Busting the Myth of Separation of Church and State

It meant no interference, so the churches should have been taxed if the USSC hadn't ruled wrong. I agree that religious concepts should have nothing to do with Federal laws. One of the things our forefathers wanted is freedom from and for religion. That a person's lack of religion should not be held against him in anything he does. He should not have to support a church if he so chooses. not to.

But a clergy has the right to bring up politics if he wants to like any other person does. He can not force his congregation to vote a certain way. If a minister wants to run for office he has as much right to do so as any other person.

 

What is the difference between separation and no interference in the context of Church and State? If there is none then why parse words?

 

Says who and by what authority? The Constitution is wide open to interpretation thus no matter what authority does the interpretation some will see it as the wrong interpretation while others will see it as the right interpretation.

I completely agree there.

 

Wait, the OP is about congress vs our rights. Our right is that Congress pass no laws respecting religion.

Pastors can participate in government all they please.

 

When it come to religion, the only thing the Constitution says is that Congress will NOT name a specific church as the official church of the USA. It does not say for instance that a HS team can pray before a game.

 

Since the USA has no official religion, the above makes little sense to me at least. Maybe it makes sense to others.

Separation is only guaranteed to the public by virtue that the congress is banned from creating a church or trying to interfere with churches.

The issue of taxes is a totally different topic. There may be or may not be a legal basis to not tax churches. Would their incomes be taxed? Seems that the nature of the revenues to the church are for the members and not an income to a person at the church. Not saying the pastor is not taxed on his income because I believe pastors pay income taxes. But the church pay income taxes? Seems silly. Same sex marriage has nothing to do with religion that I am aware of. This was the provisions of states that make law about marriage. Even today the states still have laws against things like polygamy and family to family marriages, such as the daughter who plans to marry her father in New Jersey that has been discussed. We are not conditioned to accept fathers divorcing the mom then taking his daughter as a bride. Maybe in the distant future, it will be more common.

Most of us still are not conditioned to see marriage as needed by homosexuals either. The younger you are, the more the democrats have had time to work you over. They work you over in schools. They probably have not reached into church yet, but face it, the democrats have managed to work all of us over when it comes to marriage. This may mean they get to rule over marriage entirely. If they define it as not polygamy, then probably that won't be legal or the family members marrying either as discussed above.

It seems the non believers see GOD as entirely controlling your existence. I don't know about most churches, but we believe in free choice. If you choose to live a lousy life of adultery, theft (income tax system amounts to theft) or believe in killing your neighbor as some cops see their jobs, then you probably have no use for GOD.

More later.

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For what reason would the team not pray?

This smacks of lack of personal freedom.

 

This is where they have taken it way to far and the stupid courts have let them. Does anyone in their right mind think our forefathers wanted to prevent coaches from praying with their team if asked? Or keep a valedictorian from thanking God for helping her through high school? Or kids getting together on their break in school and discuss the Bible? Forbid the mixing of religious songs at a school concert? This is how it's got way out of hand.

 

Regardless of whether it is in the Constitution or not or if was the intent of the framers of the Constitution or not, politics and religion mix as well as bleach and ammonia and should always be kept far apart.

 

separation of church and state is the best thing that happened to this country, religious freedom for all is superior to a theocracy any day of the week

early Christian infighting did have it's benefits


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What are those laws based upon if not a religious view? I argue that religion has historically permeated government as most Americans are Christian and Christian politicians are guided by their theistic beliefs.

Indeed, and I argue that theism has largely shaped those beliefs. I am not against polygamy so long as it is between consenting adults as polygamy in and of itself harms no one. Religion has a bad habit of labeling harmless action as immoral. As for relatives marrying, genetics become an issue if what I have been told is true thus my view of it causing harm.

Nor is it required as its none of their business. Same sex marriage in and of itself harms no one. Christians have the right to label homosexuality as immoral but no longer have the authority to make homosexuals live by their theistic standards.

That would be the biased view. You speak as if conservatism has no influence when historically it has had huge influence. We are a progressive nation but we also swing back and forth from more conservative to more liberal, right now we are on the liberal side of the swing and in a year a republican may be in power and the scale will tip to the right. We are progressive as successive generations move away from the ideals of their predecessors.

Yet many who claim to serve God engage in the above action.

 

I really see no evidence to claim laws derive from religion. I know that here in CA, we use some English common law and also spanish law.

The vast majority of Americans have never proved they fully understand either religions nor laws. Having taken law in college, it is definite that most have no clue what caused laws to be crafted.


you have conditions on polygamy yet zero on homosexual marriage. I find that striking.

Watch a lot of Cspan and you will note that religion is never brought up when crafting laws.

Polygamy was imposed on Utah in order for the area to become a state. But to do this, congress had to suddenly come up with a brand new law to ban polygamy.

While genetics plays some role in marriage, only when one mentions close family does this come up. A lot of defects take place in so called normal marriage yet those on the left never try to bring those things up.

Strange huh? Democrats don't mind slaughtering the unborn yet claim to have a problem with other people's kids where parents come from very close family members. I am in the dark why they care about other people's kids.

I think based on FDR and his motley crew, we had a massive wave of so called progressive ideology back in the 1930s. People came to understand the major problem is affordability on the part of taxpayers. Today each taxpayer has an obscene debt to pay. Of course this does not disturb Democrats one bit but sure riles up we republicans. I can tell that education managed almost exclusively by Democrats has made things much worse.

I for one voted for homosexuals to enjoy the legal benefits of the civil union. This kept marriage separated in a way that it was still easy to ban polygamy and of course incest adult to adult marriages.

 

Well, I believe you mean that Congress is banned from messing with church. That is great.

 

This is true that the words "separation of church and state" are not used in the constitution itself, however, the supreme court in the Reynolds v. United States case ruled that the establishment clause within the first amendment was intended to establish a separation of church and state. The supreme court also made the ruling that the establishment clause applies to the federal government as well as the state governments in the Everson v Board Of Education case.

So quite literally, separation of church and state is the law of the land in the United States

Furthermore, the main author of our constitution (James Madison) wrote “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries”

So according to the author of our constitution, and the judges who interpret our constitution, we do in fact have a separation of church and state

 

yes, meaning gov doesn't push religion on the people, you can go to your own Church for that

 

Except that stare decisis is also not found in the constitution. SCOTUS might want people to think that their interpretation trumps the actual words of the constitution, but that's not what it says. They're just as lawless an institution as the rest of those scoundrels in the other two branches.

 

Article 3 gives the supreme court authority of all cases in law and equity under the US constitution. Thus it is the supreme court who is the final interpreter of constitutionality

Alexander Hamilton wrote "The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution, is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents"

..but much more than this, it was the author of our constitution himself (Madison) who referred to US law as having a separation of church and state. This sentiment was repeated by president Jefferson, and then again by the supreme court.

 

When you label religion as fairy tales you lose credibility as one to determine what may or may not be discussed in
church.

 

Not exactly what I would call a separation of powers, then.

No, article 3 extends only to the federal government. The tenth amendment is not there for window dressing. It's there to tell scotus that anything not found within the constitution itself is up to the states.

In fact, the constitution is a pact between the states and the federal government. It has no bearing at all on individuals within the states.

 

Yes, what is not included in the constitution is left to the states, but when it comes to what is included in the constitution, the supreme court is the final interpreter of what is and is not a violation of constitutional law. In regards to the first amendment, the supreme court ruled that the intention of the establishment clause within the 1st amendment was a separation of church and state. Again, this same sentiment was shared by both James Madison (the author of our constitution) and Thomas Jefferson (the author of our declaration of independence)

Initially it was ruled by the supreme court that these limitations of power addressed in the bill of rights applied to the federal government and not the individual state governments. That was before congress passed the 14th amendment, the due process clause of the 14th amendment establishes that the limitations of power addressed in the bill of rights applies to the federal government as well as the state governments.

In the Everson v Board of Education case, the supreme court ruled that the establishment clause within the first amendment (which sets a separation of church and state) applies to the individual states through the establishment clause of the 14th amendment. Thus the law of the land has an established separation of church and state, which applies to the federal government as well as the state governments.

That is the law of the land

 

There is absolutely a separation of church and State. That is not even arguable. That does not mean however that religion cannot criticize government.

The only reason they do not is because they have been bribed not to do so. The government bestowed tax exempt status on churches under the condition that they did not criticize the government. The churches eagerly sold their souls to government and put the money in their collective pockets. That shows you what it is they really worship.

 

Not if it's their job.....even if it's not it's university and there should be debates.
Not in church, debate is not looked kindly upon

 

Oh sure, it was uppermost in the minds of the People to ensure that Their servants, whom They trusted so little that they took care to include mechanisms by which they could be watchdogs over each other, never lacked for plausible deniability.

So the SC was the brainchild of a guy who never set foot in the PA Convention. Who knew?

Pray elaborate.

This oughta be a riot.

Nonsense.

 

An object demonstration of the subjectivity of evidence.

What does a law mitigate if not harm?

And what are those laws based upon?

Spoken from a position of ignorance. All sexual relationships have to be continual and obey applicable laws on age of consent. Perhaps in the future instead of making an inaccurate assumption, try asking a clarifying question as it renders assumption unnecessary.

Indeed, yet does nothing to refute the premise of my argument. How does a Christian vote their conscience without being influenced by their theistic beliefs? I argue that some can do this, for example Roe vs Wade, but I also argue that many place God above all and base their votes upon their theistic beliefs.

Perhaps, but a moot point as it does nothing to refute my claim that polygamy in and of itself harms no one so long as it is continual and obey applicable laws on age of consent.

Source citation needed for above statement about liberals. What constitutes a "normal" marriage, who gets to decide this for all and by what authority?

I am wondering how many stereotypes one can fit into a post. Support for and opposition to abortion crosses party lines. Your demonizing view of Democrats is yet another reflection of your bias.

More stereotypes of democrats. Do you see democrats as one dimensional? If not why paint them with a broad brush? Do you see republicans as one dimensional? Binary political absolutes when speaking for millions of people is illogical by my measure of logic.

 

If you were to study Jeffersons writings in the anti federalist papers you will clearly see him arguing for the check and balance of the judiciary particularly to oppose the executive branch. However, once he became president he flip flopped on this and tried to increase the power of the presidency which is exactly why Marbury v. Madison came about.

This case was about the power of the Supreme Court to hold the president in check and wouldn't have even needed to be a case at all if Jefferson was not trying to strip the Supreme Court of its authority given to them in the very constitution that Jefferson had argued for.

Jefferson was an idiot.

 

And if you believe the tales you lose credibility