Church and State and Morons

From the Associated Press:

Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion.

There's a huge difference. I don't think O'Donnell is advocating that the government establish a religion.

The exchange came in a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, as O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons' position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.

First of all, O'Donnell is correct. Nowhere in the Constitution do the words "separation of Church and State" appear. That concept actually came from a letter... actually, no. I'll let Wikipedia explain:

The concept of separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion on the one hand and the nation state on the other. The term is an off-shoot of the original phrase, "wall of separation between church and state," as written in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in 1802. Jefferson was responding to a letter that the Association had written him. In that letter, they expressed their concerns about the Constitution not reaching the State level. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not yet exist, thus leaving the States vulnerable to federal legislation. In Jefferson's letter, he was reassuring the Baptists of Danbury that their religious freedom would remain protected - a promise that no possible religious majority would be able to force out a state's official church. The original text reads: "...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 & State."[1] The phrase was quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947. The phrase appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution

.

The "Church and State" phrase and concept has been bastardized by opponents of religion as a way of trying to squelch any religious reference at all in the public arena. The very idea that you shouldn't be able to learn about the different religions of the world - and what they believe - is ludicrous.

What's especially ironic is that the people who scream about "church and state" are the very same people who keep telling us that we have to celebrate our diversity and be tolerant of others opinions and viewpoints. Except that when it comes to religion - check that - Christianity, you'd better shut up or else.