Separation of Church and State: Good or Bad?

[Fone_Bone_2001]

In case no one has mentioned it, there is no separation of Church and State in the U.S. Constitution.
It say Congress shall pass no law establishing a State(as in U.S.) religion. However, individual state can and have had their own state religions.

The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the establishment clause of the First Amendment precludes individual states’ having an official religion. To ignore this is to cast one’s position into irrelevance and fantasy.

Seriously. The concept of a “separation of church and state” is a very Jeffersonian, Enlightenment-era way of thinking, and it obviously is a part of the original intent behind the United States Constitution. As such, the Supreme Court’s extension of the Establishment Clause to individual states is more than appropriate: it’s downright correct.

So no, individual U.S. states can’t establish religions, and they haven’t been able to do so for a long time.

Also, this was limited in scope, it was precisely for what I said above, and has been used incorrectly to ban mangers from City Halls, etc. when that is in fact a violation of free speech and religion.

Here I agree with you. The Free Exercise Clause ought to protect such religious expressions, since they’re strictly decorative and don’t hinder anyone else’s right to practice or not practice any religion.

We have the right to religion, not free from it, at least here in the U.S., if you have a problem with that, go somewhere else.

Agreed, but what you’ve just said in no way contradicts the undeniable truth that the United States does have separation of church and state by any reasonable definition.

 

[Cat_Herder]

The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the establishment clause of the First Amendment precludes individual states’ having an official religion. To ignore this is to cast one’s position into irrelevance and fantasy.

This was NOT the case until SCOTUS started turning the 14th Amendment, which was meant to end racism, into a device for creating arbitrary “substantive due process” rights–which were really restrictions on state legislatures–such as the “right” to divorce and abort. Before that several of the states had established churches.

 

[edwest2]

The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the establishment clause of the First Amendment precludes individual states’ having an official religion. To ignore this is to cast one’s position into irrelevance and fantasy.

Seriously. The concept of a “separation of church and state” is a very Jeffersonian, Enlightenment-era way of thinking, and it obviously is a part of the original intent behind the United States Constitution. As such, the Supreme Court’s extension of the Establishment Clause to individual states is more than appropriate: it’s downright correct.

So no, individual U.S. states can’t establish religions, and they haven’t been able to do so for a long time.

Here I agree with you. The Free Exercise Clause ought to protect such religious expressions, since they’re strictly decorative and don’t hinder anyone else’s right to practice or not practice any religion.

Agreed, but what you’ve just said in no way contradicts the undeniable truth that the United States does have separation of church and state by any reasonable definition.

Separation of Church and State is a myth. Religious expression is not strictly decorative. That’s like saying the Flag of the United States is strictly decorative.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

From George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Peace,
Ed

 

[AcolyteLector]

Not overly personal because of the answer. He’s an engineer. He worked in a plant here that manufactured bits for drilling for oil that has now been shut down. The plant was owned by an American company who have decided to relocate their plant to Saudi for economic reasons.

Ah, I’ve known a few folks in the expatriate community, and usually there’s a pretty stark division between Anglo-Americans working tech/eng, analyst, and security jobs, and Filipino, Chinese, &c. ‘guest workers’–it just occurred to me that she and her family might be the latter which would have struck me as interesting… but I guess its just my obsessive interest in demographics and biography, oh well.