Some fox news talking heads and talk radio hosts seem to think the U.S. Constitution is some form of "christian sharia law". That our government is subservient to the Bible like Islamic governments are subservient to the Koran.
But the inventors of our government established a rule of law which prohibits the government "establishment of religion". And that prohibition applies to ALL religion, including any form of Christianity.
We are not a muslim nation, a hindu nation, a hebrew nation, a buddhist nation, or a christian nation.
That prohibition of government "establishment of religion" is a separation of church and state.
No, as every fox news talking head, talk radio host and baptist preacher is always so quick to point out, that phrase "separation of church and state" is not found in the Constitution itself. But not one of them I've ever heard of has any notion of who originated the phrase and why.
The phrase "wall of separation between church and state" does not originate with Bill Maher or Nancy Paloosi or Rachel Maddow.
Not hardly. It comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson (you may have heard of him) wrote to a Baptist association when Jefferson was President of the United States in 1803. He was trying to explain the First Amendment to them. This is the letter...
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
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