Flashpoints USA . Discuss . The Politics of God

Religion in Government

The separation between church and state is essential to the development of our government, as the basis distinction between religion and government is that religion is set to be a system of unalterable rules to live by, as allegedly written by God, while our government recognizes Man� law to be a system of evolving rules, which must be altered as our society evolves.

The concept that the �founding fathers� had intentions that we should look to in order to adhere to the principles of our declaration of independences and constitution is completely off track. It is well known that those signers of these documents were lead to compromise in order to create a document they could sign. Despite Thomas Jefferson� ability to articulate it in his drafting of the declaration of independence, his ownership of slaves establishes unequivocally that he personally did not recognize the equality of men or their inalienable right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those who gathered together to work out the particularities of our union were only representative. They were not necessarily the leader of the revolution simply because they possessed diplomatic skills. We must look to the clear language of the documents for �the intent of the compromise� and not any subjective intent of the drafter.

The Bill of Right, which had to be made as amendments to the constitution, specifically indicating that the drafter did not have in their mind the thought that �the people� felt necessary when they wrote the constitution. They only providing for the bill of Attainder and Ex post facto laws.

It like me, as an attorney, drafting a clause in a contract between two parties and the court looking 200 year later to my subjective intent in interpreting the terms of the contract. The contract reads the parties shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and because some historian concludes that I was a religious man, that the clear prohibition was only a limited restriction. The drafters were forced to compromise their own beliefs in forging this union and prepared documentation that was acceptable to all parties. They did not eliminate religion from society, only from government, by prohibiting it from establishing unalterable beliefs or interfering with the unalterable beliefs of others.

The parties to the contract are �the people� who are the true founders of this nation and the government. The religious diversity among �the people� was just as or more diverse then, than it is now. Although we consider all Christians as being of one religion the difference between Methodist, Calvinist, Puritans and the numerous fraction of Christianity where not considered so harmonious then. The intent was clear, that the hard line principles of religion were not to be imposed upon �the people� by the government. The agreement was not that religious beliefs other than Christian were not to be imposed and the religious beliefs of the framers or drafter of language is irrelevant.

Accordingly any religious belief that leads to an unalterable conclusion to be imposed on American citizens is unconstitutional.