Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemidakota
[Same contents...] thanks for the correction.
The Supreme Court decisions provide an explanation of the rights and responsibilities granted by our Constitution. "Separation of church and state" is a constitutional principle that has been embraced by Supreme Court jurisprudence for more than one hundred years.
Those who insist upon denying the constitutional principle of "separation of church and state" are engaging in revisionist history. "Separation of church and state" is the prerequisite for religious and political liberty.
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I would take issue with her interpretation. The prerequisite for religious and political liberty is the text of the First Amendment. I would agree with the 6th Circuit Court in their calling a spade a spade - it is an extra-constitutional phrase (not truly a "constitutional principle" - it seems to me that those trying to call it constitutional are doing the revising) and we need to get out from behind it and back to the original intent.
That phrase has been used to attempt to in fact deny religious liberty for years. Let's weigh issues of government involvement/endorsement/protection of a particular religion on their own merits, and not continue to use this phrase to promote a belief that the only good American government is a government without mention or acknowledgement of God in any way, shape, or form, (not just endorsement of a particular faith, as it was intended) and the only free society is one in which noone need ever be "offended" by the mention of religion or God.
Kind of off-topic here, but....we can be a country unashamedly founded on Judeo-Christian principles and yet be welcoming to those of all faiths. Maybe we've not done that well enough in the past but it is a sad mistake to abandon our heritage and principles just because we have failed them in the past. OR to allow others to bully us into feeling like we need to apologize for who we are and how we got here. For example - when I go to the local Jewish Community Center to take a class or attend an event I sure don't feel unwelcome or offended cause it's called the Jewish Community Center. I feel appreciative of who they are and their sharing their resources and heritage and facilities with all. Yet the YW/YMCA has removed the expansion of the acronym because they feel it would be limiting and exclusionary to identify themselves with Christianity. ????
I just think this phrase has been responsible for the development of an incredibly unconstitutional forcing of any semblance of God, specifically a Christian God, out of the public square and public consciousness and relevance in this country. And that's more than unfortunate.