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Originally Posted by 92bDad
Hear me on this one, people. There is NO such thing as separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution. Is nowhere to be found in the entire dobument. The First Amendment simply states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibitin the free exercise therof." It articulates a freedom of religion, not a freedom from it. The polemical history of the First Amendment grows more and more contentous.
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wow, what a load of crap.
the language is clear that the state cannot do anything which endorses a specific religion nor do anything that endorses a religious ideal, and cannot limit the citizen's right to practice their religion.
that's a clear definition of "separation of church and state" (which btw was a phrase written by thos. jefferson)
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To better understand this document, one must understand the times. When the Constitution was written, the States had their own state religions, thus the federal government didn't want to dictate to the individual states what that would be.
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bs, many states already had a similar element protecting the citizens from a state religion (rhode island comes to mind), so to claim that "the states had their own state religions" is just plain wrong.
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Basically instead of a Separation of Church and State, their is a clear PROTECTION of religious expression outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
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it is BOTH! they are not mutually exclusive, and in fact are in harmony with each other.