It is a fact that the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution.
However, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the 1st Amendment erected a “wall of separation” between the church and the state
James Madison said it “drew a line,” but it is Jefferson’s term that sticks with us today.
The phrase is commonly thought to mean that the government should not establish, support, or otherwise involve itself in any religion. The Religion Topic Page addresses this issue in more detail.
However, because Thomas Jefferson advocated a separation between church and state, he drafted a bill in 1785 designed to end any attempt to provide taxes for the purpose of furthering religious education.
Jefferson’s bill was passed making it the law of the land. His bill has also been challenged more than once in the Supreme Court and was upheld.
In Everson Versus Board (330 US 1 [1947]), the US Supreme court in a close 5-4 vote ruled “The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws, which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.… Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.”
Again in 1971, in Lemon versus Kurtzman (403 US 602 [1971]), the US Supreme Court ruled “In the absence of precisely stated constitutional prohibitions, we must draw lines with reference to the three main evils against which the Establishment Clause was intended to afford protection: sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity.… the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.”
I’ve written before that the Founding Fathers despised democracy and created a Republic to protect Americans from the democratic mob.
Now, what the Founding Fathers fears has come to pass. The US has now become a democracy and the mob has been revealed and they are evangelical Christians — that segment of the population that helped vote George W. Bush into the White House for his second term.
The wall that Thomas Jefferson established to protect US citizens from the tyranny of religion has been breached and nations such as India, Russia, China and all Islamic countries have taken notice.
Although China’s Constitution was written in 1982, it is obvious that China’s leaders took care to protect China from the same tyranny that now threatens the US and the globe.
Return to Separation of Church and State – Part 2
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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