Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Have we forgotten what separation of church and state REALLY means?
Some people (particularly radical liberals) think separation of church and state means freedom FROM religion, or a complete and total absence of ALL religion in the government. But, they're ignoring the historical context in which the Establishment Clause was written. When the Founding Fathers wrote against an "establishment of religion," they were referring to a government that was comparable to the CHURCH OF ENGLAND! The reason they wrote the Establishment Clause was because that they wanted to be able to practice their religion freely and they didn't want the government to PHYSICALLY impose a different religion on them, like the CHURCH OF ENGLAND! They also didn't want a government that KILLED or PROSECUTED/PERSECUTED them for not conforming to the state religion, like the CHURCH OF ENGLAND! Therefore, the question we should ask when trying to determine if the U.S. government is violating the Establishment Clause should be, "Is the government comparable to the Church of England?" According to this criteria, putting "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance or putting religious symbols on government buildings is NOT a violation of separation of church and state because it's not a situation that's comparable to the Church of England. It doesn't PHYSICALLY force people to worship a state God or PHYSICALLY prevent them from practicing their own religion. Neither does it prosecute or murder people for not conforming to a state religion. I know you're going to ask me, "How would you feel if the government put 'In Allah We Trust' on our currency or if they put non-Christian symbols on the courthouse?" My answer, quite frankly, is that I don't care. As long as my government is not like the Church of England, as long as my government doesn't kill or arrest me for practicing Christianity, then I'm not going to complain about such trivial, insignificant matters like what symbols the government displays. How can secularists, atheists, and non-Christians complain about little things like symbols when the people living under King James in 17th century England suffered 10X more and TRULY had their religious rights infringed upon? Does anyone know what separation of church and state really means anymore?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment