contrary to what our founding father's intended when framing the constitution, the ACLU and the other alleged "blue blood American organizations" will have you believe that the presence of God in our government halls, songs and schools is a violation of our rights and strictly prohibited by the constitution. No honest interpretation of the constitution would allow such a conclusion to be reached.
The Supreme Court in 1892 gave what is known as the Trinity Decision. In that decision the Supreme Court declared, "this is a Christian nation." John Quincy Adams said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was, it connected in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.” The founders were definitely Christian for the most part. At least 90 to 95 percentage of them were practicing, Trinitarian Christians. As opposed to the current position of many that the mention of God would be a threat to the rights of American citizens, God was believed by our founding fathers to be vital to the success of our government and to the nation as a whole. The documentary evidence of the doctrinal Christian religion origin of this nation is voluminous.
Consider the following:
:: Emblazoned over the Speaker of the House in the US Capitol are the words "In God We Trust."
:: The Supreme Court building built in the 1930's has carvings of Moses and the Ten Commandments.
:: God is mentioned in stone all over Washington D.C., on its monuments and buildings.
:: As a nation, we have celebrated Christmas to commemorate the Savior's birth for centuries.
:: Oaths in courtrooms have invoked God from the beginning.
:: The founding fathers often quoted the Bible in their writings.
:: Every president that has given an inaugural address has mentioned God in that speech.
:: Prayers have been said at the swearing in of each president.
:: Each president was sworn in on the Bible, saying the words, "So help me God."
:: Our national anthem mentions God.
:: The liberty bell has a Bible verse engraved on it.
:: The original constitution of all 50 states mentions God.
:: Chaplains have been in the public payroll from the very beginning.
:: Our nation’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, mentions God four times.
:: The Bible was used as a textbook in the schools.
These are the facts, my friends. I don't believe our founding fathers intended to impose their belief in God on anyone. However, the facts are clear in that they certainly did consider God vital to the success of a young nation they had fought bravely to defend. In my opinion any attempt to remove God from the conscience of our great nation is a violation of the rights of all Americans and a slap in the face to the men who gave us this country and made it the land of the free.
By the way, our country is in the midst of one of the coldest spells on record. Currently, almost 2/3 of the nation is experiencing temperatures far below normal for this time, or at any time of the year. What happened to global warming? Or is it climate change? I'll have to check with Al Gore. Maybe he can research this dilemma on the computer he invented.
I'm out!
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The United States was founded as a secular government, as is clear from the Constitution which expressly founds the government on the power of the people rather than a deity and says nothing substantive of god(s) or religion except in the First Amendment where the point is to confirm that each person enjoys religious liberty and the government is not to take steps to establish religion and another provision precluding any religious test for public office.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the underlying principle of the First Amendment and the no-religious-test clause of the Constitution. That the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and later learned otherwise. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to describe one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
Some try to pass off the Supreme Court's decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court's decision. Indeed, it was only after reaching its conclusion based on a detailed discussion of the historical events leading to the First Amendment that the Court mentioned the letter. The metaphor "separation of church and state" was but a handy catch phrase to describe the upshot of its conclusion. The Court's reading of the First Amendment in this regard was unanimous; all nine Justices agreed on that much, but split 5-4 on whether the Amendment precludes states from paying for transportation of students to religious schools.
Perhaps even more than Thomas Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court's view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to "[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government." Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that old habits die hard and that tendencies of citizens and politicians could and sometimes did lead them to entangle government and religion (e.g., "the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress" and "for the army and navy" and "[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts"), he considered the question whether these were "consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom" and responded: "In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion."
The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to undercut our secular government by somehow merging or infusing it with religion should be resisted by every patriot.
I really liked reading this story, I'm a proud conservative myself.
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